Your CEO has again requested some information, this time from your team. She would like you to write a report regarding rulemaking that she can share with other leaders in the organization.

Create a 350-word report in which you:

Explain how healthcare organizations or healthcare industries are impacted by the HIPAA Privacy Rule.

Include at least three references.

Format any citations consistent with APA guidelines.

M6D2: What Does Culture Have to Do With It?

Culture is an area that we focus on in different ways when discussing organizational life. Culture is difficult to define, but it holds the key to individual behavior and ethical environments within organizations. We are familiar with strong organizational cultures, such as is evident in the United States armed forces. Each branch of the armed forces has a different culture that is made up of the underlying assumptions, beliefs, and values of the membership. Some of these cultural elements are shared among the branches, and others are unique to specific branches. For instance, the U.S. Soldier’s Creed provides soldiers with an understanding of their shared belief and value system.

A strong positive culture that has an underlying focus on ethical behavior has as much influence on an individual employee’s and manager’s behavior as a negative culture; however, in the news we hear most about the impacts of negative cultures on ethical behavior. As Gilbert (2012) points out, it is almost impossible for employees and managers to behave ethically if their organization’s systems are designed to support and reward unethical behavior. Therefore, managers need to understand that the organizational goals and objectives, structure, environment, ethics policies, and incentive systems have a fundamental impact on the way in which culture develops and affects ethical behavior.

For your discussion:

• Consider your current (or previous) organization’s culture.
• Describe the values, beliefs, and assumptions that drive the culture.
• Explain some of the unethical behavior that occurs within your organization.
  • This might be based on conflicts of interest and/or observed practices.
• Describe how organizational goals and objectives, structure, environment, ethics policies, and/or incentive systems affect these unethical behaviors.
• Make at least one recommendation to shift the organization’s culture in order to increase ethical behavior.

M6A1 Individual Research Project: Outline (for the below Project)

A full-sentence outline helps you create the structure of your paper and the topic sentences of your paragraphs at the same time. Think of this document as your blueprint for the final paper. By approaching the outline in this way, you can more easily move paragraphs around and edit the flow of the paper before you write the full paper. This makes editing for the flow of information easier.

Create a full-sentence outline for your paper. Each sentence will act as a topic sentence for a new paragraph in your paper. The entire paper should be outlined using this method. This will allow your instructor to provide feedback to you about the information flow in your paper.

Example:

Your outline must use APA formatting, and be Times New Roman, 12-point font, with one inch margins. Include a title page for your assignment.

M8A1 Individual Research Project: Final Paper

One of the most beneficial exercises in a course exploring ethics is to develop a paper that allows you the opportunity to create connections between your personal view of ethics and the theory under discussion. The nature of ethical decision making is recognition, analysis and resolution. We often don’t make a decision because it’s ethical, but rather, because it makes sense from our personal view of the situation. That is, ethical decisions happen “after the fact” as we begin to see the actual implications of the decision.

With this in mind, your paper should explore current ethical issues in the workplace that are relevant to your current career or the career that you are preparing to pursue. Your task is to begin to explore the possible issues within your workplace and choose one to focus on throughout the course as you begin to build your final paper. Please consider the following as possible approaches for this final paper:

• Illustrate the impact of organizational goals and objectives, structure, culture, environment, ethics policies, and incentive systems on ethical behavior within an organization.
• Evaluate and revise an ethics program to increase ethical behavior within an organizational environment.
• Create and systematically apply a defensible ethical moral framework to a contemporary ethics issue. To systematically apply the ethical moral framework, you must use the framework consistently as you describe the ethics issue. Explore the issue using the framework you create. HINT: This is done through the application of one of the theories we read about in Module 1.

The final paper is your opportunity to delve into a topic within the framework of ethics that you find interesting, based on your approved topic and thesis statement.

• Focus your paper on the connection between your topic and ethics theory. You must use your approved topic.
  • You must support your views. While your opinions are important, they are not sufficient for a discussion for this type of paper. The academic connections are crucial.
• The paper should be 5-8 pages in length (not including the title and reference page).
• The paper should follow APA 6th Edition guidelines for all formatting:
  • 1” margins
  • 12-point Times New Roman font
  • Double-spaced
• Use your full-sentence outline to build the paper. This creates the blueprint for the final paper.
• The paper should have the following sections:
  • Introduction: State what you are going to tell me in the body of the paper. This is a synopsis of the point of the paper. The thesis statement resides here.
  • Body of the paper: This is the place where you pull your research together and develop your points. It should include:
    • An overview of the ethics theory you are using.
    • A connection of the theory to your topic.
    • A discussion about the impact of the topic and theory.
  • Conclusion: Restate what you have told me. This is your last opportunity to make your point, answer your question, or argue a perspective.
• Don’t forget the importance of the transitions between paragraphs and sections. I should be able to read the last sentence of one paragraph and the first sentence of the next paragraph and see the connection. HINT: This is a good way to test whether you have effective transitions.
• Grammar, spelling, punctuation, sentence structure, and paragraph structure matter: Spend time editing your paper. This means that you need to at least give yourself a three-day cooling off period between finishing the paper and editing the paper. This really does make a difference in what you catch and correct.

