Deakin's Bachelor of Commerce and MBA are internationally EPAS accredited. Deakin Business School is accredited by AACSB. MIS741 – Analysing the Impact of Digital Business Trimester 1, 2017 Assessment 2 – Moral Dilemma Analysis report (Individual) DATE AND TIME: Week 9, Sun 14 May 2017, 11:59PM PERCENTAGE OF FINAL GRADE: 30% HURDLE DETAILS: Not applicable Learning Outcome Details Unit Learning Outcome (ULO) – underlined parts of the ULOs will be assessed Graduate Learning Outcome (GLO) ULO 2: Justify resolutions to ethical dilemmas faced by IS professionals resulting from competing personal, organisational and client interests using ethical theories and frameworks. GLO8 Global Citizenship ULO 3: Present convincing resolutions to ethical dilemmas in written form, and self‐evaluations in written and oral form. GLO2 Communication Assessment Feedback Students who submit their work (final submission) by the due date will receive their marks and feedback on CloudDeakin on Friday 2 June 2017, 5:30PM. Description / Requirements This is an individual assignment where you will research and then produce a written Moral Dilemma Analysis report using the Ethical Decision‐Making Framework introduced in topics 3 and 4. The moral dilemma is as follows: Is it moral for IS product/service organisations to pay full‐time, continuing employed IS sales staff a $15,000 per annum wage, and pay most income based only on the number of IS product/service sales they make to external business clients? Page 2 of 6 With this dilemma, IS sales staff include business analysts, IS consultants, data analysts, etc selling any IS products/services (e.g. ERP systems, website design/development, business analytics services, etc). The specific type of IS staff and IS product/service does not matter for the purposes of this report. Your report should investigate the morality of this issue for any type of IS sales staff selling any type of IS product/service to clients external to the organisation. You can specify a particular type of IS sales staff and/or IS product/service if it is easier for you to write the report. The income based on the number of sales can take many forms including commissions, bonuses and sales quotas. You are not required to analyse each type of income separately, but rather analyse the morality of any income earned mostly based on the number of sales. The morality issues will be (mostly) the same regardless of the type of sales‐based income. When you are conducting your research (see below for details), you will find it easier to search for a range of sales‐based income types rather than just one type. It is quite likely you will limited research specifically relating to IS sales roles and IS products/services. Your investigation into this moral dilemma should therefore include analysis of research on the impact of sales‐based income in other professions where this is common, including financial services, insurance, and so on. The issues are largely the same, regardless of profession. Research work for the Moral Dilemma Analysis report It is essential that you do not decide whether the above dilemma is moral or not until after you have conducted research. The report is not about your personal views about the dilemma. Instead, you will investigate and argue whether this practice is moral based only on research evidence/facts. More specifically, the research you undertake should enable you to determine the answers to all the questions (directly or indirectly) in the Ethical Decision‐Making Framework in relation to a range of stakeholders. You will then come to your conclusion after this investigation. The research sources you must find and cite in the body of your report will be credible academic resources (e.g. journal articles, PhD theses, conference papers, credible research studies). Identify articles in particular which report empirical research (e.g. experiments, surveys, case studies, interviews) relating to the moral dilemma (not opinions of researchers) in terms of how it might affect one or more of the following types of stakeholders (see topic 3):  The organisation selling IS products/services  Individual IS sales staff  The organisation’s business clients  The public  The IS industry / profession You must ensure that your research and analysis of this dilemma is balanced. It is typical for people and organisations to focus on their own self‐interest (e.g. revenue, profits), and justify the impact on other stakeholders (e.g. clients, the public, staff). This is not a balanced approach. Your research and analysis should instead include all potential negative implications (based on the ethical decision‐making framework) for the various stakeholder groups. As required by the ACS Code of Professional Conduct, the most important stakeholder group is “the public”, not the organisation, not the IS staff, etc. The public does not necessarily benefit when organisations make a profit! Page 3 of 6 For this reason, a report focusing mainly on the organisation selling the IS products/services and/or the individual IS sales staff will not receive a good result in this assignment. You are only required to consider the stakeholder types listed above, and no other stakeholder types are required. One academic research article to get you started is as follows, but this is more of an opinion article written by researchers. You can cite this one in your report, but no other opinion articles like this: Litzky, BE, Eddleston, KA & Kidder, DL 2006, ‘The good, the bad, and the misguided: how managers inadvertently encourage deviant behaviors’, The Academy of Management Perspectives, vol. 20, no. 1, pp. 91‐103. The research you use for your report should focus on sources discussing empirical research (e.g. experiments, case studies, surveys, etc). An example of such an article to get you started, and which you can cite, is the following: Bolander, W., Zahn, W.J., Loe, T.W. and Clark, M. 2015, ‘Managing new salespeople’s ethical behaviors during repetitive failures: when trying to help actually hurts’, Journal of Business Ethics, early online, Articles you should not cite or use