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Over the past two decades, the terms "accountability" and "program evaluation" have become the focus within the human services arena. Due to budgetary constraints and decrease in availability of public funding, the competition for scarce resources has increased. This increased competition has subjected human services agencies to an intense examination where requests for resources are scrutinized carefully. The first step to conducting a program evaluation is to conduct a needs assessment to determine and justify the reason for carrying out the evaluation of a particular program. A need can be defined as the gap between what is and what should be and can be experienced by an individual, a group, or an entire community. Tasks: Using at least 3–5 scholarly resources from the professional literature, research human service needs assessment. The literature may include the University online library resources, relevant textbooks, peer-reviewed journal articles, and websites created by professional organizations, agencies, or institutions (.edu, .org, or .gov). Create a 7- to 9-page report in a Microsoft Word document, including the following: Identify a program at a social agency or other human services program to which you have access and provide a description of the organizational context including the mission and objectives of the program and why an evaluation is being considered. Conduct a needs assessment using concepts presented previously to confirm and explain the scope of the problem, the perceived versus actual gap in service, the affected population, whether the need is changing, and in what manner the need may be changing. Identify possible resources to meet the perceived needs. Discuss what existing resources can be used, what additional information would be needed, and what sources for obtaining data you would use. Identify the stakeholders who need to be included in the assessment and subsequent evaluation. Analyze the interpersonal, political, and ethical considerations of interacting with decision makers and stakeholders who may have conflicting priorities and determine strategies for reconciling those priorities.

Psychology and Education

You are hired by XYZ Motors, a car company in Japan with facilities in the United States to develop a new business strategy. Your first assignment is to develop a vision for the next 3-5 years. The company has a history of many years of innovative automobile technology development in Japan and is known for its high quality products. Over the last two years, the Company lost domestic and international market shares. The company wants to increase its market share and has interests in entering India within the next few years. In a 3-5 page essay, address the following: 1. Discuss the strategies you would implement to revitalize business and assess the viability of the Indian market. 2. Describe management strategies in terms of diversity across Japanese and American cultures, as well as potential strategies sensitive to Indian culture. 3. Discuss the Company’s social responsibility in Japan and the United States, and relate this responsibility to auto production and sales in India. 4. Develop XYZ’s goals for the next three and five years. 5. Discuss your considerations in forming a global management team and strategies for the team to be successful. You must use a minimum of five academic sources to support your writing.

Do some research on the Nike company. • Identify mission and visions statements. Are they aligned with the goals of the company? Do they mention ethics concerning consumers/customers? • Identify environmental forces. For example, you may need to search the Internet, media, etc., to determine if there are any political and/or legal concerns. • Customer service management and/or call center to serve customers (This is normally, "the customer is always right" clause.You may have to visit the organization or make telephone calls to dig deep on this one...good luck!) • Total marketing, promotional, advertising, or personal selling expenditures (or budget)--do your best to find out but it may be general item in a statement (check for public trading on the Internet for financials) • Does the organization provide a positioning statement? • Statement of target customer (For now, briefly describe if they have the target identified in a mission statement.) • The marketing mix (they may use the traditional 4 Ps or label as something else but you should be able to identify them no matter the language) • What is the branding statement and/or logo? Note: your paper does not have to follow the order listed above, but it should at least address each of the areas mentioned. Summarize your findings and provide recommendations on how they could have done better, improve for the future, or sustain what they are doing. Do not generalize but provide support for your narrative.

Arguments and Meaning in Social Issues

The cultural artifacts of the early Cold War we have encountered all fear the consequences of centralized authority. Heroism in this context, arguably, consists of pursuing alternative pathways. How do two primary sources (Charlie Parker songs, Dr. Strangelove, The Manchurian Candidate, “Howl,” The Crying of Lot 49) stage the encroaching domination of American life by centralized authority, and what forms of responding do they propose to empower resistance to this domination? In addition to the primary sources you select, you should cite at least three secondary sources to help develop your conceptual framework. All essays should have a thesis statement that responds directly to the prompt. Your thesis statement must declare the common ground between your two primary sources. In other words, your thesis statement should specify the resemblance between these sources as far their presentation of the encroaching domination of American life by centralized authority. In terms of analyzing the forms of responding they propose, it is likely they will be quite different some ways (especially if they are different media), and you should comment on those divergences. As you develop your essay, keep in mind that nearly all paragraphs should be built around a direct citation of one of your sources (primary or secondary). Please use MLA parenthetical citation format.

