Deliverable Length:

1,200-1,500 words

Details:

Weekly tasks or assignments (Individual or Group Projects) will be due by Monday and late submissions will be assigned a late penalty in accordance with the late penalty policy found in the syllabus. NOTE: All submission posting times are based on midnight Central Time. First Draft of your Key Assignment This will be a first draft of your Individual Project for the Key Assignment. Prepare your first draft of the paper, submit it to your professor, and then post it to the Discussion Board so that your professor and colleagues can comment and provide feedback before you revise it for your final submission in Week 5. Please use proper grammar, rules of English composition, and APA style. In Weeks 1-3, you looked at many foundational topics related to ethics. You examined basic ethical issues you might encounter in the workplace and “philosophy of life” of ethical theorists; you applied basic ethical principles to situations that may challenge your own principles; you developed a personal mission statement; and you identified ethical issues from a workplace case study. This Key Assignment will take some of those concepts a step further. For this Key Assignment, you will assume a leadership role in an organization, and you will be required to develop a new section of your business’s code of ethics to permanently address the ethical issue you have identified. For this task, you will have 3 primary responsibilities or deliverables: Identify and clearly describe an ethical issue. Articulate a code of ethics that you feel is appropriate to address the ethical issue. Apply your code of ethics, along with concepts of leadership and integrity to arrive at your ultimate resolution to the ethical issue chosen. The task will be divided into 3 sections-one to address each of the above deliverables. Part 1: Identifying the Ethical Issue There are a number of ethical issues related to business. The first step in this task will be for you to choose an ethical issue on which to base the remainder of your Key Assignment. Following is a list of potential business-related ethical issues from which you may choose, or you may identify an ethical issue not listed below based on your own research, or based on your own personal and/or professional experiences. For Part 1 of this task, you are to identify and describe your chosen business-related ethical issue. For Part 1, identifying and describing your chosen business-related means that you are to do the following: State the ethical issue chosen from the list, or state the ethical issue you have chosen that is not from the list. For example, “I have chosen to use the following ethical issue for this assignment: deceptive advertising.” Provide a fact-based scenario that will illustrate to your audience the ethical issue involved. For example, The company General Gadgets, Inc. has been in business for 30 years, but in the last 10 years, it has watched its sales continually plummet because of increased competition in the market. General Gadgets held a 50% market share through the year 2001, but it has watched that market share dwindle to 5% in 2010. In an effort to boost its lagging sales, Widgets, Inc. has hired a marketing firm, Sell It Like It Is Marketing, LLC, to come up with a new marketing campaign. You are the vice president are are in charge of corporate social responsibility (CSR) for General Gadgets, Inc. It has been brought to your attention that the marketing campaign being put together is going to do more than just bend the truth a little in terms of claims about the durability of General Gadgets, Inc.’s newest product. Discuss the impact that this ethical issue may have on all interested parties. For example “As the VP of CSR, your concern is that this marketing campaign may have a long-term negative impact on the business, despite the potential short-term revenue boost. It could damage the company’s reputation; it could increase the potential for product-related lawsuits; and internally, it could further erode the employee’s faith in leadership, which has taken a hit as a result in the downward direction of the business in general.” The examples provided do not represent complete answers, but serve only as examples to provide a little direction for you in getting started. Your answers should go into more detail so that the reader does not have basic questions related to the issue involved or the facts of your scenario. Also, the more detail you use when developing your fact scenario, the easier it will be to complete Part 3 of this assignment. Following is a list of potential business-related ethical issues from which to choose. Keep in mind that this list is not exhaustive, and you may choose an issue not from this list. Whether you are choosing from this list or from outside of this list, it is important that you focus your energies on the last two sections above, so that the reader has a clear picture of the issue and the facts going forward. Omitting the details of certain side effects of drugs by pharmaceutical manufacturers Manufacturing products that are designed to fail sooner to generate repeat business (built in obsolescence) Selling products that the company knows are harmful or addictive to consumers In a retail setting, profiling potential customers based on race, age, religion, etc. (for example, following a customer around while he shops because of his appearance) Bait and switch tactics Deceptive advertising Deceptive packaging or wasteful or unnecessary packaging The number of minorities or women in positions of senior leadership in an organization Bribing of government officials to obtain contracts Using insider information Ignoring health and safety concerns in the workplace The deliverable length for Part 1 should be at least 400 words in length. Part 2: Develop a Business Code of Ethics Now that you have identified for your reader the details involved with your proposed business-related ethical issue, you must determine what rules need to be in place for the organization to eliminate or reduce this issue as a problem for the company going forward. A code of ethics may help to eliminate some of the differences of opinion when faced with an ethical decision-making situation. Two intelligent professionals may view a situation differently. Their own morals and personal experiences may cause them to reach different conclusion as to acceptable behavior in the circumstance. A code of ethics will make clear what the right thing to do is in that situation. When professional organizations create a code of ethics, this code serves the purpose of unifying or compromising differences in morality. Two people with differing personal values can share a set of values that they agree will promote their particular profession. Why are the rules important? The rules are important because they promote a particular standard of ethical behavior. This means that the rules set a minimum standard, a baseline, with respect to certain levels of acceptable behavior expected of all members of the organization. For Part 2 of this Key Assignment, you are to prepare a detailed code of ethics/code of conduct designed to address the ethical issue you described in Part 1. Use the Internet, the library, and other credible sources to find examples of existing codes of ethics/codes of conduct, for an idea of how to format or structure your code of ethics. Please tailor your code of ethics to the specific industry you have chosen for your fact scenario. For this task, you can create a general code of ethics for those areas that do not deal with your chosen ethical issue. However, for those sections of your code of ethics that deal specifically with your chosen ethical issue, please make certain that you go into detail. For example, based on the General Gadgets, Inc., scenario discussed in Part 1, the code of ethics does not need to go into detail on the subject of conflicts of interest, but it should go into detail on the subject of marketing responsibly and securing the trust of customers. Remember: Design your code of ethics to provide guidance for an employee faced with an ethical decision-making opportunity. Keep in mind that guidance does not mean that the code of ethics will always tell the employee specifically what he or she should do in every situation. However, it should provide sufficient direction that a thoughtful, well-meaning employee should be able to determine the course of action she or he should take, including seeking out advice from a superior, or a particular department or group within the organization. Your proposed code of ethics should include comments for the sections addressing the ethical issue that is the focus of this assignment. Your comments should indicate why each provision is important, and how it is intended to address the chosen ethical issue.

