Author: chris

You have just been promoted from front-line supervisor to be one of the firm’s senior managers. During your business education, you learned that the primary role of a manager is to make good decisions. As a supervisor, you had frequently been making routine decisions, but you realize that decision making for the overall company can and will have far greater impact on the company and its employees.

Your boss, the chief executive officer (CEO), realizes that you do not have much practice in this higher level, decision-making process and has asked you to write a memo describing your understanding of how to make important decisions.

Your memo should address the following questions:

• Describe at least 3 criteria that would determine whether the manager is making good decisions. What should be done to better assure that you are making a good decision?
• In the realm of decision making, what are assumptions? Rather than use a dictionary definition, cite several specific assumptions that would go with any real-life decision you have made or have seen made at a company at which you have worked.
• Given the importance of proper assumptions, your boss asked you to assess the accuracy of certain business assumptions and what could you do to test or confirm the credibility of them. The following were major assumptions for each firm:
  • An automobile manufacturer’s assumption that the demand for SUVs would continue because gas prices would continue to rise
  • An airline’s assumption that there was a need for an airline that provided no added amenities

Locate an article on the Internet that addresses a current budgeting issue for an area of criminal justice administration in Georgia

Write a 1,050- to 1,400-word paper on the following:

• The main idea of the article and reasons for your choice
• The author’s conclusions and recommendations
• Your own conclusions and recommendations

Format your paper consistent with APA guideline

Write an essay consisting of at least 500 words addressing all of the following topics (a through f):

a. With regards to the U.S. EPA, describe the differences between formal, informal, and hybrid rule-making.

b. The textbook describes problems associated with rulemaking on pages 85-86 of our textbook. Do you think rules that the U.S. EPA makes should take into account how U.S. companies might be negatively financially impacted by pollution control rules? Or, do you feel that a clean environment is more important than industry’s cost concerns? Explain.

c. Have you ever called the U.S. EPA’s safe drinking water hotline at 1-800-426-4791 (p. 90)? Conduct an Internet search on the phone number and provide a summary of your findings. Though we do not necessarily want everyone in the class to call the number, call it if you would like and describe your experiences with the phone call.

d. Do you think that the head of the U.S. EPA should be appointed by the President, and thus, be a political appointee? Explain the pros and cons.

e. Present the history of the U.S. EPA.

f. How many EPA regions exist? Which region (if you live in the U.S.) do you live in? Do you think the regional approach is reasonable? Are there enough regions or too many regions?

Identify key trends, assumptions, and risks in the context of your final business model.

Internal Environmental Analysis

• Evaluate the importance of an internal environmental analysis for a healthcare organization. Determine three specific reasons why an internal analysis has become an important activity for healthcare organizations.
• Imagine that you are the manager of a healthcare clinic. Recommend three tactics to increase the value of the services offered that would boost the company’s competitive advantage.

Achieving a Competitive Advantage

• From the e-Activity, determine two specific resources and two specific competencies that give the organization that you researched a competitive advantage.
• From the e-Activity, propose two strategies that the selected organization should consider in order to maintain its competitive advantage. Justify your recommendations.

Respond to the following questions thoroughly, in 150-300 words for each question.  Use your textbook as your first and major reference.

1. Company’s often encounter stock splits and reverse stock splits. Why do these splits occur? Explain the short-term and long-term effects of split on a company’s financial statements.
2. How do the various types of operating and financial leverage impact a company? Provide examples to support your views. What do you think is the appropriate method for a company to determine the amount of leverage it should possess?
3. Inventory turnover is an important measure of how a firm is managing its current assets, but differs among firms.  For example, the inventory turnover for a grocery store will be much higher than a furniture store.  Why might this be the case?

In reviewing this module/week’s question, incorporate your understanding of economic development. Also consider any experiences and what you have observed in your community.

Select an economic development project in your community. The project must have been implemented and completed within the past 10 years. Provide background about the project and the intended economic benefits. In presenting your overview of the project, compare the project’s development to the 6 phases of planning as presented in the Blakely and Leigh text. Did your community economic development project experience the same phases? Discuss. Also, outline the different approaches to community sustainability. What elements of the different approaches exist in your community’s project?

2. Create a SWOT analysis of the location you have chosen for your Case Study Project. A SWOT analysis is an assessment of the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats facing this city/town. Feel free to look up examples of SWOT analyses online to help you with this project. This analysis will become a part of your final project, so it would be wise to heavily invest in the process of creating this SWOT. In your bibliography, be sure to include any resources that you found helpful in explaining the SWOT analysis. This may help your peers who are struggling with creating their own SWOT analysis, and it will help you all as you approach the final stage in your case study project.

