Assignment 3: The Value of Fair Treatment in the Workplace 

The year is 2025 and the U.S. Supreme Court has declared all laws prohibiting discrimination in the workplace to be unconstitutional.  In its opinion, however, the Supreme Court made clear that employers could voluntarily adopt policies and procedures prohibiting any and all forms of discrimination in the workplace. The Supreme Court also made clear that employers could voluntarily adopt hiring practices to diversify their workforces provided such practices did not include express preferences based upon immutable characteristics. You have been hired as a consultant by a large, nationwide retailer to examine the business case for ensuring that all of the employee protections are found within the federal anti-discrimination laws, as well as the business case for prohibiting any other forms of discrimination in the workplace. Write a four to six (4-6) page report in which you:

1. Analyze the benefits and costs of voluntarily prohibiting three to five (3-5) federal forms of discrimination prohibited under the federal anti-discrimination laws.

2. Discuss the benefits and costs of voluntarily prohibiting a form of discrimination not covered by any of the federal anti-discrimination laws.

3. State the benefits and costs of voluntarily adopting hiring and promotion practices designed to diversify the workforce.

4. Evaluate the ethical considerations of not voluntarily prohibiting the forms of discrimination laws examined in the first part of your report. Next, determine the ethical considerations of not voluntarily adopting hiring and promotion practices to diversify the workforce.

5. Provide a final recommendation to this retailer on whether or not they should ensure all, part, or none of the employee protections examined in the first part of your report. Your recommendation should also include whether or not the retailer should adopt hiring and promotion practices designed to diversify the workplace. Be sure to include a rationale for your recommendation along with an explanation for any rejections of contrary positions or other pertinent considerations.

Business Continuity Planning And Disaster Recovery Planning

Does your company (or school) have a current disaster recovery plan? What are some of the activities involved in it? Do you feel confident that your company (or school) is prepared to survive a major disaster? Why or why not?

DQ requirement: I recommend your initial posting to be between 200-to-300 words. All initial posts must contain a properly formatted in-text citation and scholarly reference.

Unit VI Scholarly Activity

Discussion Question 

The lecture for this unit discussed naturalistic, participant, and laboratory observation research. Think about a situation where you may have been involved with one of these observational methods. Explain the situation and your perception of the effectiveness of this method with respect to obtaining credible information. 

Discussion Question 

How might a SWOT analysis be used by an entrepreneur either at the pre-start-up stage or within the actual start-up of the company? Apply this to a company that you would be interested in starting in the future.

Unit VI Scholarly Activity 

Select an existing company, possibly a publicly held company in order to find easily accessible information. Research the company and compile a SWOT analysis identifying a minimum of four elements under each of the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. Explain each element with an eye on how this affects the company overall. Once the table has been compiled, address the following questions: 

1. How does this tool assist the marketing and management teams to solve problems within the company? 

2. Based upon your research and this SWOT analysis, what recommendations would you make for the management team? 

Your APA-formatted submission must be a minimum of three pages (not including the title page and the reference page). The table may be single spaced. References must include a minimum of two credible sources.

Subject : Decision Making And Problem Solving

Assessment criteria

Students will be assessed on their knowledge of the concepts covered in the course and their capacity to apply that knowledge to improve business decision making.

Individual Project 

Each student will identify a company and conduct a research project on the company’s management problem

Some suggested companies are:  Telstra, Qantas, Fosters.  You may however choose any company from any country. 

A business can be thought of as a stream of decisions:

What product should we make

What price should we charge

How should we get the product to market

How should we communicate with potential customers about the product

What regions should we operate in

What partners should we have

What market segments exist and which ones should we target

Who should we employ

How much training should we deliver

Who should we promote

What IT supplier should we use

What advertising agency should we use

Where should the office be located

And many more.

You should not be limited by this list.

Sourcing both secondary and primary data, analysing and then drawing realistic conclusions, it will be presented in a report format and then the key issues and findings are to be presented.

Finally submit a 500 word report utilising the concepts and models covered in the lectures to analyse, discuss, identify alternatives and make recommendations to improve the performance of the organisation.

Writing Assignments: Each unit you will be tasked with writing an essay and three short answers to evaluate your understanding of the course materials. You will always be given a choice of questions to provide you with some flexibility in deciding which topics most interest you. Please post your responses in the assignment drop-box. My expectations are that you will write at least 4-6 informed paragraphs (each paragraph being about 5-6 sentences) for the essay questions, and at least one paragraph for the short answers. The questions will come from the text and from my notes of important literatures and concepts in international politics. When answering questions, I would urge you to provide a good background of the issue in your responses. Then go about demonstrating your points with specific examples and substantial evidence. Each unit assignment will be worth 20 points or about 10 percent of your grade.

Essay (Please answer only one essay question)

· Why do political scientists study world politics? Describe three goals of theory building in international relations. How does each of these goals add to the sub-field?

· Discuss the foundations of realism and liberalism in international relations theory. What are their foundational principles? Which one do you think has more saliency in the world today? Why?

Short Answer (Please answer three of five questions)

Explain three ways that world politics affects your personal economic condition.

· Describe three strategies by which you can make a difference in global politics.

· Define neorealism and neoliberalism. List three points of difference between them.

· How does world politics affect the environment? Be specific.

· How has war changed over the past century? Cite examples.

Discussion Question:

In what way did Sir Robert Peel influence the development of policing in the United States?  How did English policing differ from early policing in the Northern colonies?  Briefly describe the evolution of policing.

How would you show whether a likelihood of confusion exists in the market between products having your trademark and products having another trademark?

What is fair use and how is it used as a defense to claims of copyright and trademark infringement? Is there a “fair use” defense for claims of patent infringement? Why, or why not?

Read the articles entitled “Trends in Intellectual Property: The Securitization of IP Assets” and “Securitization of Intellectual Property Assets” and write a 2-page paper describing the concept of securitizing intellectual property assets and the advantages associated with this effort. Also research “Bowie Bonds” and describe how the singer David Bowie benefited from having his copyrights securitized.

The Electoral College

If you have not yet done so, watch the 2009 debate about the Electoral College on C-Span’s Washington Journal. The video of the debate is linked in this unit’s study and in Resources for this assignment. Using other academically credible sources, write a 500–700-word paper in which you complete the following:

1. Define the Electoral College.

2. Describe the role of the Electoral College in the election of the president and vice president of the United States.

3. Take a position on whether the Electoral College should be abolished in favor of a direct popular vote. Defend your position using two specific arguments.