Analysis of Unilever's Corporate Governance and Risk Strategies

This report analyzes the corporate governance practices of Unilever, a global consumer products company. It examines Unilever's risk management strategies, including its risk profile and the role of the board in overseeing risk. The report details the company's approach to risk assessment, its integration of environmental and social factors, and the role of the audit committee. It also discusses the external audit's assessment of Unilever's financial reporting and internal controls. Furthermore, the report investigates Unilever's whistleblowing policy, its benefits, and the legal framework surrounding it, supported by academic literature. Finally, the report assesses Unilever's international operations in the context of Hofstede's cultural dimensions, considering ethical implications and labor concerns in its supply chain, particularly in Vietnam. The report provides a comprehensive overview of Unilever's governance, risk management, and ethical considerations.

Running head: CORPORATE GOVERNANCE
CORPORATE GOVERNANCE
Name of the student
Name of the university
Author note

1CORPORATE GOVERNANCE
Answer to question 1
Unilever is one of the rapid progressing of consumer products in the world. They invite a
series of goods in beverages, foods, products of personal care. The achievement history can be
viewed in the yearly turnover in 2009, which was 39.8 billion worldwide and employs 163,000
workers all around the world. The main objective of Unilever Company is to supplement value to
the life of the customers. In the financial environment, the company produces wealth by adding
value to the raw materials as well as manufacturing their goods for the customers. The parties
that are engaged in the financial progress of the company include government, investors and
employees as well as many other communities that attain advantages from the performance of
the company.
Risk administration is fundamental to the strategy of Unilever and the attainment of long
term objective of the company. The achievement of the organization rests on the capability to
recognize and exploit the prospects produced by commerce. In view of this, the embedded
method to the management of risk that put risk as well as an assessment of prospects at the centre
of the board agenda. Unilever implements a risk profile that is inclined to the view of developing
the business, however decoupling ecological footmark from the development and enhancement
of the optimistic social outcome of the company. The craving for risk is motivated by the
following. Firstly the development must be competitive, consistent, responsible as well as
profitable. Secondly, the conduct should be in line with the standard of principles of business as
well as code policies. Thirdly, striving towards ongoing improvement of the functional

2CORPORATE GOVERNANCE
effectiveness and efficiency. Fourthly aiming to stabilize the single-A credit rating on the basis
of long term.
The method to the risk management is intended to facilitate reasonable, however, not
assurance, absolute that resources are protected, the risk encountered by the business are being
ascertained and mitigate. Furthermore, all data that might be necessary to revealed is informed
the senior management of Unilever company involving Chief financial officer and chief
executive officer.
The board of the company undertake overall responsibility for the administration of risk
in addition to that revising the efficiency of the risk management of Unilever and internal
regulator structure. The board created a clear managerial structure will well well-defined
responsibilities for the main risk encountered by the company in the long, medium and short
term. The managerial structure, as well as distribution of responsibilities and accountabilities,
guarantee that every nation in which they functioned has particular processes and assets for risk
mitigation and risk review. This is assisted by the Unilever Leadership Executive that take active
accountability for concentrating on the main areas of risk to the company. The board in a regular
manner revise the risk zones involving consideration of social, environmental as well as
governmental matters. In addition to that, preserve responsibility to determine the extent and
nature of the significant risk that the company arrange to take to accomplish the strategic goals.
The board instructed by the committees where regularly, appropriate reviewing the main
risk as well as the decision that could put the materialistic effect on the company. The evaluation
considers the margin of risk that the company is arranged to take in pursuance of the strategy of
the business and also the efficiency of administrative control in position to diminish the exposure
of risk. The board, through the committee of audit, have reconsidered the risk assessment,

3CORPORATE GOVERNANCE
disclosure control, internal control, as well as the processes in functioning within the company
(Mishler 2017). They have also regarded the efficiency of remedial measures adopted up to date
of authorization by board. The statement of the company on compliance with the particular
control requirements and risk management in Dutch Code of Corporate Governance, the code of
corporate governance of United Kingdom, the United States Securities Exchange Act, Sarbanes
Oxley Act, 2002 (Hopkin 2018).
The vision of the company is to develop business and unambiguously acknowledged
sustainable growth. It involves the administration of environment-related risk, as well as the
opportunities, is the only method to construct long term significance for the stakeholders. The
Unilever Sustainable Living Plan was formulated to cater to the objectives. It is completely
incorporated with the strategy of business (Lawrence, Rasche and Kenny 2019). The
environment-related issue is integral to USLP. The board on the appeal of the committee initiate
to revise the relevance of implementing the going concern base of accounting in arranging the
annual fiscal statement. Secondly whether the business was viable in pursuance with necessitates
of code of corporate governance of the United Kingdom (Oetzel and Miklian 2017). The
assessment involves revising of the main risk encountering by the company, their potential
effect, the method they were being administered along with discussion concerning the proper
time of assessment. It is recommended by the committee to the board that there is fair
anticipation that group will be capable of enduring in the functioning and fulfilling obligations as
they were due over the period of three years of the assessment (Bartlett 2015).
Answer to question 2
KPMG, the external auditors of the enterprise and the autonomous listed public
accounting firm, informed in-depth to the agency of the range and impact of an annual audit

