Category: Essays

Collaboration leverages the collective knowledge of a team. Peer evaluation and support, provided in the spirit of continuous improvement and organizational success, result in higher quality deliverables than generally possible by the efforts of an indivi

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Type: Discussion Board

Unit: Performance Management

Deliverable Length: 3-4 Paragraphs

Assignment Objectives

Rank different types of pay plans

Differentiate between various kinds of performance appraisal programs

Collaboration leverages the collective knowledge of a team. Peer evaluation and support, provided in the spirit of continuous improvement and organizational success, result in higher quality deliverables than generally possible by the efforts of an individual. Please describe the process you plan to use to conduct research, identify findings, and develop the Comprehensive Project due in Unit 5 and present a brief outline indicating how you intend to organize the project deliverable. Please review the process and outlines of other students, providing objective feedback that will help strengthen the effectiveness of their efforts and the quality of the finished product.

Based on the scale of measurement for each variable listed below, which measure of central tendency is most appropriate for describing the data?

The time (in years) it takes a sample of students to graduate college

The blood type (e.g., Type A, B, AB, O) of a group of participants

The rankings of college undergraduate academic programs

3. An expert reviews a sample of 10 scientific articles (n = 10) and records the following numbers of error in each article: 0, 4, 2, 8, 2, 3, 1, 0, 5, and 7. Compute the SS, the variance, and the standard deviation for this sample using the definitional and computational formulas.

3. Radel and colleagues (2011) conducted a study of how feeling overly controlled makes you desire—even unconsciously—more freedom. In their study, 52 Canadian undergraduates played a video game in a laboratory and were randomly assigned to either:

a. an automony deprivation condition, in which they were told to follow instructions precisely, constantly given instructions over a loudspeaker, and carefully observed on everything they did.

b. a neutral condition, which was much more laid back.

After this activity, they were asked to do a “lexical decision task” (a standard approach for measuring unconscious responses) in which they were shown a series of words and nonwords in random order and had to press “C” if it was a real word or “N” if not. Half of the real words were related to autonomy (e.g., freedom, choice) and half were neutral (e.g., whisper, hammer). The key focus of the study was on how long it took people to press the button *(“response latency”) for each kind of real word, averaged over the many words of each type. The table below shows the mean and standard deviation across the participants of these four categories of results. Thus, for example, 782 milliseconds (thousandths of a second) is the average time it took participants in the autonomy-deprived condition to respond to the autonomy-related words, and 211 is the standard deviation across the 26 participants’ average response time in that condition. Explain the numbers in this table to a person who has never had a course in statistics. (Be sure to explain some specific numbers, as well as the general principle of the mean and standard deviation.) For your interest, the pattern of results shown here supported the researchers’ hypothesis: “Relative to a neutral instructional climate, a controlling climate thwarting the need for autonomy…enhanced accessibility for autonomy-related words.” (p.924)

Due Week 9 and worth 220 points

In this assignment, you will build upon the two (2) challenges that you had identified in Assignment 2, Question 4.

Use the Internet or the Strayer Library to research articles on public agencies or non-profit organizations for which your proposed challenges may not be considered actual challenges.

Write a four to five (4-5) page paper in which you:

Propose two (2) ethical concerns that management may need to address. Create the context in which such concerns may or may not be ethical in nature. Provide a rationale for your response.
Analyze the overall manner in which organizational structure impacts organizational ethics. Select one (1) public agency or one (1) non-profit organization in which your challenges may not be considered actual challenges. Provide a rationale for your response.
Use the Inventory of Public Management Skills Management, located on pages 11 to 12 of the textbook, to construct a self-evaluation. Assess your level of development in each of the skills. Propose two (2) to three (3) activities that would help you to improve the skills in question.
Use the results of your self-evaluation and recommendations from Question 3 to formulate a response to the challenges that you have presented that creates a win-win situation for the organization, the employees, and the public. Predict two (2) potential obstacles to success and two (2) plans to overcome such obstacles.
Include at least four (4) academic references (no more than five [5] years old) from material outside the textbook and no more than one (1) governmental Website. Note: Appropriate academic resources include academic and governmental Websites, scholarly texts, and peer-reviewed articles. Wikipedia, other wikis, and any other Websites ending in anything other than “.gov” do not qualify as academic resources.

Your assignment must follow these formatting requirements:

Be typed, double spaced, using Times New Roman font (size 12), with one-inch margins on all sides; citations and references must follow APA or school-specific format. Check with your professor for any additional instructions.
Include a cover page containing the title of the assignment, the student’s name, the professor’s name, the course title, and the date. The cover page and the reference page are not included in the required assignment page length.

The specific course learning outcomes associated with this assignment are:

Rearrange public administration, both the traditional and the new approaches, from structural, functional, and process perspectives, as well as the key goals of the public and private sector.
Predict the changing nature and responsibilities for managing public and nonprofit organizations.
Critique ethics in public service and its influence on the study of public administration as it relates to political choice.
Compose the concepts of public leadership and management essential to the study of public administration.
Use technology and information resources to research issues in public administration.
Write clearly and concisely about public administration using proper writing mechanics.

