You will consider an example of an ethical dilemma that could negatively impact your business. You'll also develop an Ethical Code of Conduct for your business. Finally, you'll conduct some research to see what other great businesses are doing when it comes to social responsibility. You'll identify some initiatives that other businesses are doing, which you might undertake for your socially responsible business.

Task 1 (16 points): Ethical Dilemma - Case Study

Read the 'Ethics Case Study' that is located at the end of this document. Then, answer the following questions:

1. Explain the ethical dilemma in this case, incorporating concepts from assigned readings and include references!] (3 pts)
2. Identify four stakeholders in this case. Explain their roles - how/why are they stakeholders in this dilemma? (4 pts)
3. What are Rob's possible courses of action? (Identify four different and reasonable things that Rob might decide to do.) (2 pts)
4. Briefly describe one advantage and one disadvantage of each alternative you identified in Question 3. (4 pts)
5. In your opinion, which alternative should Rob choose? Why? (3 pts)

Ethical Case Study (for Task 1)

Rob recently opened a business hosting VR parties in people's homes. His first several events were extremely successful. His customers were happy and they told Rob that they'd use his services again in the future. Rob knew that promoting his business is important, so Rob would ask his customers to leave a positive review of his business on Yelp (www.yelp.ca). Rob also printed this request at the bottom of invoices for his clients, as an additional reminder for them to help him out by leaving a positive Yelp review.

Websites such as Yelp are helpful for small businesses because customers can leave reviews that potential future customers might read. Positive Yelp reviews have generated good publicity for Rob's business. At least one customer has told Rob that they hired him because of positive Yelp reviews that they had read regarding his business. Unfortunately, after three months of hosting successful VR party events, Rob encountered his first unhappy client.

A well-known disadvantage of VR is that it can cause nausea for some users. This is because a person's brain perceives that they are moving around in their virtual environment, even though their body is physically unmoving. VR experiences such as virtual roller coasters can produce feelings of motion sickness for some people. Rob makes sure to advise customers to take a break and remove the VR headgear for a few minutes if they start to feel nauseous.

A few weeks ago, Rob hosted a party and a customer complained about feeling nauseous during a VR space walking experience. Rob reminded the customer (whose name was Jen) to take a break, but Jen ignored him and kept the VR headset on. A few minutes later, Jen vomited. The mess was so bad, the VR party ended early. Rob was sympathetic to Jen's situation, but he declined to give her a refund because he had warned her to take a break but she ignored him. Until Jen became sick, everyone at the party was enjoying themselves and making full use of the VR equipment.

During the next few weeks after the disastrous party, business seemed to slow down substantially for Rob. He wasn't sure why, until he checked Yelp.ca and discovered that someone had left a very negative review about his business a few weeks earlier. The reviewer complained that Rob gave very poor customer service and his inferior equipment made people ill. The reviewer added that Rob's VR experiences were unsatisfactory and that Rob refused to give refunds. The reviewer concluded that Rob had poor professionalism and the reviewer regretted spending money for Rob's VR party hosting service.

Rob's stomach plummeted as he read the negative review. He immediately realized that Jen had posted the review. All of his other customers were extremely satisfied with his services - they told him so. The more he thought of the unfair review, the more upset he became. Impulsively, he created an account on Yelp.ca and posted several extremely positive (anonymous) reviews about his business, pretending to be a customer.

All of his new positive (and fake) reviews outnumbered the very negative review from Jen, so his average Yelp rating improved substantially. Rob was relieved about that, but he soon began to wonder if he had made a bad decision when he impulsively posted several fake reviews about his business on Yelp. He considered what he should do next.

Task 2 (8 points): Code of Ethical Conduct

As your business grows, you plan to hire employees. Everyone has their own ideas about what is ethically appropriate behaviour, so it's important to establish a Code of Ethical Conduct for your business. A Code of Ethical Conduct will give you and your employees a shared understanding of acceptable vs. unacceptable behaviour - this will help ensure that everyone makes proper decisions when faced with ethical dilemmas and decisions. If you or your employees behave inappropriately, there may be legal consequences and/or your reputation may be affected. A good reputation is critically important for a successful small business, so you don't want you or your employees to do anything that might jeopardize that reputation.

Your task is to create a Code of Ethical Conduct for your business. When creating your Code of Ethical Conduct, follow these instructions:

• Your Code of Ethical Conduct will include two main sections: 1) "Appropriate Behaviour of Management and Employees Towards Each Other"; and, 2) "Appropriate Behaviour With Our Clients".
• Each section of your Code of Ethical Conduct will contain FOUR points/items (8 items in total). Use full sentences when describing each item in your Code of Ethical Conduct. You may organize your points/items into bullet-points or numbered points, but you must use full sentences.
• "Be polite, respectful, and cooperative" or "Don't do anything illegal" are not sufficient to be included in your Code of Ethical Conduct (they're too simple and obvious). Your Code of Ethical Conduct is intended to provide guidance to you and your employees when facing ethical dilemmas and ethical decisions. Think about potential ethical issues that might realistically occur in your new business and write your Code of Ethical Conduct to provide guidelines to deal with those kinds of issues.
• A Code of Ethical Conduct is not the same thing as a Code of Conduct. "Our employees must be dressed professionally when meeting clients" or "the customer is always right" is not an item that should belong in a Code of Ethical Conduct.
• Conduct internet research to help build your Code of Ethical Conduct. You might want to modify/adopt elements of existing Codes of Ethical Conduct that are used in other businesses. For this Task, incorporate ideas/material from AT LEAST TWO different external sources such as examples of Codes of Ethical Conduct, actual Codes of Ethical Conduct used by other businesses, and so on. Use proper citations and referencing
• At the end of this task (or the end of your overall submission) include complete reference entries.

• Task 3 (6 points): Best Practices in Social Responsibility

The Globe and Mail is one of Canada's largest newspapers/media organizations. Every year, the Globe and Mail sponsors a national competition to determine "Canada's Top 100 Employers". Nominated businesses are evaluated on several factors, such as the workplace environment and community involvement. The list of winners for the year 2023 is published on the following website:

https://www.canadastop100.com/national/

Visit the website and you'll see a menu option titled '2023 Winners'. When you click on a company name on this list, you can view a detailed profile of that business. Within each profile, you can click on the "+" sign beside a profile category (such as Community Involvement) to expand the profile category and see descriptions illustrating what the organization has done to earn its place on the list.

Your task is as follows:

• Confirm your understanding of the term 'social responsibility' by reviewing the 'Ethics and Social Responsibility' chapter from the textbook before you start this task!
• You will not be reviewing all of the companies on the list. Instead, you will focus on a sub-set of these companies, as follows: Identify ONLY the companies that start with 'Top 100 Employers' whose companies start with the letters V, F, I and/or C.)
• Explore the profiles of your selected sub-set of companies. Identify SIX examples of socially responsible activities that these companies engage in, that you might consider adopting for your small business. "The company gives performance bonuses" is NOT an example of a socially responsible activity... unless the bonus is clearly awarded for engaging in socially responsible behaviour (such as volunteering). In other words, your answers must be examples of socially responsible activities and they must be sensible for your business to adopt.
• You do not need to have 6 different employers on your list of examples. Some employers may engage in numerous socially responsible activities, so an employer's name might appear a few times in your list.
• Organize your results into a table that looks something like this:

#	Top 100 Employer Name	Socially Responsible Activity/Behaviour That This Employer Does (that you might adopt for your business)
1 2 3 ...Etc....	... ... ... ...Etc....	.... ... ... ...Etc...