Author: chris

Describe the culture of interest and explain why this culture interests you, include whether it is a collectivistic or individualistic culture.
Describe the culture you most identify with and its characteristics, include whether it is a collectivistic or individualistic culture.
Compare similarities and differences related to time orientation, communication, physical and mental health, group relationships, and perceptions and measures of intelligence between your culture of interest and your own culture.
Describe a theory that will guide your analysis of both cultures.
Based on the theory, explain how each culture influences human development, identity development, and personality development within it.
Based on the theory, explain how each culture influences the expression of emotion, the development of morality, gender, aggression, and one other psychological process within it.
Explain any biases that may influence your analysis of these cultures and explain why

The National Association of Trauma Specialists (NATS) has a monthly newsletter, Traumatic, that focuses on research findings in brief, the association’s lobbying efforts at the state and national levels, and interpretations of and opinions about proposed legislation that may affect emergency care.
The NATS leadership now wants to produce a second monthly newsletter.
This new one will focus on the people who provide emergency care. The idea behind this newsletter is to humanize the process for NATS members.
The thinking is that the stress level is so high among people who work in emergency medicine that a newsletter is needed whose content is very personal, empathetic and inspiring, thus making people feel better about themselves and their work.
Your supervisor at ProCom has asked you to come up with a name, an editorial treatment, and a design for this newsletter.
Here are four general steps for this assignment:

1. Name the newsletter. (Explain why you selected this title.) How do you plan to distribute it (mail, e-mail, Web site link, etc.)? What is its tone?

2. Develop a list of information categories that will appear in each issue. Don’t forget to consider items of interest to employees. Your newsletter must include two-way communication (NATS officials to NATS members as well as NATS members to NATS officials.)

3. Prepare several short articles (an average of three to five paragraphs each) to bring your information categories to life. Strong verbs and short sentences work best. Feel free to add direct quotes by NATS officials and/or employees.

4. Come up with a workable design. (You may use a newsletter template.)

5. Add appropriate headlines and headers above your articles and information categories.
Note: The newsletter should be created in Microsoft Word, thus keeping everyone on the same page. Please read Chapter 14 (Newsletters) in your textbook before starting work on
this assignment.

1. What is performance budgeting?
2. What are the steps that make up performance budgeting?
3. When is performance budgeting appropriate?
4. What are some key performance areas for a nursing unit?
5. What is the principal way in which budgets create motivation and provide opportunities for evaluation?
6. What are several incentive approaches? Are there weaknesses to any of the approaches?
7. What is meant by “favorable” or “unfavorable” variance?
8. What are some possible causes of variances?
9. What is the essence of flexible budget variance analysis?
10. Does flexible budget variance analysis explain the cause of variances observed?
11. Why is variance analysis performed?

 

Flexible budget. The Chief Nurse Executive of a hospital is interested in making a quick assessment about performance for the year. The nursing department budget for the year was $10 million and actual expenses were $14 million. However, department fixed costs were budgeted at $4 million. The hospital expected to have 1,000 admissions. The hospital actually had 1,300 admissions.

a. What were the budgeted variable costs per patient?
b. What is the flexible budget for 1,300 patients?
c. How much over or under budget was the hospital, taking into account the volume of patients?  Be sure to indicate “over” or “under” as well as giving the amount in your answer

What kind of commentary are the stories in Japan’s Eternal Storehouse on Edo merchant society? In particular, think about Saikaku’s (((Saikaku-Japans Eternal Storehouse.pdf) use of irony

Your final project in this class is a final case analysis intended to help you demonstrate your ability to integrate principles of ethical decision-making in the public sector.  By using the concepts we have studied in this course to analyze a real-world example, you are expected to find and present an analysis of a case containing an ethics dilemma from the field of public administration or non-profit management.  Your analysis should demonstrate solid knowledge of ethical concepts learned during the class, as well as the ability to use the ethics literature for analyzing ethics issues and supporting your arguments.

This final project should be completed as an individual effort.  Using other people’s ideas and concepts covered during class is permissible, as long as you give credit to the source.

Deliverables

 

A well-written case analysis will engage the ethical frameworks and historic traditions discussed in class, as well as key ethics concepts such as traditional public administration values; the public and public interest; ethical leadership and integrity; professional ethical standards; individual responsibility; etc.  In addition, a good paper will include your personal judgment of the situation and your recommendations regarding the most ethically appropriate course of action.

