First Assignment (25%)
What you need to write
You will write a dialogue involving the following characters:
*Ed, a supporter of normative stakeholder CSR
*Paul, a supporter of instrumental/strategic stakeholder CSR
*Claire, a left wing critic of CSR
*Elaine, a right wing critic of CSR
*Joe, a centrist critic of normative stakeholder CSR and supporter of market-failure based CSR
A dialogue is in the form of a play. The five characters need to respond to each other’s statements. You may, but need not, have one character “win” the argument. The purpose is to explore the issues, and to demonstrate a grasp of the course materials.
Some pointers:
The characters’ views must be clearly distinguishable from each other, and must accurately reflect the positions and arguments assigned to them. Do not, however, summarize or paraphrase the readings. Your task is more challenging than that: you have to show you fully understand the ideas in the readings by writing characters who do. However, you do need to cite the sources of the ideas that your characters express.
Your characters should have a sophisticated understanding of the literature we have been studying in the course, and you should have them make the best arguments for their positions that you can. For example, all your characters need to have a thorough grasp of the stockholder versus stakeholder theory debates, and be able to draw on arguments that are appropriate to the position that they are advancing in the dialogue. In other words, your characters need to be able to correctly distinguish between arguments that support and those that oppose their positions, and to be able to deploy or rebut those arguments effectively and relevantly. If they are able to construct arguments that are both cogent and original, so much the better.
The characters must respond to the substance of the other’s statements, and each turn should advance the debate. They can start off by making fairly bald or simplistic statements, but the level of discussion should escalate as each is challenged by the other. A dialogue in which the characters talk past one another , opinionate, or simply repeat simplistic talking-points will get a low grade.
Keep in mind that the dialogue should focus on analysis. A lot of descriptive or factual discussion of how business works, orof what the law is, will not meet the terms of the assignment. Facts and positive analysis will be relevant, but need to be connected to your characters’ theses by developed arguments.
Because a dialogue depicts characters in conversation, the language can be somewhat less formal than in an essay. It is still important, though, that the characters express themselves with clarity, use proper syntax and word choice to convey their ideas with precision, and avoid awkward sentence construction. The dialogue format allows you as the writer some room for creativity and playfulness, but keep in mind the purpose of the assignment and don’t let your characters get side-tracked with off-topic chit-chat and repartee.
Note: these “pointers” also constitute the rubric of criteria according to which the dialogues will be graded.