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Making Work Real

MWR: Do Consumers Care About the Ethics Underpinning Their Purchases?

News that Cadbury, the UK’s best-known chocolate brand, was halting its Fairtrade certification hit the headlines recently (Rodionova, 2016), and raised industry concerns around the future of Fairtrade – but will it affect sales? Do consumers really care whether their purchases are ethically sourced?   Most large companies have ethical trading policies, placing responsibility on retailers, brands and suppliers to maintain and improve working conditions, particularly those... Continue reading →

MWR: Who is Rich?

Exploring the theme of rich/poor proved to be an extremely interesting and eye-opening experience. I looked into various ideas of being ‘rich’ to get a broader view of the theme, finding wide-ranging answers including two teenagers involved in the London riots suggesting owning any business makes you rich (McClatchey, 2011), yet endless Google results insist we need ‘emotional wealth’ and teach others how to pursue it, for up to $CAD11,025 (Emotional Wealth Management Inc., N/A). Continue reading →

MWR: But, Can We Blame the Poor for Being Poor?

You are living in the 21st century where the difference between the rich and the poor is increasing even more (Reuben, 2015). So, if you are running a big organisation and earning sufficient amount of profit, do you think it would be fair for you to share your profit with the poor? Is charity the solution for poor people? Does it solve the cause of their problem (BBC, 2009)? This is something that we should think about. The rich are becoming richer and poor are becoming poorer. Continue reading →

MWR: The Impacts of Urbanisation in LEDCs

“Rapid urbanisation is arguably the most complex and important socio-economic phenomenon of the 20th Century” (Allen & You, 2002, p3) which is exemplified in 2009 - the urban population surpassed the rural population for the first time ever (UN,2009). Having over half the population live in urban areas can result in sanitation, hygiene and environmental issues, all of which pose a threat to people and business. Continue reading →

MWR: Has the Government Widened the Gap Between the Rich and Poor in Education?

When looking at Europe’s leading economic powers such as Germany, the United Kingdom and France there is a reason to believe that in terms of education the UK has made it possible for the gap between rich and poor to widen furthermore (Paton, 2010). One example for how the government is making it more difficult, for less fortunate young people to come out of poverty, would be that tuition fees increased tremendously (Boffey, 2016). Continue reading →

MWR: How Far Should Businesses Put the Needs of their Workers Before the Importance of Profit?

Is slavery within the 21st-century business world an issue today? At first glance, before carrying out any research I thought about my chosen inquiry question and assumed the simple answer to this question was no, not really. How very wrong I was. Having developed my ILP and carried out research tasks, I discovered that although it has been over 200 years since William Wilberforce was responsible for the abolition of slavery, it is still very much an ongoing issue as “28. Continue reading →