Here is my outline that you would have to work from:

For week 5 we have been assigned a final project which we will do a rough draft in phase 4. In phase 1 we had an introduction to ethics and reviewed Ethics, Morals and Values. We gave examples on how we perceive and interpret them. We also covered some philosophers and how philosophy is incorporated into our life both professional and personal. In phase 2 we covered Ethical theories and how corruption affects us in the work place. In phase 3 we covered critical thinking and personal ethics. We covered professional business statements and how we could use personal mission statements.

In the next 2 phases we will corporate and professional ethics, and applying personal and professional ethics. The following is a simple outline of Phase 4 Individual project which will be a rough draft of Phase 5 final project.

Part 1

Ethical issues related to business:

1. Bribing of government officials to obtain contracts

2. Using insider information

These ethical issues that are illegal could ruin a company’s reputation and in some cases the company could go out of business company’s owners and officials that are involved could serve jail sentences. I chose two because I believe that are related.

Part 2

Code of ethics:

• Integrity
• Respect
• Performance Excellence
• Accountability

The code of ethics could be really long but it is broken down into categories which are mentioned above. The violation described in part 1 falls under integrity.

 

11) Management science modeling techniques provide results that are known with certainty.

12) The term “sensitivity analysis” refers to testing how a problem solution reacts to changes in one or more of the model parameters.

13) Fixed costs depend on the number of items produced.

14) Variable costs depend on the number of items produced.

15) Fixed cost is the difference between total cost and total variable cost.

16) The break-even point is the volume that equates total revenue with total cost.

17) In general, an increase in price increases the break-even point if all costs are held constant.

18) If variable costs increase, but price and fixed costs are held constant, the break-even point will decrease.

19) Managers utilize spreadsheets to conduct their own analyses in management science studies.

20) Management science techniques focus primarily on observation, model construction, and implementation to find an appropriate solution to a problem.

21) Management science modeling techniques focus on model construction and problem solution.

22) A typical objective function might be written as 3S + 2R + 5Z ≤ 20.

23) Decision Support Systems (DSS) use computers to help decision makers address complex problems.

24) In both an objective function and a constraint, the decision variables are represented by numbers.

25) Constraints usually appear as equations that are less than, equal to, or greater than a parameter.

26) Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system is a data-oriented decision support system that utilizes specific management science solution procedures to solve individual problems such as cost-volume analysis.

