Please check Wanda Group website (http://www.wanda-group.com)
The CEO has noticed an emerging and increasing trend of discussion about sustainability from businesses and some of Wanda Group’ competitors are adopting sustainability frameworks and practices. The CEO feels that at the moment he does not know too much about sustainability and its relevance to business. He is also considering whether Wanda Group should adopt sustainable frameworks and practices including producing sustainability reports to external stakeholders. You have recommended Wanda Group to produce sustainability reports to external stakeholders. To follow up, the CEO asks you and your colleagues to complete a essay to address his following requirements:
1.What are the specific sustainability issues that Wanda Group is facing? Justify your answer.
2.Why should Wanda Group provide a sustainability report?
3.To whom should these reports be addressed?
4.What information should be reported?
5. How should the information be reported?
Within the essay, the CEO also asks you to apply one theory(legitimacy theory, institutional theory, the ethical branch of stakeholder theory, or the managerial branch of stakeholder theory) into your discussion to explain and justify your recommendations as to why, to whom, what and how information should be reported.
To answer the first question, you are expected to link sustainability to the project development industry. This involves researching, identifying and analysing sustainability issues in the industry at the world level and in China, the expectations (in general) from the stakeholders, and the competitors of Wanda Group. You will need to look for evidence of what other business entities are doing as they pertain to sustainability (e.g., which competitors are currently adopting a particular framework and practice or producing sustainability reports). Particular industry initiatives or frameworks need to be addressed.
For questions 2 to 5, your recommendations on the sustainability report are expected to be supported by one theory (i.e. legitimacy theory, institutional theory, the ethical branch of stakeholder theory, or the managerial branch of stakeholder theory) that you have studied in Topic 4. To apply a theory well, it is suggested that you explain the theory first. Applying more than one theory is not recommended as you will need to justify why one theory is not sufficient and explain the second theory well (this will take up your word limit).
The theory that you choose to apply should be explicitly applied to your discussion on all of the four questions asked by the CEO. That is, the chosen theory and the relevant concepts need to be explained by referring to relevant literature from academic journals (addressing Q2); the chosen theory will direct discussion in identifying the users of the report (addressing Q3) and the associated expectations and information needs of the users identified (addressing Q4); and, the adoption of a specific reporting guideline need to be justified by the chosen theory (addressing Q5). Please note that different theories will derive different answers to the questions. The link between your theory and your answer (i.e., the way you apply the chosen theory) to each question needs to be explicit and specific.
To demonstrate your problem-solving skills, it is strongly suggested that you link your analysis and argument specifically to Wanda Group. Avoid being too general. Identify specific sustainability issues that Wanda Group is facing as well as provide recommendations on how to report these issues. The most important skill that you are expected to develop from this task is your reasoning skill and application skill. That is, you are expected to justify your arguments in the context of Wanda Group.