for your report are those discussing empirical research based on interviews, surveys, etc of (IS) sales staff or company executives about their views on whether they are behaving ethically, or on what they would do under certain circumstances. This is because such research is biased and does not explore the actual sales staff behaviour when they receive salesbased income. For instance, such research does not examine whether clients are happy with the product/service, and this is the main test of whether a salesperson has done a good job. An example of such studies which you should not cite or use for your report is the following: Cupach, WR & Carson, JM 2002, ‘The influence of compensation on product recommendations made by insurance agents’, Journal of Business Ethics, vol. 40, no. 2, pp. 167‐176. If you find studies similar to this one shown above, do not use it in your report. Topic 4 of this unit also highlights that it is important to consider short (1‐3 year), medium (5‐10 years) and long‐term (50+ years) impact of the moral dilemma on each of the above stakeholders. Your investigation, particularly based on research articles relating to other professions, is an indication of the positive and negative medium and/or long‐term implications for the IS industry. The focus of your research should therefore be on quality evidence of the implications of the practice stated in the dilemma above. This means that “old” research is acceptable for this report. It is preferable to focus on both new and older quality evidence, than low quality recent evidence. What to include in the Moral Dilemma Analysis report? You will write an individual Moral Dilemma Analysis report as follows (after background work): Page 4 of 6  A cover page with the assignment title (“Assessment 2 – Moral Dilemma Analysis report”), unit code and name, your name and student ID, and the word count. This cover page is not included in the word count.  A maximum of 2,500 words for the report body, using the Ethical Decision‐Making Framework introduced in topics 3 and 4, to analyse the moral dilemma stated above. o The report will be a convincing argument on what you conclude as the morality of the dilemma outlined above, not based on your opinion or personal views, but instead based on solid research and evidence/facts using the framework. The report will have a very short introduction, multiple sections/subsections, and conclusion. Note that in‐text citations (see next point) are included in the word count.  A reference list at least fourteen (14) high quality research sources cited in the report body in the Harvard format style using the “(Author, Year)” approach to in‐text citation. This reference list is not included in the word count. Word limit See the rubric at the end of this document for word limit penalties. The word count is calculated by selecting the text of assignment (see above), and using MS Word’s word count feature and unchecking the “Include textboxes, footnotes and endnotes”. You must cite the minimum of fourteen (14) research sources (see the ‘Research work…’ section) in the body of the report. Unlike Assignment 1, you must use the “(Author, Year)” or “Author (Year)” approach to in‐text citations in this report as shown in the following Harvard formatting guidelines: http://www.deakin.edu.au/students/studying/study‐support/referencing/harvard Further requirements for the report are as follows:  The report cannot include any quotes, images/figures or summarises from other sources. The entire report must be in your own words. In particular, review the following guidelines about paraphrasing (note that ‘summarising’ and ‘quoting’ is not permitted in this report). o http://www.deakin.edu.au/students/studying/studysupport/referencing/summarising‐paraphrasing‐quoting  You cannot use scanned tables (or images with text) and insert this in your report. All text in the body of the report, even if it is scanned, will be added to your word count. Please see rubric for details of the penalties which apply to exceeding the word count for this report. Submission Instructions The final submission for the Moral Dilemma Analysis report must be one (1) single file, named surname_MIS741_T1_year_assign2 (e.g. Liang_MIS741_T1_2017_assign2), including:  A cover page with the assignment title (“Assessment 2 – Moral Dilemma Analysis report”), unit code and name, your name and student ID, and the word count.  The Moral Dilemma Analysis report Page 5 of 6 Use the submission folder under the Assessments tab, then Assignments in CloudDeakin. 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. 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  Past students were found guilty of plagiarism, and given zero, when changing some/most/ all words of a source and pasting this into assignments. Plagiarism includes using translation tools to modify someone’s text and pasting into assignments (e.g. see Table N.1). The acceptable approach to use and cite sources can be found at the link below. Based on this, you will see that the examples in Table N.1 are not examples of paraphrasing: http://www.deakin.edu.au/students/studying/studysupport/referencing/summarising‐paraphrasing‐quoting It is academic/professional misconduct to use other peoples’ work as your own, and/or create all/most of your report using material copied/modified from other sources. Even if Turnitin returns a low percentage, you can still be found guilty of plagiarism. Further, such reports are usually poor quality and will get a fail mark, even if not proven as plagiarism. Table N.1: Examples of plagiarism using translation/thesaurus tools Original source Plagiarised version (students found guilty, given zero) We bring businesses, associations and industries together. This blended community comes to GS1 Australia for advice, networking and solutions to their supply chain challenges. We partner with, and help showcase, members, solution providers and industry leaders to demonstrate and encourage supply chain best practice1. We bring organizations, affiliations and businesses jointly. This mixed group asks GS1 Australia for exhortation, systems administration and answers for their production network problems. We band together with, and demonstrate, individuals, arrangement suppliers and industry pioneers to exhibit and empower inventory network excellence. A bar code is simply an inventory tracking tool that retailers use in their computer systems. For example, if you sell a tshirt that comes in one color and 3 different sizes you would need to buy 3 bar codes2. A barcode is basically a stock following instrument that companies access with their PC frameworks. For instance, on the off chance a shirt is sold with one shading and three distinct sizes it is necessary to purchase three barcodes.  