27) A key element of a decision support system (DSS) is the person using the system.

28) Electronic data interchange (EDI) is a type of decision support system.

29) A ________ is a symbol used to represent an item that can take on any value.

30) ________ are known, constant values that are coefficients of variables in equations.

31) ________ are pieces of information from the problem environment.

32) A ________ is a functional relationship including variables, parameters, and equations.

33) Management science techniques include ________ techniques, models that are represented as diagrams, presenting a pictorial representation of the system being analyzed.

34) An increase in output typically results in an increase in the ________ cost.

35) ________ techniques provide results that contain uncertainty, unlike mathematical programming techniques which are deterministic.

36) ________ costs are independent of the volume of goods produced and remain constant.

38) ________ depend on the number of items produced.

37) The difference between volume multiplied by price and the sum of fixed and variable costs is ________.

 

39) Total revenue minus total cost equals ________.

40) The ________ is the volume that equates total revenue with total cost.

2. Tony M. is a 46 year-old Native American male with a history of hypertension (140/95), elevated serum cholesterol (240 mg/dl), and hypothyroidism. He takes a potassium-depleting diuretic. He recently bought an exercise bike for indoor use and has started a walking program. He also plans to avoid all table salt and to begin reading labels when he goes to the grocery store.

a. What concerns do you have about his intake of iodine, since he plans to avoid table salt? In what other foods might he consume iodine?

b. Tony’s usual diet, which is low in fruits and vegetables, could be low in which minerals? What suggestions do you have for increasing the intake of these minerals?

c. Tony drinks very little milk. What would you recommend for including more calcium in his diet?

d. Fluoridated water is not available. Does this concern you?

3. Mrs. Atkinson has recently seen and heard a lot about the amount of salt in foods. She has been surprised by the number of nutrition web sites that recommend that people decrease the amount of salt in their food. If sodium is such a bad thing, Mrs. Atkinson wonders, why do you need to have any at all? How would you explain this to her?

4. Evelina is a vegan. She stopped eating meat and dairy products when she was a teenager. She is now in her late twenties. She wants to start a family but is concerned about whether she can obtain enough calcium in her diet to ensure her baby’s health. She is also concerned that she might be at risk for osteoporosis. How can Evelina consume enough calcium to meet her own and her baby’s needs?

5. Keep a record of all the food you eat (including portions) over a two day period. You MUST use the 13th edition of Whitney and Rolfes to answer this question. Please note, credit will not be given if your food record is not realistic for two days – recording only a few foods is not realistic. Please do your own work! Answer the following:

a. Using Appendix H of your text, determine how much iron you took in. Show your work to include DA+ code numbers. If your menu item is not listed in Appendix H, use the entry closest to what you ate.

b. Using the DRI table (page B) what is your daily requirement for iron and have you met it? Why or why not?

c. What food groups are considered to be good sources of iron in the American diet?

d. Since iron’s relationship with health is well established, do you take any type of iron supplement in order to meet your dietary needs? If so, what type of iron do you take?

6. Apryl has been diagnosed with iron-deficiency anemia. Her friend Bruce, who is taking a nutrition class, suggested that she take extra vitamin C every day. Apryl is confused by this advice, since her doctor told her to increase the amount of iron in her diet, not the amount of vitamin C. How can Bruce explain his recommendation to her?

7. As Highlight 13 points out, while food was once just food, today food can be and is used as medicine. Discuss some pros and cons of that philosophy.

