Case Study Report: Aristocrat's CSR Activities and Accounting

This case study report examines the corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities of Aristocrat, a public company in the gambling industry. It analyzes Aristocrat's approach to CSR, focusing on its impact on various stakeholder groups, including the community, employees, environment, and gov...Read More

Accounting in organizations and society

Management 1
Contents
Description of business..........................................................................................................................2
The focus of corporate social responsibility (CSR)...............................................................................2
Identified CSR activities........................................................................................................................4
The value created by CSR activities......................................................................................................5
Business.................................................................................................................................................6
References.............................................................................................................................................7

Management 2
Description of business
Aristocrat is a public company and belongs to the gambling industry. Aristocrat is a gambling
machine manufacturer. The company is headquartered in Sydney, Australia. Aristocrat is
listened in the Australian Stock Exchange. The company brings joy to life through the power
of play. The values of Aristocrat are rooted in creativity and technology.
The company is having land-based businesses and digital businesses. The land bases
businesses include Aristocrat Class lll and VGT class ll. The Class lll games are considered
the best games worldwide. It brings life into the innovative cabinets with the market-leading
technology. The premium range of proprietary and license games offer a completely new
level of excitement to the players and floors around the world. On the other side, VGT is
identified as a leading North American developer, producer, and distributor of Class ll casino
games. It is functioning primarily in the native segment of America. The winners are created
by VGT and its brilliant service and long term long relationships are the greater source of
pride for the business. The digital business of Aristocrat comprises the Plarium. Big fish
games and product madness. The Plarium brings compelling mobile and browser games by
an extensive range of the game genres to millions of the players worldwide. The Big fish is
the globe’s largest producer and distributor of free-to-play games. It serves to the millions of
people worldwide. Product madness digitalises to the class lll content for the online casino-
style play. Its most popular title ‘heart of Vegas’ entertained to the thousands of players since
its launch.
The CSR states the way companies manage their business processes in order to produce an
overall positive impact on society. It assists a company in being socially responsible.
Sustainability is all about maintaining at a specific level. It comprises sustainability and does
core business appropriately. The CSR approach of Aristocrat offers a solid structure for
effective and responsible decision making. It even sets a culture of veracity, transparency y
and accountability throughout the organization (Merkl-Davies and Brennan, 2017).
The focus of corporate social responsibility (CSR)
Shareholder groups

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Aristocrat is a responsible business and proves itself as a good corporate citizen. It ensures
the long term, sustainable and vibrant future of the company. The shareholder groups
identified are given below:
Community: The community includes the Aristocrat’s commitment and effectiveness within
the local, national and international community in which it operates a business. This category
includes the Aristocrat’s human rights record and treatment of its supply chain. The
environment and social impacts are also covered by the company’s products and services
along with the sustainable products and technologies (Markham and Young, 2015). Aristocrat
conducts campaigns for the society on a regular basis to aware them for the product. They
play a significant role in the foremost policies of the company which affects shareholder
returns comprising executive remuneration and appointment of the directors.
Employees: The category of the employees comprises disclosure of policies, programs,
diversity programs, labor relations, compensation, benefits, employees training, health, and
safety. The quality of the policies, programs, and obedience with the national and
international laws and proactive management initiatives are focused in order to evaluate
(Killian and O'Regan, 2016). This category also includes fair treatment of the employees,
appraisal of the diversity policies, strong labor codes, programmes and training of the
employees. The employees are given additional funds from the company in order to meet
their personal needs.
Environment: The environment category comprises Aristocrat’s interactions with the
environment at large. It includes the use of the natural resources and impact of the operations
on the ecosystems. This category evaluates the corporate environmental performance,
compliance with the environmental regulations and mitigation of environmental footprint
(Voinov, et al. 2016). The company makes efforts to reduce the wastage activities in the
environment by reducing wastage of the DVD games. The DVDs are made recyclable which
do not harm the environment.
Government: This category comprises revelation of the policies and procedures, board
impartiality and diversity, consideration to stakeholder’s concern, assessment of the
company’s culture of ethical leadership and compliance. The corporate governance states the
leadership structures and values which govern corporate trend, ethics, and performance. The