4CORPORATE GOVERNANCE
involving the audit of the internal regulator over financial reporting as necessitating under
Section 404 of US Sarbanes Oxley Act, 2002. The report involves accounting and audit matters,
control and governance, as well as accounting developments. The committee has autonomous
conferences with the external accountants throughout the year and discussed, agreed, revised and
challenges the plan of an audit involving the assessment of financial reporting risk outline of the
group (Manners-Bell 2017). The committee talked over the dealing of and inference of KPMG
concerning the remarks and opinions and is fulfilled with the dealing in the pecuniary statements.
As part of the assessment of the internal board that is carried out in 2018, the board had
evaluated the conduct of committee. The committee also undergoes the evaluation of its own
conduct in 2018 (Bista 2019). The committee accepts that for further improving its efficiency, it
requires to guarantee the committee endure to develop the data of the operation of the group that
would implicate further site visits and knowledge sessions (McDonald 2015).
Answer to question 3
The whistleblower is the phenomenon viewed unravelling as well as a complicated
process that engages organizational and personal factors. According to Elias (2008), in his
indagation inferred that the students generally realized that whistleblowing is compulsory in
instances of trickery. Nevertheless, there are less probable to do it by themselves presumably due
to exorbitant expense engaged such as reprisal and obstruction in searching future job in a
similar profession. According to Aherm and Mc Donald and Bolsin et al. 2005, the
whistleblower policy can be demonstrated as an attempt made by the latter or existing member of
the organization to declare warning to the higher authority regarding misconduct concealed or
engendered by the institution (Do 2016). According to Carroll & Buchholtz, 2000,
whistleblowing is conflicting with the tradition that employees must not question the decision of

5CORPORATE GOVERNANCE
senior as well as their actions, especially in public. The right to speak of the employee is a
danger in cases where they consider management or firm is engaging in the impermissible act.
Thus whistleblowing is exceptionally significant moral concern that protected against the
conflicting fiscal, societal, climatic impress of the multilayered company occupying the universal
market. Therefore it is considered as a primary tool for nurturing organizational liability and sole
answerability. Many nations are now agreeing on Whistleblower Protection Legislation in order
to protect whistleblowers from public and private segments from the professional partiality such
as adjournment or deferment, demotion, reprisals, redundancy, punitive transfer, threat,
expulsion or coercion (Chene, 2009). Nielsen (2013) considered that the method various kind of
whistleblower policies can move around the obstruction and within the regulatory foundation to
efficaciously endure dishonest and illegal activities and how the performs of whistleblowing
refine ad reorient regulatory frameworks.
The values and principles that are implemented to the workers by code and policies of the
code. The employees carry out compulsory yearly training on these policies through modules of
online training and an integrity pledge of an annual business (Brown 2015). The guidelines of
business integrity involve the clear procedure for the management of breaches of codes. In the
year 2018, 1206 incidents of whistleblowing were opened. 1252, of incidents closed across all
the zones of code as well as policies of codes with 662 established breaches. The risk of business
integrity is involved as the portion of regulatory, legal and ethical principal risk. The code
policies mirror the plea to fight dishonesty in all its manner. The responsible business partner
policy and responsible sourcing policy assist in giving the prominence of the third parties to
guarantee the business values are consistent. The code of the business principles, as well as code
policies, guide the method to interact with the customers, suppliers, and governments, trade

6CORPORATE GOVERNANCE
association and non-governmental organization. The appropriate and authorized trained workers
or the representatives can involve with the group and necessitate that record must be kept of all
communication and the arrangement should be accomplished in transparent method with
integrity, honesty and openness in obedience with the legislation and in pursuance with the
values of the company.
Answer to question 4
The Hofstede theory of cross-dimensional is the structure for the cross-cultural statement
that is advanced by Geert Hofstede. It reflects the impact of the culture of the society on the
standards of associates and the way the values connect to the behaviour by the application of
structure that is derived from the factor analysis (Ionescu-Somers and Brassey 2019). Hofstede
advanced the original structure as the outcome of applying factor analysis to observe the
consequence of a worldwide survey of values of the workers by IBM between 1967 and 1973.
The original theory projected four dimensions with the cultural standards that could be examined
uncertainty avoidance, individualism-collective, masculinity-femininity, power distance
(Nacaskul 2017). Hofstede developed a cultural model fundamentally on the foundation of
differentiation in beliefs and values concerning work goals. The framework of Hofstede is
particularly implemented because it facilitates relevant data regarding differences between
nations and the method to manage the differences.
The values that make the organizational culture comprising of two contributory
determinants desired end outcomes or states that enterprise desire to attain in addition to that
desired modes of conducts that the institution motivates its workers to adopt together they
translate in specific norms, standard, rules functioning procedures that are balancing the
relationship of the member of the organization and unite assembly of the individual to form

