America’s three branches of government differ in many ways. Write an essay discussing how they differ in terms of accommodation, deliberation, and accountability.
Order Instructions:
America’s three branches of government differ in many ways. Write an essay discussing how they differ in terms of accommodation, deliberation, and accountability. In other words:
1) How much accommodation has to be made for
each branch to reach a decision?
2) How much deliberation goes into the making of
decisions within each branch? and
3) How much input from the public goes into each branch’s decisions, and how can the public hold each branch accountable for its decisions?
SAMPLE ANSWER
America’s three branches of government
America’s three branches of government differ in many ways. Write an essay discussing how they differ in terms of accommodation, deliberation, and accountability. In other words:
1) How much accommodation has to be made for each branch to reach a decision?
For any organization to be able to function properly, it needs it various departments to work in synch and not engage in unnecessary competition. A business benefits when the department work to complement each other in the knowledge that combined the make a more formidable force as opposed to individually. The same is true about governance and its operatives. The executive, judiciary and legislature – Congress, must exist independently yet depend on each other for their smooth operation and ultimate success in delivering their mandate (van, de Kerkhof, 2006). The legislature needs the judiciary to implement the laws passed and the executive to enforce the said laws.
On their part, the judiciary expects the legislature to be a bit sensitive to the environment when they consider the laws they pass. Similarly, the executive must enforce the laws humanly otherwise they will be at cross-purposes with the judiciary. The interaction between the branches begets a complex web of relationships all based on the knowledge that for each branch and the government to succeed – deliver improved life to citizens, then all branches have to accommodate each other (van, de Kerkhof, 2006). In accommodation, each branch acknowledges the important role played by the other and actively engages in actions that promote inter-branch operations.
When Congress or the executive act or engage in actions that are contrary to the constitution, it is the responsibility of the Judiciary to protect the citizens. If Congress or the Executive had only taken time to consult and appreciate the constitutionality of each of the actions, instances when the Supreme Court kicks out laws for being unconstitutional would be greatly minimized if not eliminated (van, de Kerkhof, 2006). For example, in the Brown v. Board of Education, the courts reversed the earlier Plessy v. Ferguson, which had given legal backing for having racially segregated public facilities. Despite the courts hiding behind the 14th Amendment, the biggest pressure must have come from Congress and the Executive which wanted segregation ended for political reasons.
2) How much deliberation goes into the making of decisions within each branch?
Within each branch are a number of stakeholders with real and imagined stake in the success of the branch. From elected, selected to employed persons, each branch has individuals seeking individual improvement while at the same time seeking branch development. As a result in each branch, the most effective and beneficial decision are those entered to after deliberation. Deliberation entails allowing all stakeholders to express their views before coming to a final decision.
In congress, laws can only be passed when deliberative politics is practiced. Deliberative politics involves allowing all including dissenting voices an opportunity to express their objections. By then allowing the issue to be decided by a vote with the majority winning, congress epitomizes the use of deliberation in decision making. With time even those who get defeated, get to understand the dynamics of Congress and have laws that they are passionate about passed due to understanding and engaging in deliberations (Honig,, 2007).
In the judiciary, when decisions have to be made in criminal and civil cases, the constitution provides for trial by a ‘jury of one’s peers’ (Gastil, John, and Phillip J. Weiser, 2006). This jury then gets to listen to the evidence to and against while being guided by a learned person – on the intricacies on justice. In the end, the decision that is arrived at is one that needs deliberation to get. In cases one party is not happy with a decision; they are allowed to appeal the decision to a higher court. The Supreme Court – the highest court in the land makes its decision by relying on deliberations. Having an odd number of judges means that even when they do not deliberate, they still do not stagnate and can still keep the operations running.
In the executive, the president is the leader and gets to make the final decisions. However, in many administrations and in a habit most probably picked during campaigns, deliberations play a central role in the operations of the executive. When vote hunting, the constitution demands that each presidential candidate declare their running mate – vice president. Given the contribution, when finally in office, it is prudent that the president consult the vice president as a matter of courtesy and realization of election pledges and attainment of a smooth succession when the time comes. It is the desire of each leader to have a smooth transition not to mention someone who will ensure their projects succeed.
3) How much input from the public goes into each branch’s decisions, and how can the public hold each branch accountable for its decisions?
Within each branch, public participation is a very important component of how the branch operates. In Congress, public participation is achieved in two ways. Congress holds all its activities in public making the public fully aware of what they are doing. Given that the senators and representatives are but representative of the people, it is deemed that when they ask questions, they are a voice of the people. Secondly, when a committee of Congress engages in an act of interrogating a public issue or public servant appointee, it conducts this session in public and actively seeks the public assistance in providing background information. Politics is all about activity public participation in decision making.
