You are the head of corporate communications (internal and external) for your chosen company (the organization you chose for your final project). Given the challenges the company has faced/is facing, the CEO wants you to put your expertise into action. You are asked to develop an ethics training manual for the entire company to help set a new standard of moral, ethical, and legal behavior. You’ve been provided with a set of instructions, and a specific structure for the training manual (below).

To complete this final project successfully, your chosen company and the ethical issues they face must be current (within the last 6-12 months), substantial, ongoing, have significant media coverage, and ultimately an ethics training manual must be able to improve the situation there.

This is a research-based project, meaning you must support your analyses, ideas, and solutions with references to course content using APA-style in-text citations. All components of this project must reflect mastery of the course content and cite course materials.

Instructions:

Develop each of the required 10 sections for the ethics training manual, paying attention to the page requirements for each section. Overall, these sections must be at least 10 pages.

Cover

pages, tables of contents, graphics, tables, and works cited pages do not count toward the page minimum. In terms of formatting, use an 11-point font, no more than double-spacing, one-inch margins, APA style in-text citations, and include a ‘Works Cited page.

Project Sections (10):

1) Cover Letter (1 page): Respond to the CEO’s request above with a cover letter.

Develop three clear objectives that the ethics training manual will achieve for the company and explain why you believe it will be helpful to improve ethics in the future.

2) Company Overview (1 page): Describe the company’s business, mission and values,

code of ethics, revenues, number of employees, etc.

3) Situation Analysis (2-3 pages): What are the moral, ethical or legal issues facing the company? What are the root causes of these issues? How has management handled these issues? What kind of damage to the business and reputation has been

caused by these issues? How could an improved approach to morals, ethics, and adherence to laws, be beneficial for the company (the call to action)?

2 | Page

4) General Ethics (1-2 pages): What are ethics? Why do ethics matter in business? How can ethics be a competitive advantage?

5) Ethics Theories (1-2 pages): Describe the most relevant ethics theories in business. What kind of theoretical guidance or frameworks would be most helpful for this company? What should they focus on? Why?

6) Stakeholders (1-2 pages): Who are the company’s stakeholders? What kind of obligations (moral, ethical, legal) does the company have to their stakeholders? Which stakeholders are most affected by the company’s problems? How are they affected?

7) Company Leadership (1 page): What role should the CEO and senior management play in ensuring the company has a sound moral and ethical approach to business going forward? What can other senior leaders and people managers do to help?

8) Corporate Culture (1-2 pages): What role does corporate culture play in how a company applies morals and ethics. How can a culture be helpful or harmful to morals and ethics? What are some tips for building and maintaining an ethical business culture?

9) Corporate Communications (1-2 pages): How are public relations and employee communication activities influenced by the moral and ethical perspectives of a

company? How does company communication benefit from a sound moral and ethical environment? Provide at least one example of a benefit. What role can corporate communications play in building awareness of ethics inside the company?

10) Works Cited (not included in total page count): Citations must be APA in-text citations and referenced in the works cited section.