Grading for this assignment will be based on answer quality, logic / organization of the paper, and language and writing skills. Click here to access the rubric for this assignment.

The Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) strategy allows businesses and organizations to offer their products and services to customers and trading partners using a standards-based integration protocol. Web Services depends on SOA for delivery. SOA uses Extensible Markup Language (XML) to exchange data and information to its products and services consumers. One of the SOA characteristics is that the integration is loosely coupled, thus simplifying integration.

Write an eight to ten (8-10) page paper in which you:

Analyze five (5) ways in which SOA reduces the total cost of ownership (TCO).
Examine five (5) ways in which using XML enables data and information exchange between clients and servers using Web Services in an SOA environment.
Compare and contrast the loosely coupled architecture to a tightly coupled architecture in terms of TCO, maintenance, and implementation issues.
Analyze three (3) advantages and three (3) disadvantages of using a standards-based integration strategy.
Use at least three (3) quality resources in this assignment. Note: Wikipedia and similar Websites do not qualify as quality resources.

Your assignment must follow these formatting requirements:

Be typed, double spaced, using Times New Roman font (size 12), with one-inch margins on all sides; citations and references must follow APA or school-specific format. Check with your professor for any additional instructions.
Include a cover page containing the title of the assignment, the student’s name, the professor’s name, the course title, and the date. The cover page and the reference page are not included in the required assignment page length

Describe changes in peer relationships in middle childhood and adolescence.

• NEEDS CITATIONS x3
• NEEDS REFERENCE 1-

According to the textbook, ongoing challenges in the global business environment are mostly attributed to unethical business practices, failure to embrace technology advancements, and stiff competition among businesses. Imagine that you have been appointed as Apple’s Chief Compliance Officer and must prepare a video presentation for Apple’s suppliers regarding Apple’s Supplier Code of Conduct to deliver via a web meeting. To prepare for your presentation, review Apple’s Supplier Code of Conduct, located at https://www.apple.com/supplier-responsibility/. Next, use a tablet, smartphone, laptop, desktop, or traditional video recorder to record a maximum of a five to seven (5-7) minute dynamic video on Apple’s Code of Conduct. Alternatively, you may submit a four to six (4-6) page paper instead of the video submission.

In addition to the recorded video, you must also create a presentation using PowerPoint (or other equivalent software) summarizing the important changes and explanations regarding the code of conduct that you communicated in your video presentation to email to the suppliers after the meeting for future reference.

You must submit both parts of the assignment to receive full credit.

Note: If you are using a tablet or smartphone you will need to email the video file to yourself, then save it to a computer in order to upload to Blackboard. You may want to upload your video to a file sharing service, such as Dropbox, if your email will not let you send a large video file. Dropbox is accessible from all smartphones and tablets from the Dropbox app.

Once you are ready to upload your video to Blackboard, view the Kaltura video tutorial found in your online course shell (Week 9).

Please use the following naming convention in the popup window for your video once it is finished uploading:

Title: Your First Name, Your Last Name – Challenges in the Business Environment
Tags: BUS475, Business Environment
Description: First Name, Last Name – BUS475 Assignment 2 (Date Uploaded ex. 11-14-2014)

Part 1: Video Presentation OR Paper

Prepare and present a video that is a maximum of five to seven (5-7) minutes OR write a four to six (4-6) page paper in which you:

List specific changes that Apple has made to its Code of Conduct in recent years. Provide at least one (1) example of each change.
Explain the identified changes to the suppliers in such a way that they will understand the standards that Apple requires in order to maintain their relationship with the company.

Part 2: PowerPoint Presentation

Create a six to eight (6-8) slide PowerPoint presentation in which you:

Summarize Apple’s Supplier Responsibility information.
Discuss Apple’s stance on each of the following areas:

Empowering workers
Labor and Human Rights
Health and Safety
The Environment
Accountability

Identify the key ways that Apple’s Progress Report has changed since last year.
Examine the manner in which Apple’s Supplier Code of Conduct helps the organization operate as a socially responsible organization.
Provide detailed speaker notes of what you would say if you were delivering the presentation.
Submit a reference page with at least two (2) quality references that you have used for this presentation / paper. Note: Wikipedia and other Websites do not qualify as academic resources.

Your PowerPoint presentation must follow these formatting requirements:

Format the PowerPoint presentation with headings on each slide and three to four (3-4) relevant graphics (photographs, graphs, clip art, etc.), ensuring that the presentation is visually appealing and readable from 18 feet away. Check with your professor for any additional instructions.
Include a title slide containing the title of the assignment, the student’s name, the professor’s name, the course title, and the date. The title and reference slides are not included in the required slide length.

If you choose the written paper, your assignment must follow these formatting requirements:

Be typed, double spaced, using Times New Roman font (size 12), with one-inch margins on all sides; citations and references must follow APA or school-specific format. Check with your professor for any additional instructions.
Include a cover page containing the title of the assignment, the student’s name, the professor’s name, the course title, and the date. The cover page and the reference page are not included in the required assignment page length.