The judiciary also does apply public participation in its operations. The input from the public in the judiciary is mainly in performing jury duty (Gastil, John, and Phillip J. Weiser, 2006). On the unique characteristics of the American justice system is the use of jury’s to hear cases. This way the public is able to contribute by being the main actors and their decision thus becomes the basis for the judge in deciding the appropriate sentence. Additionally, when the prison services are considering paroling a prisoner, they ask for petitions from the victims of the crime they were convicted for. Part of the government’s desire it to have released prisoners be remorseful of their action, rehabilitated and ready to reintegrate in to the society. When the society or prisoner is not ready, the strategy fails.
On its part the executive could be called the most public sensitive of the three branches. This could be from the fact that the occupant of the office has to get elected universal suffrage and thus needs to understand what the public wants. For example, when former First Lieutenants’ supporters launched an online petition, they knew that if they could get 100,000 signatures within 30 days, White House would have respond – it has a policy to respond to all petitions that get 100,000 or more signatures within 30 day (Tan, 2015)
Works Cited:
Gastil, John, and Phillip J. Weiser. “Jury Service as an Invitation to Citizenship: Assessing the Civic Value of Institutionalized Deliberation.” Policy Studies Journal 34.4 (2006): 605 27. ProQuest. Web. 15 Mar. 2015.
Honig, Bonnie. “Between Decision and Deliberation: Political Paradox in Democratic Theory.” The American Political Science Review101.1 (2007): 1-17. ProQuest. Web. 15 Mar. 2015.
Tan, Michelle. “Petition Forces White House Response for Imprisoned LT” Army Times: A Gannet Company. 21 Jan. 2015. Accessed 16 March 2015 from
van, de Kerkhof. “Making a Difference: On the Constraints of Consensus Building and the Relevance of Deliberation in Stakeholder Dialogues.” Policy Sciences 39.3 (2006): 279 99. ProQuest. Web. 15 Mar. 2015.
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Democratic Principles in Australians Government Order Instructions: To what extent does Australia’s system of government reflect basic democratic principles, and to what extent not.
Democratic Principles in Australians Government
Answer the above question giving specific examples and insight into the issue.
Also include NEWS ARTICLES, YOUTUBE CLIPS and ACADEMIC SOURCES to strengthen the argument.
1500 word essay.
Democratic Principles in Australians Government Sample Answer
To what extent does Australia’s system of government reflect basic democratic principles, and to what extent not.
Australia has enjoyed very stable democratic institutions for a long time and at Federation took pride in being a very young nation but an old democracy. Australia is quite a different type of country than it was in 1901 and “Brutishness” no longer provides the other aspect of its identity. Since 1989, there have been various attempts to articulate a civic identity as an alternative to an ethnically based national identity. Sets of core values or basic principles associated with Australian democracy have been identified, and, recently, the Australian Citizenship Council has urged acts of public commitment to these shared democratic principles, including acceptance of democratic diversity and recognition of the status of Torres Strait Islander and Aboriginal peoples as well as the strengthening of the parliamentary democracy (Levey, n.d.).
Despite such affirmations, many believe that trust in representative institutions has eroded rather than strengthened in recent times. Surveys find a gap between the policy preferences of voters and those of their elected officials (Galligan & Roberts, 2004). This gap can be particularly large on issues such as immigration. There has been resentment in some parts of the country that immigrants no longer need to come from Britain or at least to assimilate to full citizens. This resentment fuelled support for populist politicians who claimed to be a voice for the people rather than for the political elite. Moreover, a civic identity based on sound democratic principles is not in itself sufficient for ensuring national cohesion, particularly in multi-ethnic or multinational states. There needs to be some emotional identification with the history of the nation. In the Australian context, knowledge of and pride in, the democratic struggles and accomplishments might promote such identity without the need for any racial pride (Birch, 2001). There exists evidence from the International Social Survey Program of 1996 that pride in Australia’s democracy is very high by international standards, exceeded only by New Zealand, Norway, Canada and Britain. There is distrust of politicians, and the country does not rank so highly on this indicator, but there is still less distrust than in most countries. While pride in democracy still plays such a role in Australian national identity, there can be some optimism for the future, despite the cultural and economic insecurities of the present (Cook, 2004).
