MPA 701 – Accounting Trimester 1, 2017 Assessment Task 2 – The Essay DUE DATE AND TIME: Week 7, Sunday 30 April 2017, 11:59 pm (AEST) PERCENTAGE OF FINAL GRADE: 15% Learning Outcome Details Unit Learning Outcome (ULO) Graduate Learning Outcome (GLO) ULO 1_ Describe the institutional environment of general purpose financial reporting, including the impact of a conceptual framework, regulation and conventional practices. DGLO 1_ Discipline knowledge and capabilities: appropriate to the level of study related to a discipline or profession. ULO 4_ Prepare transactions and resultants reports reflecting methods used by economic entities to treat critical financial events. DGLO 5_ Problem Solving: creating solutions to authentic (real world and ill-defined) problems. Assessment Feedback: Students who submit their work by the due date will receive their marks and feedback on CloudDeakin within 15 working days. Description / Requirements There have been many suggestions that reports provided to stakeholders should provide a broader set of information about a company’s performance than just financial performance. The argument is that companies and organisations should not only report about the economic but also the environmental and social impacts caused by their operations (corporate sustainability reporting). Perrini and Tencati (2006)* define corporate sustainability as the capacity of a firm to continue operating over a long period of time, depends on the sustainability of its stakeholder relationships. *Perrini, F & Tencati, A 2006, ‘Sustainability and stakeholder management: The need for new corporate performance evaluation and reporting systems’ Business Strategy and Environment, vol.15, iss.5, pp296-308. Required: You are required to research information on the issues below, and then write the results of your research in an essay format (introduction, body and conclusion). 1. The main criticisms of traditional financial reporting 2. Theories behind corporate sustainability reporting (discuss 2 relevant theories) 3. The costs and benefits of providing this information 4. And provide your opinion on whether firms should include more than financial information in their annual reports. You must justify your opinion. Additional information: • You are expected to undertake research in order to complete this task. Review of the above referred journal article can be a good point to start with. Your research must also include further primary-source references i.e. peer-reviewed journals and scholarly books (avoid Wikipedia type material). • Word Limit: 1200 words (excluding references), double-spaced, 12-point Ariel or Times New Roman font. A word count must be included. Students exceeding the word limit by more than 10% will incur a mark penalty. • Students must submit a properly referenced assignment that complies with the Harvard referencing style. This includes in-text citations and a reference list. Submission Instructions A header should be inserted into all assignment pages using the following syntax: Your surname _ Your first name _ Your student ID For example: Yaftian _ Ali _ 111111111 To submit your assignment from the CloudDeakin top menu: 1. Select "Assessment", “Assignments” 2. Select "Assessment Task 2 – Essay” 3. Select "Add a file" 4. Select "Browse" and then choose your Essay file.pdf file (make sure that your essay includes your name and student ID on the cover page and in the header on each page of the document). 5. Select "Submit". 6. You are allowed to make resubmissions within the submission period. Please note that your last submission overwrites previous submissions. 7. You must keep a backup copy of every assignment you submit, until the marked assignment has been returned to you. In the unlikely event that one of your assignments is misplaced, you will need to submit your backup copy. Any work you submit may be checked by electronic or other means for the purposes of detecting collusion and/or plagiarism. Please be reminded that this assessment task is an individual assignment in this unit. Any plagiarism and collusion will result in severe consequences for the students involved. Please consult the Unit Guide for further details regarding plagiarism and the potential Consequences. For the study support follow the below link: http://www.deakin.edu.au/current-students/study-support/study-skills/handouts/plagiarism.php When you are required to submit an assignment through your CloudDeakin unit site, you will receive an email to your Deakin email address confirming that it has been submitted. You should check that you can see your assignment in the Submissions view of the Assignment dropbox folder after upload, and check for, and keep, the email receipt for the submission. Notes • Penalties for late submission: The following marking penalties will apply if you submit an assessment task after the due date without an approved extension: 5% will be deducted from available marks for each day up to five days, and work that is submitted more than five days after the due date will not be marked. You will receive 0% for the task. 'Day' means working day for paper submissions and calendar day for electronic submissions. The Unit Chair may refuse to accept a late submission where it is unreasonable or impracticable to assess the task after the due date. • For more information about academic misconduct, special consideration, extensions, and assessment feedback, please refer to the document Your rights and responsibilities as a student in this Unit in the first folder next to the Unit Guide of the Resources area in the CloudDeakin unit site. • Building evidence of your experiences, skills and knowledge (Portfolio) - Building a portfolio that evidences your skills, knowledge and experience will provide you with a valuable tool to help you prepare for interviews and to showcase to potential employers. There are a number of tools that you can use to build a portfolio. You are provided with cloud space through OneDrive, or through the Portfolio tool in the Cloud Unit Site, but you can use any storage repository system that you like. Remember that a Portfolio is YOUR tool. You should be able to store your assessment work, reflections, achievements and artefacts in YOUR Portfolio. Once you have completed this assessment piece, add it to your personal Portfolio to use and showcase your learning later, when applying for jobs, or further studies. Curate your work by adding meaningful tags to your artefacts that describe what the artefact represents.