Review the following scenario below: Kate has been employed by a well-known manufacturing company for 12 years. She is the only female on her line and the fastest worker. She has been promoted several times through mergers and acquisitions, but has always been looked over for a senior management position. Kate believes she is qualified for advancement but thinks her manager has a problem with her personally. To top it off, Kate did not receive a semiannual or annual review, which would have resulted in a raise. Her coworkers (all males) have urged her to go to management and report what she believes to be discriminatory behavior from her immediate manager. Now, complete the following tasks: 1. Create your own scenario in which someone you know was discriminated. Compare and contrast your story with Kate’s. 2. Compare the possible ethical breaches of Kate’s manager against the behavior involving your scenario. Utilize scholarly research on leadership theory as justification. 3. Compare the possible legal breaches of Kate’s manager against the behavior involving your scenario. Utilize scholarly research on leadership theory as justification. 4. Recommend an approach Kate could have used to manage the negative risk both personally and professionally. 5. Evaluate the advice Kate received from her coworkers. 6. As it pertains to conflict resolution strategies, what would be the best in resolving Kate’s conflict? Justify your position. Based on the scenario presented, rate it on a scale from 1–5, where 1 represents low performing and 5 represents high performing for the topics below: Preventing the conflict Suppressing the conflict Avoiding the conflict Using false emotions for distracting the conflict Eliminating the conflict Accepting the conflict Recognizing the value of the conflict Encouraging interpersonal criticism Managing the conflict 1. Select one conflict resolution approach in which it is ranked the lowest and develop an individual improvement plan for that approach. 2. Explain how the mediation process could strengthen the conflict resolution and management skills. 3. Discuss how the arbitration process could strengthen the conflict resolution and management skills. Implement some portion of your plan. Provide a detailed summary of the changes that occurred in the development as it relates to the ability to handle conflict.

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You may respond to any of the points below or you may take a point from any of the chapters that caught your attention. Chapter 5: In this chapter, Liff offers a philosophy and a series of techniques for enhancing performance. Some of his suggestions seem obvious, such as creating performance measures that align organizational goals and individual performance and then insuring that all employees have the training, tools, and assistance they need to meet their goals. He also stresses that performance measures should be the joint product of management, employees, and unions and that management most often fails by not providing poorly performing employees with enough assistance to meet their goals. Other suggestions are more surprising, such as posting performance information so that everyone can see how they compare to their peers. Evaluate the suggestions Liff offers. Do you think they will work? Do you think they are fair? What alternatives can you offer if you are unsatisfied with his suggestions? What are the consequences of not following his advice? Chapter 6: Like the performance systems detailed in Chapter 5, Chapter 6 sets out the specifics of reward systems. Liff again stresses that reward systems should be aligned with organizational goals; he further notes that they should be reliable, prompt, and consistent with contributions made by individual employees; they should be developed by management, labor, and unions; they should recognize team as well as individual effort; and they should get good publicity. Programs with unrealistic goals or a lack of resources will be perceived as unfair and thus create disincentives for performance. It is increasingly clear that Liff believes it is incumbent upon management to create the best possible environment for people to do their best work. As he notes on page 128, “Once you hire and train your employees, provide them with the proper tools and resources, make them aware of the organization’s goals and objectives, and issue them performance standards that have a clear line of sight (the input), you need to insure that employees and/or teams that exceed your expectations (the output) will be rewarded.” Evaluate the suggestions Liff offers. Do you think they will work? Do you think they are fair? What alternatives can you offer if you are unsatisfied with his suggestions? What are the consequences of not following his advice? Chapter 7: Liff suggests that attendance management is a matter of both clear rules and humane application of those rules. On the one hand, he insists that policies for tours of duty, sick leave, and vacations be widely known and equitably enforced. Management has discretion over leave without pay and can insist that vacations be scheduled well in advance. On the other hand, he does recognize that there are exceptions and that a zero-tolerance policy is not warranted. Evaluate the suggestions Liff offers. Do you think they will work? Do you think they are fair? What alternatives can you offer if you are unsatisfied with his suggestions? What are the consequences of not following his advice?

From EEO and AA to Diversity Management

sing English when communicating with a non-native speaker of English. English as a Second Language (ESL) will be used to denote a non-native speaker. Most Americans expect that business communications will be conducted in English. In order to maximize communications, speakers of English should be aware of several aspects of our language that make communication very difficult, even with a person who has studied our language for many years. Here are a few examples. Imagine that the ESL individual is a business person from another country, with whom you are meeting. The attached worksheet should be completed.

While you work on acquiring a copy of the textbook, there is some work we can do to get started. If you go to the General Introduction folder (under Content), you’ll see some audio and visual material that I’ve gathered together so you can start to get a sense of who Socrates was. The section on Socrates and the Examined Life contains links to two audio programs that will form the basis of our first two real assignments for this course. Do make sure to listen to them carefully so that you can answer the corresponding questions (which you can find under Discussion Board). https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b007zp21 https://philosophybites.com/2008/08/mm-mccabe-on-so.html

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