In any democratic political system, the executive is required to accountable i.e. should be held responsible for its administrative practices and decisions. One of the most significant principles of democracy in Australia is that voters/people have a choice of government (Foley, 1996). To keep with this expectation’s spirit, the opposition is recognized as being the next largest party in Australia. This implies that the party forming the opposition is thought of a party that lost the last election based on the numbers in the State Legislative Assembly or the House of Representatives. The Australian government has embraced democracy allowing opposition that plays a vital role of keeping the government accountable and honest (Lindell, 1994). Traditionally, the opposition forms a shadow cabinet that scrutinizes government officials and proposes alternative ideas and amendments to government legislation. In this context, the shadow opposition cabinet plays a significant role in criticizing the agenda of the government as well as pointing out any shortcomings of the top leadership i.e. the ministerial team or the Prime Minister (Smith, 2012).
Fundamental democratic principles are reflected by the Australian government’s separation of powers in order to define distinct and discrete functions and roles as well as avoid a monopoly of authority (Galligan, 1995). The functional basis of the separation of powers has enabled expertise and professionalism required in exercising various governmental powers, especially judicial power, has been perceived in a way which was impossible under the earlier notions of ‘balanced government’ which had viewed the various ‘estates’ held in balance merely as centers of power. There was, for example, no inherent reason why the nobles should sit in Parliament, rather than, say, the lower clergy or the landless peasantry, except that one group held social or economic power and the others did not. But the separation of powers doctrine highlighted the need for democratic input into legislation and, in the case of the judicially, for independence and professional expertise, which received early recognition (Keating, 2004).
Separation of power has made the way the Australian government system works differently. In the First place, it has prevented the courts from being given powers that are non-judicial (Hart, 2008). Federal courts could not be asked to negotiate or arbitrate industrial disputes, for example because arbitration is an executive power. Federal courts could not be called upon to agree to continue keeping dangerous offenders in gaol after they have served their sentence, as some state courts have been. That power is not judicial either. Separation of power has also prevented other bodies using judicial power. Over several years, this has had its primary impact on organizations that are set up to deals with disputes of various kinds but which do not meet the definition of the courts. An example of these was the Interstate Commission established under section 101 of the Constitution (Keating, 2004). This commission was supposed to have powers of adjudication and administration over disputes about how the parts of the constitution dealing with economic matters worked. In 1915, the high court said that whatever those words meant, the commission would not use judicial power because its members were appointed only for seven years and so it was not a court. This made the commission less necessary, and it no longer exists. Separation of judicial power means that parliament cannot use judicial power either. This is essential especially for the protection of individuals under the Australian Constitution. For example, Parliament cannot pass a law to say that a particular person has committed a crime and to punish them for it because this is judicial power. On the other hand, the separation of judicial power has limited the instructions that Parliament can give the courts about how to do their work. The separation of powers has been necessary for preventing tyranny and preservation and maintenance of people’s liberty. This is because a separation of powers is the best means for institutionalising the rule of law the idea that an objective set of publicly known as rules are applied transparently and equally to all people (Peabody, 2011).
To some extent, the precise role of the courts in the country is hotly contested. A maxim of democratic governance is that, in accordance with the doctrine of the separation of powers, a separate and independent branch of government is granted judicial powers. The other two branches of government- the legislature and the executive- are compressed to debate enact and implement laws and policy. The judicially, through the court system, interprets and applies those laws independently of government. The judiciary, in, turn, is required to restrict its role to interpretation and enforcement of relevant laws, rather than seeking to usurp the roles of the executive and legislature (Keating, 2004). In principle, this all sounds logical and straightforward. In practice, however, it is anything but, Australian courts often find themselves at the centre of political storms (Youtube). Parliamentarians and public commentators have publicly derided their decisions, and members of the public have called for parliaments to step in and specify to the courts the length and type of sentences that ought to be imposed for certain offences, thereby overriding the discretion of judges. This implies that the activities of the courts are often as hotly debated as the activities of other government branches (Keating, 2004).
Australian government has adopted a strange position on the protection of human rights and the human rights bodies and parliament have been left to defend people’s liberty. This is against the strict separation of powers (Youtube). The government criticizes the efforts of the human rights bodies and fails to recognize that parliament has a task of ensuring that the laws in the country comply with human rights standards. Therefore, the government seems not to support the basic democratic principles and enhances the disappearance of the mechanisms that ensures compliance of the federal laws with human rights norms (Davis, 2015).
