MGMT 8615M Week 5 CSR Brief Example

Course	MGMT 8615M Financial Corporate Social Responsibility and Ethics
Week	Week 5
Paper type	CSR brief
Length	About 580 words, 5 pages
Format	APA 7 student paper
School	Walden University
Program	PhD in Management
Updated	October 2026

Free sample paper for MGMT 8615M Week 5

Who Pays to Close Two Coal Units a Decade Early: A Responsibility Brief for a Utility's Board Supporting the Early Retirement but Arguing the Company Should Cover Part of the Host County's Lost Property Tax, With a Payer Table by Group and Year

Student Name

Walden University

MGMT 8615M: Financial Corporate Social Responsibility and Ethics

Instructor Name

Month Day, Year

What this page is doingThe title states the position and the gap it targets, so the board reads the argument before the table that supports it.

Position

To: Board of Directors, Prairie Valley Electric. Prairie Valley's plan, filed with the state utility commission in June 2026, retires units 3 and 4 at its Hollis Creek coal plant in 2029, about ten years before the end of their depreciation schedule. The early retirement is defensible: the commission's own staff analysis found that replacing the units' output with wind, solar and an existing gas plant lowers customers' costs over twenty years. But the plan as filed leaves the host county's lost property tax entirely unfunded. This brief argues that the company should cover part of it.

What this page is doingThe brief states the commitment and its position in the first paragraph, because a board reads the opening before deciding whether to read further.

Who Pays, How Much and When

[after]

Each amount comes from a document in the commission's public docket for the case, so any director can check it.

Table 1

Payers for the Early Retirement of Hollis Creek Units 3 and 4

Payer	What they pay	Amount	Years	Source in the commission docket \|
Customers	Repayment of ratepayer-backed bonds that recover the undepreciated plant balance	About $310 million over 15 years	2029 to 2044	Securitization application, exhibit 4 \|
Shareholders	Forgone return on the undepreciated balance, replaced by lower-cost bond financing	About $95 million in present value	2029 to 2039	Company testimony, schedule 7 \|
Plant employees	About 140 jobs ended; plan offers transfers to 60	About $9 million a year in lost wages after transfers	From 2029	Workforce transition plan \|
Hollis County	Loss of plant property tax, about 38 percent of the county's levy	About $11 million a year	From 2030	County assessor's filing \|

The Gap the Plan Leaves

Customers, shareholders and employees each receive some recognition in the plan: customers through lower long-run costs, shareholders through a negotiated settlement on the undepreciated balance and employees through transfers and severance. The county receives nothing. Its school district and road budget depend on the plant's tax payment, and the plan offers no transition funding. The loss is concentrated, predictable and caused by a decision the company is making for its own and its customers' benefit.

The Obvious Objection

A director may object that funding the county's budget is not the company's job and would spend shareholders' money on a public purpose. Jensen (2002) would ask what long-run value such a payment creates. Hart and Zingales (2017) offer a different answer: shareholders may care about the communities their company affects, and a company can serve those preferences more efficiently than shareholders acting alone. Prairie Valley's largest shareholders include two state pension funds whose members live in the service territory. Freeman (1984) would add that a community hosting a plant for fifty years is a stakeholder whose cooperation the company will need again when siting new facilities.

What this page is doingOne citation answers the objection a director is most likely to raise, that the company's duty is to its owners.

What This Position Would Cost

The brief proposes that Prairie Valley fund a declining share of the county's lost levy: 75 percent in 2030, falling by 15 points a year to zero by 2035, giving the county five years to adjust. The total would be about $25 million over six years, about 0.4 percent of the company's annual operating income in the peak year. If the commission allows part of it in rates, customers would bear that part; the brief recommends that shareholders bear at least half, so the commitment is not simply passed on.

References

Freeman, R. E. (1984). Strategic management: A stakeholder approach. Pitman.

Hart, O., & Zingales, L. (2017). Companies should maximize shareholder welfare not market value. Journal of Law, Finance, and Accounting, 2(2), 247-275. https://doi.org/10.1561/108.00000022

Jensen, M. C. (2002). Value maximization, stakeholder theory, and the corporate objective function. Business Ethics Quarterly, 12(2), 235-256. https://doi.org/10.2307/3857812

What the MGMT 8615M Week 5 instructions ask for

In Week 5 you write a short brief to a board on one responsibility decision, with one argument and one table. State the commitment and your position in the first paragraph. Build a payer table with one row for each group that bears the cost, giving the amount, the years it falls in and the public document it comes from. Identify which payer the current plan leaves without support. Answer the objection a director is most likely to raise with one or two citations. Close by pricing your own proposal and saying who should bear it. Two pages plus the table is typical, and every amount should trace to a document a director could open.

How the MGMT 8615M Week 5 example is put together

The sample opens with the retirement plan and the brief's position. The payer table lists customers through securitization bonds, shareholders through forgone return, employees through job losses after transfers and the county through lost property tax, each with years and a docket reference. A section explains why the county is the unsupported payer, noting its dependence on the plant's tax. The objection section presents Jensen's single-objective view, Hart and Zingales's shareholder-welfare reply and Freeman's stakeholder argument, with a note on the pension funds among the shareholders. The final section proposes a declining payment over six years and prices it at about $25 million. Margin notes point to the docket exhibit behind each amount.

Reading the MGMT 8615M Week 5 rubric

The payer table and the priced proposal carry most of the grade. Briefs that discuss community impact in general terms, or that propose support without a cost, score low. Graders look for every payer identified with an amount, years and a source, a clear statement of which payer the plan leaves out and a proposal priced in the company's terms with a stated split between customers and shareholders. The objection should be the one a director would actually raise, answered in a few sentences rather than an essay. Brevity is part of the assignment. Accurate references and a readable table are expected for Week 5.

MGMT 8615M Week 5 help from the desk

The typical shortfall is a brief that lists stakeholders without amounts. Find the regulatory docket or annual report that contains the figures, and give each payer a row with numbers and years. Ask who receives nothing in the current plan; that is usually where the argument lies. Keep your answer to the obvious objection short and well cited. Price your proposal and say who should pay for it, including whether customers or shareholders. Hold the brief to two pages. Docket documents can be hard to locate, so ask a tutor if you get stuck, and the coal retirement brief above builds its table from them. Directors are busy, so put the position in the first lines.

Get a MGMT 8615M Week 5 example written to your instructions

Send the Week 5 prompt with the rubric, the commitment under discussion, and whatever case documents or filings your section supplied; a completed brief and payer table return within 24-48h at no charge the first time. If the brief is addressed to someone other than a board, name the reader and the register shifts accordingly.

More MGMT 8615M papers and PhD in Management samples

MGMT 8615M Week 5 questions, answered

Where can I find a free MGMT 8615M Week 5 sample paper?

The coal unit retirement brief is printed above as the Week 5 sample.

What position does the MGMT 8615M Week 5 brief take?

The early retirement is defensible, but the utility should help cover the host county's lost property tax.

Who pays for the early retirement?

Customers through bonds, shareholders through forgone return, plant employees through lost jobs and the county through lost tax.

How does the brief answer the shareholder objection?

With Hart and Zingales's argument that companies may serve shareholders' social preferences as well as their wealth.

What would the brief's proposal cost?

About $25 million over six years, declining each year, with shareholders bearing at least half.