Senior Project

Organization to use is CHKD (Children’s Hospital of the Kings Daughters)

To start, select one of the following approved topics for your Senior Project. You may also have a topic of your choice approved by the instructor in Week One.  Many of the approved topics have specific subtopics outlined and, while these topics are not all-inclusive, they do provide insight into specific areas to consider. 

Approved Topics: 

1. Examine how participative leadership functions in today’s modern health care organization and compare it to other types of leadership styles. Evaluate how each type of leadership style may impact organizational culture, employee performance, and how it may help or hinder the legitimacy of authority.
2. As an administrator, address the challenges of employee recruitment and retention of health care professionals. Additional subtopics may include trends in the nursing workforce, shortage of primary care physicians, staff turnover, retention, and staffing patterns.
3. Analyze the dual role of a manager and healthcare professional. Examine challenges that the health professional compared to those of a non-health professional, may face in terms of leadership style, and the impact these challenges have on organizational culture. The benefits of a health professional manager as an organizational resource may also be included. Explore the career trends of health professionals in organizational leadership positions, such as the types of health professional training that leaders tend to have in common, and the typical demographic background of health professional managers.
4. The health care industry must anticipate and monitor trends that could possibly affect its overall survival. Analyze how regulation of the health care industry impacts a health care organization. Explore some of the possible survival organizational strategies such as, but not limited to, mergers, and affiliations, achieving accreditation status, professional licensure.
5. Analyze the impact of technology on how health care services are delivered. The impact of technology on employee performance, organizational structure, and management planning may also be considered.
6. Analyze the impact of any recent social and/or ethical trends on the health care industry. Discuss at least two issues.

After identifying your topic, choose a health care organization in your area. This organization may be small or large and may provide single inpatient health service or multiple outpatient services; it is your choice. Consider your topic in light of the leadership of this organization and research the challenges and successes it has faced in managing operational effectiveness.  You are welcome to use as many research methods as possible to obtain information for your organization and its managers (e.g., web-based resources, electronic articles, or personal interviews). The more informed you are, the better prepared you will be to complete your project.  

Finally, develop a management training program that includes relevant guidelines and information to combat the issues identified in the selected topic, as well as recommendations for managers to more effectively lead health care organizations. Your training program should be in the form of a 20 to 25 slide PowerPoint presentation (excluding title and reference slides) that includes comprehensive speaker’s notes (i.e., at least 150 words) for each slide. Utilize at least three to five scholarly sources from the Ashford University Library and two to three current, scholarly web sources (total of five to eight references required). All sources must be cited according to APA style as outlined in the Ashford Writing Center. Your presentation must be engaging and relevant to your audience. Lines of text on a slide will not be sufficient for this project. It should contain at least five images, graphics, and/or multimedia that communicate your training clearly to your audience. For tips on creating an excellent presentation, read this overview. 

Creating the Senior Project

The Senior Project:

1. Must be 20 to 25 PowerPoint slides (excluding title and reference slides) in length. There are 20 content criteria worth a total of 10 points.  
2. Must include a title slide that contains the following:
   1. Title of project
   2. Your name
   3. Course name and number
   4. Instructor’s name
   5. Date submitted
3. Must include an introduction with a succinct thesis statement.
4. Must address the topic of the project with critical thought in the areas of:
   1. Organization details
   2. Challenges and opportunities
   3. Training program outcomes
   4. Impact on at least three stakeholder groups involved delineated by cost, quality, and access to service
   5. Suggested actions
5. Must include a conclusion that reaffirms your thesis.
6. Must use at least five supporting graphics (images, graphics, and/ or multimedia) are included and relevant communicating the training content (two points).
7. Must include speaker’s notes that have evidence of critical thinking and application (content analysis, synthesis, evaluation) related to the research methodology used to develop (six points):
   1. Project content
   2. Practical and relevant solutions to the organizational challenges/opportunities
   3. Appropriate evaluation of individual stakeholder groups involved
8. Must use at least three to five scholarly sources from the Ashford University Library and two to three current, scholarly web sources.
9. Must document all sources in APA style, as outlined in the Ashford Writing Center.
10. Must include a separate reference slide, formatted according to APA style as outlined in the Ashford Writing Center.

Assignment 2: Conducting a Job Search

An undergraduate psychology degree provides you with some flexibility when selecting a career. The knowledge of how people think, develop, and behave, as well as the interpersonal skills gained from a BA in psychology may lead to work in the field, but also prepares you well for careers in the fields of public service, marketing, or management, among others. Because most professional careers in psychology require further education, those who do not wish to pursue graduate degrees may need to broaden the scope of careers they are willing to consider.

In M1 Assignment 2, you explored your career interests and identified three careers that seemed best suited for you. In this assignment, you will conduct a mock job search and report your findings using the “Job Search Data Bank” form.

Mock Job Search

Select one of the three careers you identified and discussed in M1 Assignment 2and conduct a job search for actual openings in your area. If you are willing to eventually relocate, you may choose openings elsewhere as well. You may choose to use at least one source or all of the following sources to find available positions in your chosen career of interest:

• Local newspaper ads (online or printed editions)
• Networking websites such as LinkedIn
• Networking with colleagues, peers, or other contacts
• Your state employment office
• Listings on professional organizations’ websites

Refer to the “Job Resources” document to find additional online sources relating to online job searches.

Job Search Data Bank

Click here to download and review a copy of the “Job Search Data Bank” template. Provide the results of the mock job search you completed for this assignment by filling out the table in the template.