In theoretical terms, a major concern has been whether federalism is compatible with democracy- a concern on which some theorists disagree. Much of theoretical debate about the advantages and disadvantages of federal systems stems from the varying weights given to democratic and liberal values (Kincaid, 2005). Considering the principle of the popular control of the Australian government, one of the advertised virtues of federalism has been the checks and balances it places on the potential for democracy to lead to ‘big government.’ Supporters of federalism emphasize the way in which divided sovereignty disperses the power of central government by creating competing centres of power. Some believe this competition curbs corruption by providing multiple levels at which allegations can be aired under parliamentary privilege (Dahl, 2003). The limiting of each jurisdiction’s power to particular policy areas, and to geographical regions in the case of sub-national governments, is also seen as restricting the growth of government. The tortuous and legalistic decision-making process associated with federalism have been favourably interpreted as slowing governments down and hence ensuring due process or at least a break from arbitrary action (Harris, 2002).
The founding fathers of federalism were particularly concerned about the danger to property rights that might be posed by popular movements in a new democracy and this came to be seen as a more general threat to individual or minority rights (Patapan, 2000). Federalism was said to be a defence against the overbearing majorities that democracy might produce. By dividing the power to govern, federalism could be a means of taming democracy in Australia and creating a defence against the people who would legislate ‘happiness schemes’ (Hudson, 2004).
The view that federalism ensures limited government has been challenged by public choice arguments that it creates multiple independent sources of public authority, each of which has a tendency to continuous expansion, contributing to the growth of big government rather than its restriction. Competition between these multiple centres of political and bureaucratic power may contribute t the growth of Australian government, not just through the overlap and duplication of functions, but also through competition for political prestige and electoral support (Sansom & Alam, n.d.).
In terms of civil rights, the Australian government serves to protect rights and freedoms against a possible tyranny of the majority of government itself. The protection of human rights in Australia currently varies considerably between jurisdictions, with rights such as the freedom of assembly being now more secure in jurisdictions which have a charter of rights than those that do not (Crotty, 2009). In Conclusion, the Australian government is in a constant process of change, and the capacity of the conventions of democratic government to adapt has been an important advantage in this evolution. The challenge waiting ahead will be whether the country’s top leadership can find better ways of delivering sound and responsive control of Australian government in keeping with democratic traditions, as well as the expectations of the citizens.
Democratic Principles in Australians Government References
Birch, A. (2001). Concepts, theories of modern democracy (2nd ed.). London: Routledge.
Cook, I. (2004). Government and democracy in Australia. Victoria, Australia: Oxford
University Press.
Crotty, M. (2009). Turning points in Australian history. Sydney: UNSW Press.
Dahl, R. (2003). How democratic is the American Constitution? (2nd ed.). New Haven,
Conn.: Yale University Press.
Davis, F. (2015, March 9). Human rights in Australia will become a political plaything without consensus.
Dalzell, S. (2015, March 12). New laws in Western Australia aimed at criminalising so-called “radical
protests” are undemocratic and a threat to basic civil liberties, lawyers say. New Protest Laws in WA ‘a Threat to Civil Liberties’ Retrieved March 18, 2015, from http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-03-12/new-protest-laws-in-wa-a-threat-to-civil-liberties/6306126
Foley, C. (1996). Australian flag: Colonial relic or contemporary icon? Annandale,
NSW: Federation Press.
French, R. (2003). Reflections on the Australian Constitution. Annandale, NSW: Federation
Press.
Galligan, B. (1995). Federal republic: Australia’s constitutional system of government.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Galligan, B., & Roberts, W. (2001). Australians and globalisation: The experience of two
centuries. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Galligan, B., & Roberts, W. (2004). Australian citizenship. Carlton, Vic.: Melbourne
University Press.
Harris, B. (2002). A new constitution for Australia. London: Cavendish Pub.
Hart, P. (2008). Public leadership pespectives and practices. Acton, A.C.T.: ANU E Press.
Hudson, W. (2004). Restructuring Australia: Regionalism, republicanism and reform of the
Jones, T. (2008). The best Australian political writing 2008.
Carlton, Vic.: Melbourne University Press.
Keating, M. (2004). Who rules?: How government control a privatised economy.
Annandale, NSW: Federation Press.
Kincaid, J. (2005). Constitutional origins, the structure, and change in federal countries. Montreal : Published for Forum of Federations and International Association of Centers
for Federal Studies by McGill-Queen’s University Press.
Lee, H., & Campbell, E. (2013). The Australian judiciary (2nd ed.).
Cambridge [U.K.: Cambridge University Press.
Levey, G. (n.d.). Political theory and Australian multiculturalism. McGraw-Hill Education.
Lindell, G. (1994). Future directions for Australian constitutional law: Essays in honour of
Professor Leslie Zines. Sydney: Federation Press in association with the Centre for International and Public Law and the Law Faculty, Australian National University.
Manin, B. (2015). The principles of representative government. Corpus Books.
Patapan, H. (2000). Judging democracy: The new politics of the High Court of Australia.
Cambridge [England: Cambridge University Press.