Grades for the final paper will reflect the quality of your analysis and writing, and will be based on your performance within the following categories:

ü  Clarity of thesis and overall quality

ü  Concept development and completeness

ü  Critical thinking and application

ü  Sources, evidence and bibliography

ü  Professional language, format and style

You are required to submit a one-page proposal for your final case analysis on November 7 via Blackboard before class.

Steps to Writing a Successful Case Analysis

A. Identify a Case

Identify a real-life (not hypothetical) case containing an ethics dilemma in public administration or non-profit management:

• The case should involve a meaningful ethical dilemma, and there should be several probable alternatives/solutions. Choose a situation in which the ethical dilemma is clearly identifiable.  If situation is highly complex or involves a number of players, consider examining only limited aspects of the situation.

• You may choose a case which involves any level of government – local, state, or federal – or non-profit management. You may also choose an international case involving public administration or non-profit management, as long as your paper provides sufficient background to understand the case.
• You may choose a case that involves a public organization in which you currently work or worked in the past, as long as you were not personally involved in the situation. Please provide sufficient background information about the case and its circumstances.

• The case may cover one of the topics discussed in class (leadership and integrity, whistle blowing, ethics of dissent and guerilla government, street-level bureaucracy, non-profit management, privatization) or an approved topic of your choice.
• The case can involve a current or historical issue.

• You may not choose a case that has already been analyzed in our class or literature. The analysis must be your original work. 

B. Research the Issue:

Your case analysis should be based on facts, not conjecture or mere assumptions. You must take appropriate steps to learn about the issue.

The sources of information about a case may include:

–          Newspapers and electronic media

–          Library materials (including electronic resources)

–          Web sites of relevant professional organizations (ASPA, ICMA, etc.)

–          Scholarly journals or articles

–          Interviews with people involved in a case (least preferred option)

 

Please include appropriate references of the sources used for the case analysis in your final paper.

C. Analyze the Case

Use the analytical frameworks and decision-making tools from this course to analyze the ethical issue facing a public administrator or a public organization in the case, and suggest the most ethical decision/course of action. Be attentive to how these issues and your recommendations relate to notions of the public interest and public values. Please, reference the source of the approaches you use.

Your case analysis at a minimum should include:

• General description of the case, key actors, ethics issue involved, and groups of public affected.
• Consideration of objective responsibilities (e.g., To whom was the public administrator being held accountable? What was the public administrator obligated to do?  Were there any laws, policies, or regulations involved?) or subjective responsibilities, if known.
• The application of Terry Cooper’s Prescriptive Decision-Making Model to your ethical thinking and decision making process.
• The application of at least one of the major historical traditions of ethical thinking (teleology, deontology, virtue theory and intuitionism) to evaluating potential courses of action.
• Your recommended ethical decision/course of actions. Your recommendation should be clear and logical. You should develop a structured argument or several arguments explaining why you made a particular ethical choice. (Remember that this is not a narrative.  Recommendations should be written using a professional tone/voice.)
• Assessment of the extent to which decisions or actions recommended promise to be effective or were effective.

1. 1.      What does it mean to take a “design approach” to ethical decision making?               

             There are four steps of the design approach to ethical decision making. First, begin with an assumption of uncertainty, and acknowledge the ambiguities. Second, defining the problem too narrowly, simply, or statically may mot address the fundamental factors involved in misconduct. Third, resolving ethical problems always must be done within certain constraints of time and may require pursuing multiple solutions at once. Fourth, ethical problems in public administration almost always take place in an organizational setting that either encourage or impedes ethical conduct, or both. And the ethical problem at hand will certainly give rise to other implications.

• 2.      What is the difference between a descriptive and a prescriptive ethical decision-making model?

             Descriptive model of decision making: Expressive level, the moral rules level the ethical analysis level , post-ethical level.

Prescriptive model of decision making: 1) Perception of an ethical problem 2) The descriptive Task 3) Identifying alternative courses of action 4) Projecting Probable consequence 5) Finding a fit.

• 3.      What is the difference between absolutism and relativist approaches to ethics?