• Begin by summarizing your career interests. Briefly describe what you concluded from Module 1 about the types of positions best suited to your career interests. For example, if you are most interested in a career as a psychologist, would you prefer to pursue a position in a clinic, a private practice, or a nonprofit organization? Would you prefer to specialize in working with children? Do you hope to have a research or teaching position instead?
• List at least four positions you found during your job search. These four positions should match the interests you identified in Module 1.
  • Describe each position fully, providing as much of the available information as possible from the ads. Copy the ads and paste them into the table.
• For each identified job opening, indicate the likelihood of your being eligible for the position upon graduating from college with a bachelor’s degree.
  • If you would be ineligible, specify what additional training or education you would require to qualify for the position.
  • Indicate whether you are willing to pursue that additional training or education.
  • Describe the amount of time, the cost, and other resources you think you would need to invest to become qualified.
• Put the information in your own words. Place quotation marks around the portions you have quoted from the ads. Cite your sources using APA style in-text citations and a reference list in APA style below your table in the “Job Search Data Bank” template provided.

Submission Details:

• Use APA standards to cite sources. Use the following file-naming convention: M2_A2_Lastname_Firstname.doc.
• By Wednesday, March 4, 2015, deliver your assignment to the M2 Assignment 2 Dropbox.

There are no response requirements for this week. However, students are encouraged to carry on the conversation beyond just one initial post. Historically, students who participate in the discussion board more than others, maximize their learning experience. A good example would be empathizing with a student who shared a similar personal experience as you.

Brett

  There are a variety of reasons as to why I would not have chosen the human resources to be the least important department in a company and the one that I would remove from the company in this situation. However, the top two out of the five provided reasons in the case study resolution include, (2) “If HR did not keep accurate employee records and file reports that are required by law, the resulting fines and penalties would have the potential to bankrupt the organization” and (4) “Compensation and benefits are very important to employees. If an organization misses payroll or does not pay benefit claims in a timely manner, employees usually waste no time complaining to their managers. Senior managers dislike such problems”. I felt that these two factors were the most crucial due to the fact that success within a company originates from its employees and management being content” (Fallon et. al., 2013).

     If HR would not keep accurate files and records of the employees and an incident were to occur, then the company would go under to being held liable to have all records on file at all times. I have seen issues with this within a company who simply mis kept files and this led to tax evasion and the company owners going to prison for federal income tax fraud. Another example I have experienced in terms of the other factors chosen in the above paragraph, is when I work for a company and do not get paid on time or receive benefits in a timely manner, I get upset and it inclines me to work less for this company due to the fact that they are not treating me well by paying less then i am owed or possibly not on time. Overall, an HR department is crucial to the background functioning of the entire company in terms of employee and management satisfaction, as well as all the legality and tax issues a company may face.

Your initial discussion thread is due on Day 3 (Thursday) and you have until Day 7 (Monday) to respond to your classmates. Your grade will reflect both the quality of your initial post and the depth of your responses.

Considering the article, write an APA-formatted paper of 4–5 pages that addresses the following:

Part 1: Developing the Philosophical Thesis Statement 

Alfred North Whitehead’s statement: “What is morality in any given time and place? It is what the majority then and there happen to like and immorality is what they dislike” is a very controversial statement. Think about this statement as you consider the following questions as a guide to help your formulate a thesis statement. 

Select 1 of the following questions to answer and develop your thesis statement:

• Businesses can have ethical standards, but businesses are not moral agents. Do you agree or disagree? 
• Is it true that the “bottom line” of business is profit and profit alone? 
• In business, are there other less tangible goals that are intrinsic to and just as important as making money? 
• In a business environment, why should people be moral as individuals? 
• Why should a corporation or organization be moral? 
• Could you apply the first formulation of Kant’s categorical imperative to a business environment? 

Part 2: Developing the Essay

• Identify your thesis statement (argument claim) within the introduction of your paper. 
• Conduct research using library resources. 
• Outline your essay, considering deontological ethics, teleological ethics, moral objectivism, and ethical relativism in your argument. 
• Provide at least 3 valid reasons to support your argument. 
• Also, be sure to include the following in your APA formatted essay: 
  • Use of explanations of philosophical concepts such as utilitarianism, categorical imperatives, process philosophy, moral relativism, moral absolutism, ethical relativism, moral objectivism, deontological ethics, or teleological ethics to structure your essay and provide evidence to support your claims. 

Your argument and reasons (claims) should be defended by philosophical concepts supported by evidence, which is based on your research. Please use the APA library to begin your research.

Part 3: Conclusion

Consider morality and ethics from the perspective of Alfred North Whitehead’s process philosophy and Immanuel Kant’s universal categorical imperative. After conducting your research and writing your essay, could you conclude that businesses can have ethical standards, despite the fact that businesses are not moral agents? Why or why not? Please explain summing up your argument.

Part 4: Review Checklist before submitting essay

1. Your essay should be checked for proper use of grammar, spelling, and punctuation. 
2. You may find that you change your mind on the issue as you are writing your paper. That is fine, but be sure to present your ultimate decision at the beginning of the paper, and stick to it consistently throughout. This may require that you go back and change paragraphs to support your changed thesis statement. 
3. Your argument should be clear, concise, and supported with logically valid claims and evidence followed by APA in-text citations. 
4. A reference page documenting your sources should be included.