Assignment 2: Drug Treatment for ADHD

Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) has received a lot of media coverage in the past ten years. One of the things most misunderstood about the disorder is the treatment. Children (and adults) afflicted with ADHD are often treated with stimulant drugs. Parents are often hesitant about giving their children these stimulant medications. Treating hyperactivity with a drug that increases activity appears paradoxical.

Using the Argosy University online library resources, find at least two peer-reviewed journal articles that explain the effect of stimulant drugs (such as Adderall or Ritalin—amphetamine or methylphenidate) on the brains of those with ADHD.

Create a brochure that explains the benefits of using stimulant medications and addresses the concerns of parents of children with ADHD. Be sure to use language appropriate for the audience. Include the following in your brochure:

• Summarize the findings of the two articles.
• Explain the effect that these drugs have in the brain.
• Explain the concerns of using stimulant drugs to treat ADHD.

Both leadership and organizational strategy in the next decade will see major trends affecting the way organizations conduct business. These include the deployment of more technology to extend reach and access, increased globalization, increased diversity, more focus on extended supply chains, and a more nomadic workforce. In this assignment, you will consider these trends and analyze how they may impact your selected organization and what actions are necessary to get ready to address these trends.

You have been appointed by your organization (either a hypothetical one or one you are familiar with) to prepare its Workforce 2020 executive report.

The report should be as detailed as possible for the CEO of your organization. That means it should include the key points of your research, analysis, and findings. The report should also contain examples of specific application to your company in a clear, concise, and informative document.

In Module 4, you began your research on Workforce 2020. In this module, you will expand on the work you did in Module 4. Take Module 4’s paper, and incorporate the items below into your work. Be sure to use the module readings,  University online library resources, and the Internet, including federal guidelines. Select at least 3–4 scholarly resources for use in this assignment.

Complete the following:

1. Analyze your organization in its present form. Explain your organization’s structure, workforce diversity, market/customer diversity, and communications technology.
2. Forecast future trends. Identify the economic, social, demographic, and workforce parameters that are expected to be in the U.S. in the year 2020. Explain how those trends will or will not be reflected in your organization. Consider addressing the following:
   1. What are the general workforce trends?
   2. How will these trends impact your industry?
   3. What are the general trends in leadership/management that are impacting your organization?
3. Synthesize data and recommend changes needed for the future. Identify and recommend leader, organizational, and workforce trends that must be considered for change in the larger macro environment (for example, advances in technology or globalization) in your organization. Identify related outcomes for each specific topic: Consider addressing the following:
   1. What leadership actions should the organization take?
   2. What competencies will be needed?
   3. What does the organization need to do to be prepared?To conduct a holistic assessment of your selected organization and the challenges and opportunities it faces in addressing the noted trends, consider some of the concepts listed below as you develop your recommendations for the organization. It is not necessary to include all the concepts, but you should include 2–3 of them to do a thorough analysis. For example, leadership models and diversity management are likely to be pivotal areas for the organization. You could talk about the environment trends that were noted in the beginning of this assignment and then discuss how leadership practices and approaches in your selected organization may have to change to meet or address those trends.

4. Analyze how the following concepts apply to your organization:
   • Diversity management
   • Leadership models
   • Ethics
   • Decision-making models
   • Problem solving
   • Conflict management processes

Ensure that your paper includes the following:

• An integrated report with an introduction and summary
• A set of recommendations that will enable the organization to meet the expected challenges of 2020
• Trends in your own organization
• 3–4 credible, cited sources supporting your projections

a. Describe the security issues of BCBST in regard to confidentiality, integrity, availability, and privacy based on the information provided in the BCBST case.

b. Describe the HIPPA security requirement that could have prevented each security issue identified if it had been enforced.

c. Analyze the corrective actions taken by BCBST that were efficient and those that were not adequate.

d. Analyze the security issues and the HIPAA security requirements and describe the safeguards that the organization needs to implement in order to mitigate the security risks.  Ensure that you describe the safeguards in terms of administrative, technical, and physical safeguards.

e. Use at least three (3) quality resources in this assignment. Note: Wikipedia and similar Websites do not qualify as quality resources.

a.  Provide the following on the main body slides:

i. An overview of the security issues at BCBST

ii. HIPAA security requirements that could have prevented the incident

iii. Positive and negative corrective actions taken by BCBST

iv. Safeguards needed to mitigate the security risks