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government has a role in managing the operations of the company and decide the best usage
of the capital. This ownership has been associated with better management and shareholders
(Arnaboldi, Busco, and Cuganesan, 2017).
Identification of CSR activities for each group
The company protects public health and manages the social impact of the operations and
local communities. The product category of the company has accountability for the
development, design and development and its impacts on the customers and society.
Aristocrat provides fair, equal compensation and financial benefits to the employees. It
improves engagement of the employees along with the improved worker development. The
company maintains diversity and provide equal opportunities regardless of gender, age, sex,
ethnicity or religion (Kazadi, Lievens and Mahr, 2016).
The effectiveness of the company is measured through energy and climate change. It
addresses climate change through suitable policies and strategies. The resource management
is also enabled by the company for the efficient use of the resources.
The company enables the best practices related to board membership and independent
decision making. The leadership ethics measures the effectiveness of the company and treats
shareholder equitably. It assists employees by engaging them appropriately by the
governance (Walker, 2016).
Identified CSR activities
Identification of the management accounting information
Employee welfare fund: The employee welfare fund has been provided to the employees of
the Aristocrat. The employees as a part of stakeholders were benefitted by providing health
benefits to make workers happy and satisfied. They were provided a better life and health.
The employees were provided medical insurance covering the cost of physician and surgeon
fees, prescription drugs and hospital rooms (Guthrie and Parker, 2016). Dental and optical
care was also included in the overall benefits package. The life insurance was also provided
to the employees in order to protect their family. The benefits are provided to usually spouse
and children. The companies applying in a company also determines whether the company

Management 5
provides insurance or not (Bebbington, Russell, S and Thomson, 2017). It even helped the
company to improve the bottom line by engaging employees to contribute to the wellbeing
programs like Virgin Pulse.
Donation: Aristocrat organized a campaign for the benefit of the community. The campaign
provided 3 days training in order to uplift the lower section of the society. The skills were
taught to the employees so that they can go choose employability as per their interest. Some
employees on the other side choose the option for the entrepreneurship. It assisted the
community in uplifting their level as a source of employment was created. The employability
rate was also improved (Gualandris, et al. 2015).
Role of the items of the information in the business decision
The company was able to attain 2 million profits out of which Aristocrat decided to use 3 lacs
for the employees’ benefits and donation. The amount was used by the company for the
medical assistance of the employees. The amount was also used for developing campaigns.
The information helped in saving tax. The amount invested in the employee benefits and
donation provided benefit not only to the employees and community but to the business also.
The organization also used the information to evaluate talent in the community which helped
to get new employees in the organization (Fiondella, et al. 2016).
The employee welfare fund provided by the company helped in retaining employees. The
benefits provided to the employees like medical has a great role in retaining them for a long
time. The additional benefits provided lure to the employees (Cormack, et al. 2006).
The value created by CSR activities
Sustainable products and technologies created value for the organization. The CSR activities
assisted Aristocrat in maintaining a strong commitment to responsible game play in the
community. The CSR activates even insure implementation if the policies which address the
gambling problems without impacting the majority of the people who gamble recreationally
and responsibly. The CSR activities even generated awareness and education for the players.
It aims to provide information to the players which enable them in making informed
decisions while gaming (Feeney and Pierce, 2016).