M6D1: Alcoholism and Accountability

The “disease versus non-disease” model of alcoholism continues to be an ongoing, controversial debate. In the Criminal Justice field, the question is: is the alcoholic “not guilty” for a crime committed while under the influence because he or she has this disease? Briefly explain these two models, highlighting their major points. Then discuss which model you personally favor. Explain your rationale. How should the Criminal Justice System respond?

M6D2: Subjective Legality

First, give some thought to what you’ve learned regarding the similarities and differences between tobacco, alcohol and marijuana on the variables of: health risk, public safety, potential for abuse and whether they are approved by the U.S. Federal government for medical use. Based on your own analysis:

Discuss the logic of the legality of tobacco and alcohol versus the illegality of marijuana. Regardless of your personal opinion, where do you find empirically-based logic in the current status of these three substances? Where can you offer empirical support for an alternative status that would be “logical”? If you see no logic at all, discuss and explain.

Assignment 2: Operations Decision

Use the updated demand (Q_D) and marginal revenue (MR) functions below to complete this assignment.

Due to changes in the low calorie, frozen, microwavable industry’s market structure, the firm-specific demand equation for our hypothetical company has changed and is now:

QD = 350,000 -100 P

This function generates the following Marginal Revenue Function (MR):

MR = 3500-0.02Q

Write a six to eight (6-8) page paper in which you:

1.  Outline a plan that will allow you to identify the market structure in which your company now operates. Comment on the relevant elasticity results from Assignment 1 and your research into two (2) of leading competitors in this industry, taking note of their pricing strategies, profitability, and their relationships within the industry (worldwide).

Note: In Assignment 1, the assumption was that the market structure was perfectly competitive and therefore the equilibrium price would be determined by setting demand equal to supply, or QD = QS. Changes in the market  now suggest it is imperfectly competitive and that your firm has substantial market power to set its own “optimal” price.

2.  Given that the market structure has changed from the original scenario in Assignment 1, determine at least two (2) likely factors that might have caused the change. Predict the primary manner in which this change would likely impact business operations in the new market environment.

3.  Analyze the major short run and long cost functions for the low-calorie, frozen microwaveable food company, given the cost functions below. Suggest substantive ways in which you may use this information to make production decisions in the short-run and the long-run.

• TC = 160,000,000 + 100Q + 0.00632Q²
• VC = 100Q + 0.00632Q²
• MC= 100 + 0.0126Q
  • Hints: What is the equation for average total costs? How is this useful?
  • What is the output level and dollar value associated with minimum average total cost and minimum average variable costs?

4.  Determine the possible circumstances under which the company should discontinue operations. Suggest key actions that management should take in order to confront these circumstances. Provide a rationale for your response. (Hint: Your firm’s price must cover average variable costs in the short run and average total costs in the long run to continue operations.)

5.  Suggest a pricing policy that will enable your low-calorie, frozen microwavable food company to maximize profits. Provide a rationale for your suggestion.

• (Hint: Use the profit maximization rule MR = MC to determine your optimal price and optimal output level. You may also want to compare these values with those you generated in Assignment 1 to determine whether your price would be higher or lower.

6.  Outline a plan, or use your results above, to evaluate the company’s financial performance. Consider all the key drivers of performance, such as total revenue, total cost, total profit, etc. Assuming the company is currently operating at its optimal scale (min. ATC = min. LRATC), what is the short run and long run strategy if current economic profits are positive … or negative?

• Hint: To calculate profit in the short run, use the cost, price, and output levels you generated in part 5.
• Hint: Profit in the long run will be driven to zero if no significant barriers to entry or exit exist.

7.  Recommend two (2) actions that the company could take in order to improve its profitability and deliver more value to its stakeholders. Outline, in brief, a plan to implement your recommendations.

8.  References: Use at least five (5) quality academic resources in this assignment.