The specific course learning outcomes associated with this assignment are:

Evaluate the influences of changing economic, political, social, cultural, and technological forces on business and society.
Use technology and information resources to research issues in business and society.
Write clearly and concisely about business and society using proper writing mechanic

You will need to write a 1-page lab report using the scientific method centered on the known phenomena of CO2 emissions, related to the following question:

• Would you expect to see an increase or decrease in CO2 emission in the data over the past 40 years? Why?

When your lab report is complete, post it in Submitted Assignment files.

Part I: In the Web site link given in the assignment description, you will see an interactive map of the world titled “GMD Measurement Locations.” You can zoom in and out and move the map around within the window. In the map, choose 5 sites that are labeled with a star, which will have CO2 concentrations. Follow the steps below to fill in the data table:

1. Click on a starred location. (One site will not have CO2 concentrations.)
2. Once the starred location opens, on the right side of the screen, click on the pictured graph “Examples of Data” for CO2.
3. Once the graph opens, make a note of the CO2 concentrations from previous years to present day. Fill in the table below.
4. Repeat steps 1–3 for all other locations.
5. Use these results in your lab report to help you assess CO2 concentration trends from 1990 to 2005.

To expand operations, firms often require more funds than can be generated from operations. These additional funds require a long-term source of capital. There are two primary means of raising the required additional funds: borrowing the funds (bonds), or selling ownership (stock shares). There is a cost to the firm of raising capital using either method. The firm expects to receive a financial benefit from the assets acquired with the raised capital. To ensure the benefit outweighs the cost of the capital, the firm must determine with some accuracy the cost of the capital and compare it to the benefit to be received. Determining the cost of borrowing is straightforward. Calculating the cost of selling shares in the firm is more complex.

Do the following to complete this assignment:

Explain the cost of capital and how it is determined.

Explain the concept of the optimal capital structure and how it can be determined.

Explain the concept of financial leverage and analyze how it can affect capital structure decisions.

Provide an example of a highly leveraged firm and estimate the leverage’s effect when the firm is doing well, and when there is a downturn in sales.

As a critical thinker, how much should knowledge about how other Americans feel about this issue affect your own position? Explain your answer.

10.4 1-Using this Climate and Energy Policy page, identify the organization that created this video, explain their stated position on the topic of climate change, and then describe the extent to which you believe this stated purpose affects their credibility.

2-This video asserts that those who believe in climate change are claiming that the earth is on fire, the planet is dying, and it’s our fault for living. Explain how this characterization of the opposing side is arguably an example of the “straw man” fallacy.

3-At one point in the video, the narrator says, “Are the people who say they want to save the planet finally going to tell you that many times the only thing that’s green about their solutions is the money lining the pockets of corporations heavily invested in so-called “green” technologies? And are they going to admit that the cost of force-feeding these technologies into every aspect of our lives could bankrupt a world already teetering on financial ruin?” Explain how these function as loaded questions.

1-Using this About Us page, identify the organization that created this video, explain their stated position on the topic of climate change, and then describe the extent to which you believe this stated purpose affects their credibility.

2-While this is a video about climate change, the beginning and end of the video spend time offering evidence that information spreads differently and we are more connected than ever before to support the fairly indisputable argument that the world has changed. Explain how this is arguably an example of the fallacy of the “red herring.”

3-At one point in the video, the narrator talks about industry “funding politicians who deliberately deny the truth” then almost immediately shows Senator Jeff Sessions. Explain how this functions as innuendo.

4-In addition to presenting verbal claims, both videos use appeals to emotion as persuasive techniques. Reflect on the language, images, and music used in the videos, and then provide one example of an appeal to emotion you see at work in each of the videos.

5-Pay attention to the pronouns used in the videos—”we,” “they,” and “you.” Why do you think the video creators chose to rely heavily on these words? Is there a difference between the way each video uses these same words?

10.5 1-During her argument, Katrina vanden Heuvel quotes a British government official who called global-warming skeptics “climate loonies.” Explain how this is arguably an ad hominem attack.

http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052970204740904577193270727472662

10.6 1-Look at the list of scientists who signed the “No Need to Panic” article and the scientists who signed the “Check with Climate Scientists” article, do a web search on at least three from each article to find out their credentials and backgrounds, and then compare your findings. Do you see any biases that might compromise their objectivity? Explain your answer.

2-The “Check with Climate Scientists” article’s opening argument consists of comparing the scientists writing the “No Need to Panic” article to dentists practicing cardiology. Do you think this is a fair argument or an example of an ad hominem attack and a weak analogy? Explain your answer.

3-At one point in the “No Need to Panic” article, the authors imply that the current state of science is beginning to resemble the time in the Soviet Union when biologists who believed in genes were sent to the gulag or condemned to death. Do you think this is a fair argument or an example of a slippery slope fallacy or a weak analogy? Explain your answer.

4-How do these articles differ in their portrayal of the economic consequences of fighting climate change, and what support does each article provide for their positions?

Review the Healthy People 2020 objectives for the older adult. Be sure to include examples and references to support your response.
There are several vulnerable populations that have a chronic illness (older; homeless; and lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender populations) that face challenges when it comes to care. Choose one vulnerable population and discuss what can be done to help alleviate these challenges.