Management 6
Aristocrat solved the problem of the employees with gambling which impacted their lives.
Playing products responsibly assisted in understanding the nature of gambling and the options
available which have a problem with gambling. In order to foster integrity at work, the
employees are provided with the information during induction. The employee benefits are
discussed along with the campaigns for the benefit of the employees and customers. It also
assists the business with the opportunity to demonstrate employees. The benefit of the
employees helps in increasing engagement of the business with the industry associations (De
Villiers and Maroun, 2017).
Business
The fish game is one of the games developed by Aristocrat. The company charges $2.99 for
the game (Big fish, 2019). The costs incurred in developing games are given below:
Variable cost: Internet connectivity
Fixed cost: Salary of the technical staff
Direct cost: Collection of data, Game designing expenses
Indirect cost: Research and development, marketing and testing
The high data is required in order to develop games. The usage of data varies as per the
length of the game. The price charged for data depends on the consumption of data. The
updating of the game also incurs high data. The salary of the expertise developing games will
require to be paid on a regular basis, not on the number of games developed. Any problem
faced in the game is maintained by the expertise on a regular basis.
There are also some direct costs which area associated with the games. The game design is
required at the planning stage where gameplay, levels, target users are renowned. Without
game designing, it can get complex to control and coordinate mobile game development. The
collection of data is required before designing a game. On the other side, some indirect cost is
also incurred like research and development, marketing and testing. The staff is required for
making research and development time on time. Such staff predicts the trend of the games
going on in the market along with the preferences of the customers. It is challenging to viral
the game. The company is required to invest in the advertisements so that users can be
attracted and acquired. Other than the investment is also made in social media engagement

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marketing. The testing is also conducted by the company to ignore the negative experience of
the users. So it is must to maintain the budget for the testing.

Management 8
References
Arnaboldi, M., Busco, C. and Cuganesan, S., 2017. Accounting, accountability, social media
and big data: revolution or hype?. Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal, 30(4),
pp.762-776.
Big fish, 2019. A new game every day. Online available at
https://www.bigfishgames.com/download-games/top-pc-games.html [Accessed on 11/05/
2019].
Bebbington, J., Russell, S. and Thomson, I., 2017. Accounting and sustainable development:
Reflections and propositions. Critical Perspectives on Accounting, 48, pp.21-34.
Cormack, W.G., Woods, L.B., Gartner, R.J. and Allardice, C.W., Aristocrat Technologies
Australia Pty Ltd, 2006. Gaming machine with free game play. U.S. Patent 7,070,501.
De Villiers, C. and Maroun, W. eds., 2017. Sustainability accounting and integrated
reporting. Routledge.
Feeney, O. and Pierce, B., 2016. Strong structuration theory and accounting information: an
empirical study. Accounting, auditing & accountability journal, 29(7), pp.1152-1176.
Fiondella, C., Macchioni, R., Maffei, M. and Spanò, R., 2016, September. Successful
changes in management accounting systems: A healthcare case study. In Accounting
Forum (Vol. 40, No. 3, pp. 186-204). Taylor & Francis.
Gualandris, J., Klassen, R.D., Vachon, S. and Kalchschmidt, M., 2015. Sustainable
evaluation and verification in supply chains: Aligning and leveraging accountability to
stakeholders. Journal of Operations Management, 38, pp.1-13.
Guthrie, J. and Parker, L.D., 2016. Whither the accounting profession, accountants and
accounting researchers? Commentary and projections. Accounting, Auditing & Accountability
Journal, 29(1), pp.2-10.
Kazadi, K., Lievens, A. and Mahr, D., 2016. Stakeholder co-creation during the innovation
process: Identifying capabilities for knowledge creation among multiple
stakeholders. Journal of Business Research, 69(2), pp.525-540.

Management 9
Killian, S. and O'Regan, P., 2016. Social accounting and the co-creation of corporate
legitimacy. Accounting, Organizations and Society, 50, pp.1-12.
Markham, F. and Young, M., 2015. “Big gambling”: the rise of the global industry-state
gambling complex.
Merkl-Davies, D.M. and Brennan, N.M., 2017. A theoretical framework of external
accounting communication: Research perspectives, traditions, and theories. Accounting,
Auditing & Accountability Journal, 30(2), pp.433-469.
Voinov, A., Kolagani, N., McCall, M.K., Glynn, P.D., Kragt, M.E., Ostermann, F.O., Pierce,
S.A. and Ramu, P., 2016. Modelling with stakeholders–next generation. Environmental
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Walker, S.P., 2016. Revisiting the roles of accounting in society. Accounting, Organizations
and Society, 49, pp.41-50.