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 1 GS1 Australia 2016, About us, retrieved 7 February 2017, 2 Australian Barcodes 2007, Frequently asked questions about barcodes, retrieved 7 February 2017, Page 6 of 6 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. MIS741 Assignment 2: Moral Dilemma Analysis Report (Feedback Rubric/Assessment Criteria) GLO2 Communication (written) – 30% Criteria High Distinction Distinction Credit Pass Fail Written communication (report) Out of 20 Excellent tables, lists, heading formats, paragraphs, formal writing, grammar/spelling, reference formatting and report structure. Good tables, lists, heading formats, paragraphs, formal writing, grammar/spelling, reference formatting and report structure. Mostly okay tables, lists, heading formats, paragraphs, formal writing, grammar/spelling, reference formatting and/or report structure. Adequate tables, lists, heading formats, paragraphs, formal writing, grammar/spelling, reference formatting and/or report structure. Inadequate tables, lists, heading formats, paragraphs, formal writing, grammar/spelling, reference formatting and/or report structure. Word count (report) Out of 10 Very economical writing so the report is just under or exactly on the word count (no more), because (almost) no unnecessary word use. Does not use any scanned words.* Mostly economical writing so the report is just under or exactly on the word count (no more), because mostly little unnecessary word use. Does not use any scanned words.* Somewhat economical writing so the report is just under or exactly on the word count (no more), but quite a bit unnecessary word use. Does not use any scanned words.* Adequate economical writing but the report is a little (1-50 words) over the word count, and/or mostly unnecessary word use. Does not use any scanned words.* Exceeds the word count by more than 50 words, or is quite a few words under the word count (50 or more). May include scanned words (e.g. in tables, figures, images).* GLO8 Global citizenship – 70% Criteria High Distinction Distinction Credit Pass Fail Ethical decisionmaking framework (report) Out of 35 Excellent knowledge and original use of the ethical decision-making framework (including short, medium and long-term impact) to produce a highly expert analysis and argument. Original, excellent consideration and balance of viewpoints of and implications for the specified stakeholders. Good knowledge of the ethical decision-making framework (including short, medium and longterm impact) to produce quite an expert analysis and argument, but lacks originality. Good consideration and balance of viewpoints of and implications for the specified stakeholders, but lacks originality. Good knowledge of the ethical decision-making framework (including short, medium and longterm impact) to analyse and make an argument, but some major errors in knowledge/use. Mostly considers viewpoints of and implications for the specified stakeholders, but a little biased to one or two only. Adequate knowledge of the ethical decision-making framework (including short, medium and long-term impact) to analyse and make an argument, but many major errors in knowledge/use. Viewpoints of and implications of some/most of the specified stakeholders is considered, but mostly biased to one or two only. Inadequate knowledge of the ethical decision-making framework (including short, medium and longterm impact) to analyse and make an argument because hardly/not used. Very little or no consideration of the specified stakeholder viewpoints and/or implications. Ethical research (report) Out of 35 Comprehensive synthesising of credible, quality academic sources (way beyond minimum requirements) to make an original, convincing and very well informed argument. Very original, excellent counter-points to the opposing argument. Offers original insight into the complexity of the moral dilemma beyond just using academic sources. Good synthesising of credible, quality academic sources (somewhat beyond minimum requirements) to make a convincing, well informed argument. Good counter-points to the opposing argument. Offers good insight into the complexity of the moral dilemma beyond just using academic sources. The report lacks originality in the use of research, however. Mostly credible, quality academic sources, and some counter-points to the opposing argument, are used to make a good argument. The report can be improved with more sources (than just the minimum), synthesis and/or counter-points. Somewhat good insight into the complexity of the moral dilemma than just using the research, but needs a bit more depth of analysis and insight. Adequately convincing argument with some credible, quality academic sources and/ or counter-points for the opposing argument. The report has, however, insufficient sources and counter-points and limited (if any) synthesis. Adequate insight into the complexity of the moral dilemma from the research, but the report needs much more depth of analysis and insight (i.e. it is too generic). Largely unconvincing argument with little/no (credible, quality academic) sources, or counterpoints for the opposing argument. Very little/no insight into the complexity of the moral dilemma from the research, and/or mostly or entirely generic. * Please note the assignment requirements state that the report should not include scanned words (e.g. scanned tables, images, figures) and not include images/figures.