Advanced Financial Accounting Coursework 2 (2015-16) – Further Guidance

1. Further guidance on the allocation of marks for the coursework is given below
to enable you to plan your work.
Required:
Critically evaluate the Corporate Sustainability Report published by Tata
Motors Limited for 2013-2014 (available on Moodle) against the Global
Reporting Initiative Guidelines and broader considerations of best practice,
with particular emphasis on reporting to diverse stakeholder groups.
Further guidance:
i) Briefly outline what sustainability accounting is and how it has evolved and
what the Global Reporting Initiative is; (20 marks)
ii) As part of your analysis identify three stakeholder groups and briefly
discuss how the company engages with them in the sustainability reporting
process and how it identifies and reports on their particular concerns; (30
marks)
iii) Consider to what extent the Sustainability Report (2014) published by Tata
Motors Ltd.:
a) deserves the A+ rating against GRI criteria that it claims (20 marks), and
b) satisfies broader views of sustainability reporting which criticise initiatives
like the GRI Guidelines. (30 marks)
Provide reasons for your conclusion.
2. Critical evaluation in this case means that you do not just describe what is in
the sustainability report but you identify its strengths and weaknesses and
evaluate its overall quality and suitability for purpose.
3. For i and iii (a) in particular you are expected to demonstrate a knowledge of
GRI which extends beyond the very brief introduction in the lecture notes.
The material on the GRI website can go into excessive detail but “An
Introduction to G4: The Next Generation of Sustanability Reporting’ available
from www.globalreporting.org is a reasonable place to start.
4. For ii pick any three stakeholders. Some critical evaluation of the content of
the sustainability report with respect to stakeholders is expected.
5. For iii b you will be expected to refer to relevant academic critiques of current
practice such as those cited in the lecture (Gray, Deegan). Additional
references are acceptable and desirable.
6. There is no requirement to submit this assignment through turnitin, however
an electronic copy of the assignment must be retained and be sent to any
tutor who requests it.
7. Students are reminded that all external sources should be referenced using
the Harvard APA system. The bibliography should include all the references
cited in the text, but no other references.
8. The total word length is 1,700 words excluding the bibliography.
Assessments that exceed this will be subject to a penalty on the following
scale:
1,701 to 1,800 words 2%
1,801 to 1,900 words 5%
1,901 to 2,000 words 8%
Over 2,000 words 12%
9. Appendices should not be necessary and are not an acceptable way of
circumnavigating the word limit.
10.Hopefully these notes will answer any outstanding questions you have about
the assignment. All students have been given the same amount of guidance
and to ensure this remains the case, please email any further queries to me.
Please note, however, that I cannot get involved in detailed discussions about
what should be included in a particular section because that would be unfair
to other students.
Tony Hines
10 November 2015