CSR IN india~ NIkki Groce

1. List ten non-obvious assumptions about your target customers (or organizations) that you need to validate.

1. We are assuming that the nonprofits the companies engage with will have some benefit to them, even if they are not in the same field, and this validation can make our project very interesting for years to come.
2. Another assumption about our target customers is that the corporations are in need of better more efficient ways of picking their partners to work with.
3. We need to validate our assumption that the NGOs will be more willing to talk to us whereas the corporations will be short with their times.
4. We need to validate that Indian corporations and government suffer from a lot of corruption and sneaky business.
5. We need to validate whether or not the gender gap truly is being worked on India like the articles we have been reading proclaim.
6. We are assuming that the Indian people will be honest and open with their interviews, but that is definitely something we need to validate. If they are not, this could significantly impact our project.
7. We are going in assuming that all of the companies are well aware of the implications of the law, but that might need validation from some of the smaller firms we interview.
8. We are assuming that they will be respectful with us, even though we are not all caucasian, because our professor said that is what they will expect of American university students.
9. We are assuming that we will be able to conduct the interviews together, and if not all asking the questions, we would at least be able to sit in on them with each other.
10. We are assuming that if this goes well, these companies and NGOs will be willing to work with us in the future and keep providing information as time goes on as well as when amendments come about.

2. List ten hypotheses about your project that you need to test during fieldwork.

1. One assumption about our target audience that needs validation is that the Indian non-governmental organizations have a lot to benefit from the work we are doing. We have been conducting a lot of research as a team about the implications of this law but we need to validate our hypotheses that the NGOs have a lot to gain from better relationships between them and the corporations they are working with.
2. We believe that management being more involved with the CSR projects will make them more successful.
3. We are assuming that the interviews will take only about thirty minutes to conduct. Most of the time consuming parts will be in the write-up as well as the analysis of the information we get from the interviews.
4. One of the hypotheses we have that we need to test is that the parties we interview will allow us to record them in some way so that we do not miss any of the valuable information they provide us with.
5. Another hypothesis we have about our project is that we will be able to interview companies of all sizes and NGOs with our time.
6. A hypothesis about our project that we need to test during our fieldwork is that the companies that have been practicing CSR before this law was passed will have more success than the ones that started after the law mandated that they do so.
7. Our hypothesis is that the larger companies will do better jobs with the CSR money because they will have the necessary assets to execute the job as well as more publicity on the line.
8. Our hypothesis is that we will be able to find areas of improvement for the relationships between NGOs and corporations simply from the interviewing both sides and observing their work.
9. We will mostly be working in Mumbai due to difficult transportation, but our hypothesis is that the patterns we discover will be able to be applied to other areas in the country as well.
10. We hypothesize that the companies that do the most harm to the environment will already be doing CSR work to counteract some of the damage they’ve done, most likely before the law.

3. What do you think you bring to your team? How has your perception of your own strengths and weaknesses changed over the course of the class? Please be specific.

• I think I bring positivity to my team as well as an open mind. I have been very accepting of the various ideas that my team has presented because it will be beneficial for our work together and more effective collaboration. My perception of my strengths and weaknesses has changed in realizing how much influence I have over those around me. Often times if I am taking lead, more productive ideas will be shared but in times when no one speaks up it will often stay silent. I think this is important to take note of because this is evidence of my natural leadership skills which I should capitalize on.

~ by Anique Groce on March 30, 2019 .