Scenario Two: Cost Club and Week Three and Four reading assignments Evaluate the facts presented in the scenario, located on the student website, by applying the relevant legal principles from the reading assignments for Weeks Three and Four. Be sure to meet the requirements as stated in Scenario Two, particularly in the Confidential Update. Write the memo to your boss in 1,050 to 1,400 words that meets the requirements as stated in Scenario Two. Scenario Two: Cost Club Human Resources Department Background This is a continuation of the facts presented in Scenario One. If necessary, review Scenario One before reading Scenario Two. In Scenario One, you assumed the role of Assistant Manager of Human Resources (HR) for a regional office of Cost Club. Your first assignment was to address important issues presented in five messages that your boss, the HR Manager Pat (Pat’s last name is the same as your course facilitator) forwarded to you. Now that you have dealt with those five messages, you are given a broader assignment with more responsibility. Downsizing the Human Resources Department Your boss, Pat, sends you this e-mail: Confidential Update “We currently have eight employees in the HR department, not counting you as assistant manager, and me as department manager. Because of factors beyond our control, we must downsize the department from eight employees to five, and there is NO alternative other than terminating the employment of the three selected. Corporate policy dictates that our region is not authorized to offer any early retirement, conversion to another department, or other less-severe ways of dealing with the downsizing. We must simply discharge three employees, so five will have to do the work of eight. I realize this is a challenging task, especially when you’ve only been here a few weeks. Nevertheless, this may be best, because you don’t have any personal relationships and you can be objective and operate in the best interests of the company. Please provide me with a memo that identifies the employees you believe should be discharged. Include an explanation of what principles of employment law are relevant in the case of each of the three employees: State what the employee would have to prove to win a case of discrimination against us and whether you believe an employee would win the case, based on the facts presented below. Also, indicate what actions management should initiate to put ourselves in the best possible position with regard to each employee’s possible claim of discrimination. Our region encompasses several states, so don’t consider any state laws—just the relevant federal law relating to employment and discrimination. Please send me your recommendations about who to discharge in a memo, and provide any legal references that are relevant. In addition, explain how we should incorporate the relevant legal requirements into the process of termination and the dispute resolution process that we might need if employees raise an objection to the discharge. Finally, I’d like your thoughts on what process we should use to respond to any charge of discrimination from the employees who are discharged. We want to effectively deal with such charges, especially in a climate of downsizing. I don’t have a lot of time for this, so in your memo, please don’t exceed four pages—1400 words. Keep in mind that your memo may become part of the official record, so it’s important to write in a very professional, grammatically-correct manner. I’m also concerned that with so many elements for each of the three employees you select, the message could get confusing, so I’d appreciate you using a table or some other display format that enables me to make comparisons easily. As you know, time is money! -Pat You quietly review the personnel and performance assessment records of each of the eight employees, and you learn the following about them: Abigail is a 28-year old white female personnel specialist who on some occasions acted as a manager in the HR department when the manager or assistant was absent for a week or more. Abigail has a B.S. in Business, and seven years of experience in HR work. She has developed average capability in a variety of HR roles, including record keeping, employee discharge and discipline, and development of the company safety plan. She is considered to be an expert in the area of hiring and training. She also represents the company whenever there are claims for unemployment or workers’ compensation benefits. Abigail is a single woman with no family in the city. Brad has the office next to Abigail. Brad has been with the company for 35 years, and has devoted himself to the business. He has no family to distract him from nearly continuous work with the company. Brad’s only significant activity outside work is his hobby, which is investments. He has made achievements with investing, and is now quite wealthy. Brad is competent in safety, matters of discharge and discipline, and is considered expert in records management. He also is the chief representative for the department in unemployment and workers’ compensation hearings, and is judged to be expert at it. A Morgan Freeman look-alike, Brad is well-liked by the others and is something of a father figure in the unit. Like Abigail, he has frequently acted as department manager or assistant manager during a manager’s absence of a week or more. Charles joined the company about 20 years ago, and has focused on building a deep understanding of the hiring market from which the company recruits technical workers. This knowledge has enabled the company to maintain a strategic advantage, and it always seems that the company gets the best workers in the industry. While Charles has been outstanding in this critical area, he hasn’t learned much about other HR activities, but that was acceptable, because Charles performed such an important task for the company. Charles is an openly gay male, and his lifestyle has never fit well with the majority of the workers of the company. Diane is a 30-year old expert records specialist who also handles all the complicated health care issues for employees. She covers all insurance and health care matters, and additionally deals with injury compensation and workers compensation matters for the company. Diane is a single mother of three small children, and while her work is outstanding, she has had some minor attendance problems related to sick children and other matters during her 10 years with the company. Edith handles all training matters for the company; she is currently involved in coordinating the retraining of those employees who are not being laid off. She also has some competence in the areas of discharge, discipline, and hiring. She is an older married woman who does the work for the love of it, because her husband makes enough money to easily support both of them. She’s been with the organization for 25 years. Some time ago, Edith filed a series of sexual harassment claims against a senior management official in the finance area. The case was settled quickly with an apology and some compensation paid, although Edith has quietly worried since then that there might be retaliation for speaking up. Frank is a disabled black male who, since retiring from the military, has been with the company for 15 years. His work experience is broad, having worked in each area of the HR department at one time or another. His disability does not prevent him from doing most tasks, but for about 25% of the tasks he performs, it does take him longer. Greg has been with the Cost Club HR for 5 years, and has demonstrated considerable ability to learn complex areas quickly, although he’s not above average in any one job. While Frank has been involved in tech hiring, Greg has not. Greg’s religion prevents him from doing any work on Saturday or Sunday, so when there is weekend work, Greg will not participate, forcing other employees to have to do the weekend work more frequently. Horatio is a 22-year old Hispanic male who was hired pursuant to a settlement in an EEO case that Horatio filed; he believed he was denied employment with Cost Club, because of his limited effectiveness with the English language. The company decided that, while it did not believe it had violated Horatio’s rights in any way, it would be a good-faith demonstration for the company to hire him. There was widespread dissatisfaction with the decision to hire someone who was suing the company, so the HR department decided to take Horatio into its own operation, where he would not be exposed to the hard feelings of other employees. He was hired six months ago and is just learning health and insurance, but is still only marginally skilled. As you sift through the performance and personnel records, you wonder who will have to go, and what will happen.

