Bill, Referendum, Initiative, and Proposition - Research Paper Example

Mod Final Explain the differences between a bill, referendum, initiative and proposition. Please cite your source. 100 words or less. Bills are proposed laws which are put forward for voting by legislators. Whereas a referendum are an electoral device whereby the general electorate vote to either accept or reject a bill which requires constitutional change in order to be passed. An initiative is the process whereby ordinary unelected citizens can propose a legislative bill for consideration by referenda. In order for the referenda to take place a certain percentage of voters must propose the initiative. Finally the proposition is a proposal which requires constitutional change and which is placed on the ballot paper by the legislature. (“Smith et al”). 2. Who said “Compliance is not the ceiling, it is the floor”? What does this mean? 75 words or less. Ian Bingham made this statement. Many organizations feel irritated by the changes which they have to make in order to be compliant. Even when many companies carry out the required changes and achieve compliance they usually feel that there is no more need for change. Basically most organizations see compliance as an imposition. However compliance is only the bear minimum level of competency and organizations should ideally never tire in making improvements upon this. 3. The City of Scottsdale has initiated many environmental leadership policies. What are the City’s two most well recognized (nationally and internationally) initiatives? What is the next planned step to enhance one of the policies? Please cite your sources. 50 words or less. In 1997 Scottsdale initiated the EPA EMS municipal pilot proframme.In 2001 the Scottsdale environmental management system (EvMS) was implemented in five continents: North America;Europe;Africa;Asia and South America.(Scottsdale, 2008) Their next objective is to create a “greener Scottsdale”(OEIS) 4.How does any organization which claims to be an environmental leader verify and demonstrate that their claims are not “greenwash”? Cite your source. 100 words or less. There are three pillars to creating a workable environmental management system (EMS).These are: compliance; improvement and prevention. The organization must be compliant with existing legislation and guidelines. Furthermore there is no perfection in EMS so there must always be a movement towards improvement and regarding prevention it is far easier to protect the environment through prevention rather than through a clean up operation. Also it is important to build a set of objects and targets based upon the three pillars but geared around the unique circumstances presented by your organization. These must be regularly reviewed. (“Stapleton and Glover”) 5. During an emergency, it is difficult to predict how people will react. How do you get people to do the right thing in the face of an emergency? Cite your source. 100 words or less. Wilcox and Theodore quote Carter’s ( Wilcox and Theodore,xxviii) point out that in order for people to do the right thing they need not only be honest, rather they must have integrity and this integrity must be combined with social responsibility. Furthermore the organization must have certain people whose role is to be responsible for the ethical standards in the organization. And the organization needs to give these people the support required. Finally a system of training must be maintained whereby people can be trained in ethical issues and given pactice in order to become proficient at handling crises. 6. State your opinion on the use of “new media” or “social media” by the leader of an environmental or emergency incident response where there is low trust and high concern being expressed by the affected population. 100 words or less. Haddow notes (Haddow & Haddow, 37) that due to the the online environment it was possible to receive information about Hurricane Katrina both from official and unofficial sources. This resulted in a far more comprehensive understanding of a natural disaster and social interaction than ever before. Simply put it is no longer possible to supress information and wait until things settle down before making a measured statement. Consequently the leader should engage with the public through social media in as straightforward way as possible in order to maintain and build trust. 7. Give one example of an ethical challenge that can be expected to confront the leader of an environmental consulting company or office. Describe how you would respond. Cite your source. 50 words or less. An environmental agency officer reviews the case of a small chemical plant which is not compliant and yet the plant is based in a small town where the populace need jobs. The officer decides to hold public meetings in an effort to get the plant into compliance. (Davies et al) 8. Describe the phrase “Costs don’t tie directly to the bottom line”. Cite your source. 75 words or less. The bottom line is not the only cost to an organization. As Overby notes (“Overby”) the cost of outsourcing is much more expensive than the initial bottom line because many organizations find that they have to make many changes to the organizational processes in order to make efficient use of outsourcing which costs money in the end. This applies to all organizations, because all organizations make financial decisions which have hidden costs to the organization. 9. Write the formula for Net Present Value and write a key that defines each of the variables used in the formula. Key NPV=Net Present Formula T=Cash flow period C=Cashf flow I=Interest rate assumption 10. If the calculation of Net Present Value yields a value that is less than zero, what is your recommendation to the person who controls the budget? They should cancel the project because it represents very poor value. 11. The leader of an environmental regulatory agency needs to pay special attention to a specific revenue source to avoid abuse of power and long term budget stability. What is this revenue stream? How should an agency director manage this revenue source to avoid negative budget consequences? 100 words or less. Environment regulatory agencies rely upon funding from the government. In particular their funding tends to be cantered on funding from central government. This leads to two negative possible outcomes. Firstly the agency can become overtly focused upon pet projects of the present administration. Secondly the agency might become overly dependent upon funding and may as a consequence not make the appropriate contingency plan lest the funding should suddenly reduce. The agency director should initiate and maintain ethical guidelines. Secondly the leader should ensure that that all activities can be maintained even if a sudden drop in funding occurs. 12.State four keys to success for the leader of an environmental consulting company or company office. Cite your source. 75 words or less. Plan;Do;check and act. There is no perfection in running an environmental management system (Stapleton et al), so with this in mind there must be a continual focus on improvement and prevention. The leader must initiate and maintain a system which has a clear plan; which initiates action; which checks the effectiveness of this action and which adapts as required. 13. List four methods that a leader can use to make organizational change successful. Cite your sources. 100 words or less. According to Kotter (“Kotter”) there are eight methods required to bring around around successful change. The most effective four are as follows: Establish a sense of urgency-Instil in the management and organization as a whole the need to bring out change now. Develop a vision and a strategy- the vision is required in order to inspire while the strategy is necessary for execution. Communicating the changing vision-In order to keep everyone in the loop and keep the project on track. Generate short term wins-In order to bring about a sense of immediate success and a belief in the change. 14. Explain the phrase “low trust, high concern”. 75 words or less Low trust and high concern result from incidences whereby the public feel very insecure about a business; organization or governments’ ability to respond to a crisis. The public feel that they have been let down by said organization; this is the low trust. However they are also highly concerned as to the outcome of this scenario; will the said organization be able to do anything to allay their worst fears, which is the high concern. Works Cited Smith, Stephen S ; Roberts, Jason M ; Vander Wielen, Ryan J : “The American Congress” Fourth edition, Cambridge University Press, 2006. Print “Scottsdale Annual Report” 2008.City of Scottsdale.Web “OEIS Strategic Plan” 2009/2010 .City of Scottsdale.Web Stapleton, Philip J; Glover, Margaret A “Environmental Management Systems: An Implementation Guide for Small and Medium-Sized Organizations” Glover-Stapleton Associates inc.2001.Print Wilcox, John R, Theodore Louis:” Engineering and Environmental Ethics: A Case Study Approach” John Wiley & Sons, Inc, 1998.Print Haddow, George D; Haddow, Kim S “Disaster Communications in a Changing Media World” Butterworth-Heinemann,2009.Print Edited by : Davies, Clarence J;Covello, Vincent T;Allen, Frederick W “Risk Cimmunication” Proceddings of the National Conference on Risk Communication , held in Washington D.C., January 29-31, 1986.Print Overby, Stephanie “The Hidden Costs of Offshore Outsourcing” Sep. 1,2003 issue of CIO Magazine|Offshore Outsourcing Kotter, John P “Leading Change” Harvard Business School Press, 1996.Print Read More