The Absolutism is the theory that certain things are right or wrong from an objective point of view and cannot change according to culture. Certain actions are intrinsically right or wrong, which means they are right or wrong in themselves. This is also known as deontological. The relativist is the theory that there are no universally valid moral principles. All principles and values are relative to a particular culture or age. Ethical relativism means that there is no such thing as good “in itself”, but if an action seems good to you and bad to me, that is it, and there is no objective basis for us to discover the truth. This theory is also known as teleological.

• 4.      What are conflicts of authority?

Conflicts between two or more objective responsibilities imposed on us by two or more sources of authority, such as law, organizational superiors, elected officials, and the public.

• 5.      What are role conflicts?
•              Conflicts between the administrative role and one or more of our roles outside the work organization, for example, professional organizations, religious affiliations. Moreover, conflicts between inside role and inside role such as role as supervisor and role as member of department.
• 6.      Explain the difference between internal and external controls.

People with an internal locus of control, such as entrepreneurs, believe they are masters of their own fate. Those with an external locus of control attribute their behavior and its results to situational forces.

 The following questions are worth two points each.  Each answer should be no longer than one to two pages (typed 12 point font, double-spaced).  Partial credit may be awarded.

 7.      Describe the four historical ethical traditions and how they differ.

Deontological ethics; this is also referred to as the duty based ethics. Deontologists agree or believe that the ethical values tie you to your duty and they also look at the wrongness or rightness of the consequences of the actions done. This ethical practice looks at the people’s fidelity to principle and disregards all the consequences of that action, when trying to determine what is morally right.

Virtue ethics; this ethical tradition focused more on an individual character other than the formal rules or consequences for the actions of the individual. The vital parts of the virtue ethical thinking were majorly based on the ethical thinking of the ancient and also medieval period. Virtue ethics includes detailed account of the purpose of the life of a human being.

Teleological ethics; this refers to those moral theories that hold that the consequences of the actions of any individual, forms the groundwork for whatever moral judgment regarding the particular action. Therefore; a morally right action is the one that gives the best outcome.

Intuition ethics; this is basically based on three grounds. There exists objective moral truths that are very independent to human beings; these are the basic truths that cannot be broken into parts, and thirdly humans discover these truths by using their brains in a specific way. Intuitionism does not imply that all the moral decisions are arrived at by intuition, but intuition only facilitate the discovery of these moral truths.

• 8.      Please explain the concept of objective responsibility, including forms of objective responsibility.  In your own words, please explain the concept of subjective responsibility, including the meanings of values, beliefs, and attitudes.  Give examples of both.

Subjective responsibility is anchored on our own individual beliefs regarding loyalty, self-conscience, and also identification. Subjective responsibility while undertaking out administrative concerns shows the type of professional ethical one has developed through his or her personal experience. Human beings always believe in being legal, and due to this, we are moved by our conscience to always act in a certain way. For example, one could be faced with a problem on the highway, though one will not have the objective responsibility for trying to reduce dangerous conditions, one might have an immense pressure concerning kids safety. At times, our subjective responsibility always reinforce an individual’s objective responsibility and at times not.

Beliefs could be descriptive, for example “I believe clay is a type of soil”, evaluative “ I believe clay is good for moulding”, or also prescriptive “I believe more research should be carried out to determine the importance of clay in human.” Beliefs always try to develop in us predispositions to try and respond in a certain way to the situations we are facing.

Values are forms of beliefs but are more basic than all the other beliefs. They are more central to our system of belief and hence to our attitude. They are the beliefs on how we should always relate. Values play a critical value in the experience of human beings. Values do not come from our cognitive relationship with the environment but they also shape how we view the world. For example, as an officer of the state you should never accept any form of bribery. Refusing to corrupt is one highly respectable value.

 

Objective
During your second work term, you will write a Career
Development Report. Engineers must understand the
marketplace and the job opportunities that exist within a
particular industry sector. Researching and writing this report
will give you a better understanding of factors influencing
employment in your industry sector.
To write this report, you will research the area of industry where
you are currently employed, and an area of industry where you
would like to work in your future co-op work terms.
How to Begin Your Report
Identify, from the table below, the industry sector that you are
currently working in as well as the industry sector that you would
like to work within for future co-op work terms.