7CORPORATE GOVERNANCE
institution (Lees 2017). According to Hofstede, 1984, cultural dissimilarities explain the
variability in the behaviour of individuals from a diverse background. Nevertheless, what is an
efficient mechanism to study cultural dissimilarities has been encounter for the scholars in the
study of cross-cultural administration. Integrity, responsibility, performance, efficiency and
quality are some of the fundamental conceptions that are viewed to be present in the global
culture of Unilever (Sáenz, Revilla and Acero 2018). The company has a uniform policy
concerning issues. The Hofstede culture model was applied to examine the nuances of work
culture in the United Kingdom. The comprehensive examination was done rest on 5 D model of
cultural dimension. From this, the global culture and corporate culture of the company was
studied. The event that was comprehensively discussed in the examination is labour concern in
the operation of the supply chain in Vietnam. The Oxfam report from 2010 to 2014 spoke
regarding the underprivileged labour situations of the employees of Unilever (Markou and
Corsten 2018). This inclined to public outrage as well as the loss of brand reputation of the
enterprise. The enterprise that is teamed with Oxfam and endeavour to rectify the procedure. The
fundamental concern of the incident and procedure of rectification is implanted by the firm to
enhance the relationship with the workers. Unilever is presently the number one market leader
and has involved in several activities of corporate social association.
Thus it can be concluded from the above-mentioned discussion that in the economic
climate, the company produces wealth by supplementing worth to the raw materials,
manufacturing their goods for the customers. The parties who are engaged in the economic
growth is government, employee, investors and several communities that welfares from the
performance of the company.

8CORPORATE GOVERNANCE
References
Mishler, M.D., 2017. Currency turmoil, price, and profit in global markets: How to manage the
risks of volatile foreign currency exchange rates. Journal of Accountancy, 223(3), p.50.
Hopkin, P., 2018. Fundamentals of risk management: understanding, evaluating and
implementing effective risk management. Kogan Page Publishers.
Lawrence, J., Rasche, A. and Kenny, K., 2019. Sustainability as opportunity: Unilever’s
sustainable living plan. In Managing Sustainable Business (pp. 435-455). Springer, Dordrecht.
Oetzel, J. and Miklian, J., 2017. Multinational enterprises, risk management, and the business
and economics of peace. Multinational Business Review.
Bartlett, C.A., 2015. Unilever’s New Global Strategy: Competing through Sustainability.
Manners-Bell, J., 2017. Supply chain risk management: understanding emerging threats to
global supply chains. Kogan Page Publishers.
Bista, S., 2019. Sustainability in Business (A critique of environmental sustainability practices in
Coca-Cola and Unilever).

9CORPORATE GOVERNANCE
McDonald, S., 2015. Managing issues through cross-sector collaboration: Unilever and
Greenpeace. Crisis communication in a digital world, pp.80-91.
Do, M., 2016. THE INTEGRATION OF SUSTAINABLE PROCUREMENT AND
MARKETING-A CASE STUDY OF UNILEVER.
Brown, L., 2015. High on the risk radar-reputation risk. Food Australia, 67(1), p.31.
Ionescu-Somers, A.M. and Brassey, J., 2019. Unilever’s Super Stretch Goal for 2020.
In Managing Sustainable Business (pp. 623-635). Springer, Dordrecht.
Nacaskul, P., 2017. Financial Risk Management and Sustainability—The Sufficiency Economy
Philosophy Nexus.
Lees, G., 2017. The management accountant as a risk manager. The Routledge Companion to
Accounting and Risk.
Sáenz, M.J., Revilla, E. and Acero, B., 2018. Aligning supply chain design for boosting
resilience. Business Horizons, 61(3), pp.443-452.
Markou, P. and Corsten, D., 2018. Financial and Operational Risk Management in the Gold
Mining Industry. Available at SSRN 3185747.

10CORPORATE GOVERNANCE
Appendix
Customer development of the company
Unilever concentrates on customers or shoppers. This portion of the company facilitates
leadership in shopping habits, trends, behaviours and habits. The department concentrates on
sales fundamentals that are applied as the basis for the category of strategy that they will
implement. The company has Customer Innovation and Insight centres that advance the
collaboration by applying global knowledge and experience with the consumers.