How do multinational firms address corporate social responsibility in their home countries and abroad?

Corporate Social Responsibility Paper (15%) (assignment with up to 3 people)

This assignment may be done individually or in teams of a maximum of three people, total, of your choice. All team members will receive the same grade.
Purpose
The purpose of this assignment is to give you an opportunity to learn about how multinational firms address corporate social responsibility in their home countries and abroad. You will employ analytical skills to compare practices by two different firms operating in the US and another country in which they both do business.

Procedure
1. Select the following: (a) a social or environmental issue that you are passionate about; (b) an industry whose activities involve that issue; (c) two multinational companies in that industry, with at least one being a U.S.-headquartered firm; (d) one country in addition to the U.S. in which both companies do business.
2. Research the two companies’ practices in both the U.S. and the other country you have chosen by using as many sources as is feasible, e.g., company, industry, government, and activist/lobby group websites; online and hard copy business and government data bases in the NU library system; newspapers, business journals and magazines; information you obtain from your own inquiries or interviews with any relevant organizations, e.g., company, industry, government, activist/lobby groups. An example is:
http://masonweb.wm.edu/sustainability/
3. Prepare a 5-page paper (double-spaced, 12 point Times New Roman) plus a cover page and any number of relevant exhibits and references. Number all pages except the cover page. (The page after the cover page will be page 1.)

Structure and Content of the CSR Paper
Cover Page – The cover page should include: a title consisting of the CSR issue, the two companies, and countries being investigated; your name, date, course number, name and class meeting time, and the professor’s name.
Section 1 – Industry and Company Overviews: Briefly describe in a page the issue, industry, and the two companies and the two countries. Details can be provided in exhibits at the end of the paper.
Section 2 – Company Comparisons by Country: Compare the two companies in terms of how they address the specific CSR issue you chose: (a) in the U.S., and (b) in the other country you selected. In analyzing and comparing each firm’s activities regarding the same specific CSR issue in the two countries, utilize the following material from Chapter 7, Global Corporate Citizenship, in Lawrence and Weber (purchase as an ebook online as noted earlier), creating a section for each: (a) Principles of Global Corporate Citizenship (discuss as many of the 20 items in Exhibit 7B, p. 149 as are relevant to the specific CSR issue); (b) Management Systems for CSR; (c) Stages of Corporate Citizenship; (d) Corporate Citizenship in Comparative Perspective; (e) Social Performance Auditing: Global Social Audit Standards, Social and Environmental Reporting, Balanced Scorecard, Triple Bottom Line (select an appropriate subtopic(s) from this section relevant to your CSR issue and each company’s practices).
Section 3 – Conclusion and Recommendations: (a) Give each company grades (A, B, F, etc.) on how well they are addressing the specific CSR issue in both the U.S. and the other country you selected. Provide support for your assessment as well as possible reasons for any differences in dealing with the CSR issue in the two countries; (b) make recommendations for each company regarding the CSR issue.
Section 4 – Exhibits: These will include comparison charts, tables, and other materials that you have created and that you refer to in the text of your paper, as well as additional information you have gathered from various sources to support your analyses and conclusions. Label exhibits, e.g., Exhibit 1: Title.
Section 5 – References: List all material referred to in your paper in proper bibliographic format (APA or MLA style), including complete url internet addresses. To avoid plagiarism, information from a database or that is not from your own general knowledge must be cited in the body of the paper using numbered superscript endnotes that are linked to the fully documented reference provided in a numbered list at the end of the paper.

US Company: General Motors
German Compnay: Mercedes Benz
Issue: Eco-friendly vehicles sales

Or any CSR projects in mind