Please i need this asap to be done!

My hypothesis for first assigment (part 1) is about poverty.

 

 

Writing Assignment (Part 2): Outline and Preliminary List of References
Due Week 5 and worth 100 points

Complete the outline after you have done library / Internet research for evidence that bears on your hypothesis.  Provide information about all of the following components of the final paper: 

<!–[if !supportLists]–>1.     <!–[endif]–>Specific Hypothesis.  <!–[if !supportLists]–>2.     <!–[endif]–>Applicable Sociological Concepts. <!–[if !supportLists]–>3.     <!–[endif]–>Practical Implications. Discuss the value of sociological research into your issue.  Determine whether or not there are (or would be) practical implications of sociological inquiry into this issue.   Evidence. This is the most important part of the paper. Analyze  at least two (2) lines of evidence that pertain to the hypothesis that you are evaluating.  Does the evidence support your hypothesis? For each type of evidence, consider possible biases and alternative interpretations.  Conclusions. Draw conclusions based on the evidence that you have discovered. Does the evidence confirm or refute your hypothesis? Is the evidence sufficiently convincing to draw firm conclusions about your hypothesis?

For example, here is a generic example of what the headings of your possible outline might look like:

<!–[if !supportLists]–>I.      <!–[endif]–>Specific Hypothesis. <!–[if !supportLists]–>II.     <!–[endif]–>Applicable Sociological Concepts. <!–[if !supportLists]–>a.     <!–[endif]–>Theory A <!–[if !supportLists]–>b.    <!–[endif]–>Concept 1 <!–[if !supportLists]–>c.     <!–[endif]–>Concept 2 <!–[if !supportLists]–>III.    <!–[endif]–>Practical Implications.   <!–[if !supportLists]–>a.     <!–[endif]–>Implications for public policy <!–[if !supportLists]–>                                          i.    <!–[endif]–>Education <!–[if !supportLists]–>                                         ii.    <!–[endif]–>Taxes <!–[if !supportLists]–>b.    <!–[endif]–>Implications for employers <!–[if !supportLists]–>c.     <!–[endif]–>Implications for spouses of workaholics Evidence.  Line of evidence 1 <!–[if !supportLists]–>                                          i.    <!–[endif]–>The evidence and what it means <!–[if !supportLists]–>                                         ii.    <!–[endif]–>Possible biases <!–[if !supportLists]–>                                        iii.    <!–[endif]–>Alternative explanations of what it means. Line of evidence 2 <!–[if !supportLists]–>                                          i.    <!–[endif]–>The evidence and what it means <!–[if !supportLists]–>                                         ii.    <!–[endif]–>Possible biases Conclusion(s):  All available evidence refutes the hypothesis, but there are alternative explanations.    References:  Baker, A. & Abel, E (2005)  Villagers reject modern attitudes about car washing.  International Journal of Sociology, 11, 12-57.  Retrieved from EBSCO-Host.  Doe, J.  (2010, April 1)  Villagers retain traditional attitudes despite bombardment with western television.  The New York Times.  Retrieved from www.nytimes.com/village_update Steiner, H. (2012, January 4)  Revolt against local ordinances in the village.  Time Magazine. pp. 14-15.

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; references must follow APA format. 

The specific course learning outcomes associated with this assignment are:

• Evaluate the various methodologies for sociological research.
• Apply the sociological perspective to a variety of socioeconomic and political problems.
• Critically examine how society shapes individuals and how individuals shape society.
• Use technology and information resources to research issues in sociology.
• Write clearly and concisely about sociology using proper writing mechanics.