As corporations produce the goods and services society needs, in the process they may consume, degrade, or contaminate public and common goods. Limited resources such as clean water, fisheries, and forests are polluted or depleted; air quality and public infrastructures are impaired or damaged. Harm to public goods from the side effects and byproducts of corporate activity also impose costs on society at large. If a corporation doesn’t internalize the social costs of its negative externalities, the burden falls on society.

In this paper you will research a public good or common resource that is threatened by corporate operations and/or their negative externalities. Whether you choose to look at environmental damage, depletion of public resources, degradation of public infrastructure, or negative impacts on social structures, workers and communities, you will analyze the contributing factors and consider how to address the costs imposed on society.

Final Assignment:
Write a paper that combines your research from the journals and analyzes the problem.
• What are the main options for protecting the public or common good?
• What roles should other societal institutions take?
• Discuss any ethical issues that are raised.
• Identify the best strategies, and discuss the risks and benefits from multiple perspectives.
• Consider whether the public costs can be balanced against public benefits or positive externalities.
• What do the various responses and strategies imply about the obligations of corporations to stakeholders and societal institutions?

I have been assigned Deforestation in the Indonesian rainforest. Be sure to focus on a specific externality. And research the timber industry. A lot of your citations would be from your research.

IN GENERAL
Basically, this essay asks you to analyze how the three sectors of society that we’ve been discussing (business, government, and civil society) are involved in a negative externality or social problem (I am using the two terms interchangeably in this discussion) that has been created by the business sector (in this assignment, a specific corporation) in which a public or common good has been affected. In addition, your essay should analyze how these sectors interact within the context of that problem. To that end, your essay needs to do the following:

1. DEFINE THE PROBLEM
You need to identify the public or common good affected (air, fish, coal, etc.) and the category of the social problem about which you’re writing (e.g., natural resource conservation, environmental protection, human rights, etc.) and then specify the particular negative externality with which you’re working, e.g., depletion of fish stocks in the Atlantic northern bank. (See more comments under "Specificity" below.)

Thus, your definition should act like a funnel, moving the reader from the macro level to the micro level quickly and coherently (e.g., natural resources > food > fish > tuna). That "funneling" (for lack of a better word) can be a useful in writing your introduction. (See comments on "Structure" below.)

After scoping the problem (i.e., moving the reader from the macro to micro level), you need to describe the negative externality in some detail. Historical context is an important part of that description. In defining the problem, your essay should answer these questions: How has the problem developed over time? What is the current situation? What is the outlook for this problem in the future? Answering these questions should help you frame the following sections on stakeholder analysis (especially the questions about history and the current situation) and stakeholder interactions (especially the question about the outlook of the problem) and establish the foundation for your proposed corporate social action in the Cycle 3 essay.

One important note: you should use the terms “public good” or “common good” with precision and care, whether your use is literal (microeconomic definition) or figurative (general uses and applications of the public good/welfare). Similarly, you should incorporate as much of the assigned readings, plenaries and class discussions as is relevant and appropriate for your topic.

2. STAKEHOLDER ANALYSIS BY SECTOR

Since we’ve been using the three-sector model (corporations/business, government, civil society) throughout the semester, you can use it to help structure your ideas and perhaps this section of the essay (this is not an essay requirement, only a way of organizing your ideas). In your essay, try not to simply focus on how your chosen corporation created a problem that negatively affects government and civil society, but, as we discussed, how these problems are often more complicated. You should make the relationship among these sectors clear while keeping the paper moving cogently and coherently. (See additional comments on "Structure" below).

For each sector, you need to be specific and detailed in your analysis:

1. Corporations: Which industries are involved in the problem and how? What specific company did you select and how does it illustrate the role of each industry in the negative externality or problem that you have chosen? Note that some industries might actually conflict with each other over an issue. Do NOT assume that all corporate interests are aligned with each other, and if your chosen corporation’s perspective and actions diverge from others in the industry, then discuss the ways it does so.

2. Government: What divisions and levels of government are involved in the problem and how? Give specific examples of different types of government involvement. Note that "government" is not an acceptable actor for your discussion (you are not analyzing how the government creates a negative externality or social problem). Depending upon your chosen corporation and negative externality, you need to examine the different levels of government (local, state, federal / national, multilateral) as well as the different divisions of government (e.g., Department of Agriculture, Department of Housing and Urban Development, Department of Homeland Security, ITU, ILO, IMF, New York Mayor’s Office).

3. Civil Society: What other organizations (communities, NGOs, non-profits, etc.) are involved in the problem and how? Because this sector in our model is the most capacious, you shouldn’t try to exhaust all possible stakeholders in this category. Rather, you should focus on the ones you feel are most important. As with corporations, do not assume that all stakeholders’ interests are aligned; civil society stakeholders might have conflicting positions and interests.

3. AGGREGATE / SYNTHESIZE ANALYSIS

After examining each sector’s actors and the interactions between groups within sectors, you should explore how the three sectors all interact with each other to give the problem its current shape. Be sure to avoid redundancies with the previous section; avoiding redundancy means keeping a sharp focus in each of the above sections (i.e., focusing mainly on intra-sector dynamics) and not getting too bogged down in minutiae in this section (remember that the focus is aggregate).

In analyzing these interactions, you should pay close attention to what the points of conflict are between the different sectors and groups–what ethical conflicts are present, what interests / strategies conflict, what interests / strategies align? You should also think about how these dynamics inform the projected future of the problem, though your essay should not propose or devise a solution to address the negative externality that you are discussing. Given these dynamics, the outlook for the future of the problem and the implications of your analysis for the problem you’ve chosen could provide a useful frame for your paper’s conclusion.

A Few Other Issues to Consider:

SPECIFICITY

One of the major problems we encountered with the first paper was a lack of specificity. When dealing with large issues (e.g., privatization vs. nationalization for the first paper, major negative externalities or social problems for this essay), one of the most effective rhetorical / analytical strategies at your disposal is to analyze the problem in great detail on a smaller scale and then draw more general conclusions from your analysis. Doing so allows you to (1) keep the reader’s attention more easily and (2) work out your arguments more thoroughly within a manageable framework.

What I mean by “a smaller scale” is a more clearly focused and manageable category of the social problem or negative externality. As I said in class, you should not choose a specific incident (BP oil spill) but you should narrow your negative externality, e.g., fishing depletion in the northern Atlantic or oil drilling in the Gulf of Mexico. Writing about squid fishery depletion off the coast of Argentina, for example, allows you to be much more specific and concrete in your analysis than writing about worldwide fishery depletion (which would cover over half the world’s surface area and hundreds of species). While maintaining such a tight focus might seem overly constraining (e.g., you might ask yourself, "How can I write 7 pages about squid in Argentina?!"), you’ll probably find that such a focus will actually give you even more material to work with, as you’ll really be able to get into meaningful detail (and won’t be fretting over how to combine information about shrimp from the Gulf Coast with tuna from the Pacific, etc.).

STRUCTURE

The other major area for collective improvement that the first essay made visible was structure. The three sections above provide a reasonable framework for the body of your essay. (Yes, your paper does need an introduction and a conclusion, and both should complete the functions described in the grading rubric from the first paper.) Within that framework, you have plenty options for organizing the information. For example, you might organize the second part as corporations –> civil society –> government, following a narrative of "Company creates problem through negative externalities to which civil society reacts with protests that then forces government to pass legislative restrictions." Or you might find some other order more meaningful (e.g., following a "Government grants concession to exploit natural resource to corporation, which then creates problems for a local community…" narrative). However you choose to order your analysis, you MUST create a coherent, compelling, logical flow (or "narrative" understood more broadly) for your paper.