Peabody, B. (2011). The politics of judicial independence: Courts, politics, and the public.
Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.
Sansom, G., & Alam, M. (n.d.). Principles in local government legislation: Lessons from the
Commonwealth Pacific.
Smith, R. (2012). Contemporary politics in Australia: Theories, practices, and issues.
Open door policy in Australia with regard to the reception of Refugees fleeing war torn regions or political turmoil in their countries
Order Instructions:
1. Please read the attached stimulus reading.
2. Write a response to the stimulus reading, arguing for or against the points made. (275 words).
3. Ensure that you make reference to any relevant news articles or academic publications to strengthen your argument.
4. All sources must be referenced correctly.
SAMPLE ANSWER
Open door policy in Australia
Australia should not have an open door policy in Australia with regard to the reception of Refugees fleeing war torn regions or political turmoil in their countries (Australian Government, 2015). This is because it puts at risk the country’s security and also the welfare of its citizens. The Australian government owes a duty of care to it citizens first of all and then everybody else should come second. Taking in refugees’ costs a lot of money and the process is prone to abuse if it happens to be completely open.
I think the off-shore processing regime is effective in that it helps to resettle the refugees while concurrently averting a larger problem of tension between citizens of the country and a swelling number of refugees who would begin putting pressure on current resources. By processing them off-shore Australia also manages to help them resettle away from the danger that lies in their home country while giving them some degree of independence (Australian Human Rights Commission, 2014).
Assylum seekers should be offered temporary protection for a set period of time that is determined by the severity of the danger involved. During this period of protection a more permanent solution needs to be worked out with input from the asylum seekers concerned regarding how they can regain their independence (Phillips, 2014).
The Liberal party approach fits better under the ‘status quo’ category since it seeks to maintain a distinction between the refugees and the current residents of Australia. The ‘turning back the boats’ initiative is well aligned with this concept. The idea of the greens to have Australia take in much more refugees is closer to changing the situation since it will be much easier for asylum seekers to get into Australia as refugees without facing any major legal hurdles (Liberal Party, 2014; The Greens, 2015).
I have done of the Introduction, which have attached in the files. The introduction may change by myself after your finished the Mainbody and Conclusion. You need to refer to my report plan and the introduction, to keep on writing the mainbody and conclusion. You are welcome to make any changes which will be good to the report, but the report needs to be look like written by the same person.
The structure of the Main body: The Leadership Framework
The Leadership Framework is a set of questions designed to help you think about complex problems and the leadership needed to address them.
•What is the problem? Why is it a problem? In what ways is this a ‘wicked’ problem?
•What change is needed to solve/address this problem?
•Who are the leaders who can influence change in relation to this problem?*
•What are the challenges they face? What are the barriers to change?
•What actions have leaders taken/are they taking? How effective have they been?
•What more could they do? What could they do differently?
* You must identify at least 3 leaders, who may be individuals, groups or organisations.
Research findings (1700 words approx)
This is the main body of your report. In it you should:
• Set out your research findings (primary and/or secondary) – compare, evaluate, analyse. Remember that any primary research you’ve done should help you address the problem you’ve identified/leadership questions above, and should add something beyond what can be found in secondary sources
• Examine the relationship between different sources, including your primary sources, if you have them, and secondary sources
o in what ways do your different sources complement each other/agree/disagree/offer different points of view on the problem
o how and in what ways does your primary research reflect/bear out the secondary research?
o can you use the secondary sources to help you analyse your primary sources?
o is there any conflict between sources, including primary and secondary sources?
Address leadership questions:
o Who are the leaders who can influence change in relation to this problem? (You should consider a range of leaders – at least 3 – remembering that leaders can be groups or organisations, not just individuals)
o Given this is a wicked problem, what does that tell us about the kinds of leadership approaches that might be required?
o What are the challenges leaders face?
o What are the barriers to change?
o What actions have leaders taken?
o How effective have they been? (evaluate/analyse/compare)
• Remember also that we’re looking for evidence that you can reshape your material – use the research you’ve done to help you address the problem you’ve identified, and the related leadership questions.
• Don’t worry if you find anomalies/problems, as long as you
a) face up to/identify them and
b) try to account for them (this may be in your conclusion?)
Conclusions/Outcomes (500 words approx)
Covers the final question in the Leadership Framework: What actions could leaders take to bring about change in relation to the problem you identified at the start? or, put another way, what leadership approaches might be tried in response to this wicked problem?
Remember to maintain your leadership focus, and make sure you return to reflect upon the leadership questions and the evidence gathered from your primary and secondary research.
Include your suggestions/recommendations for future actions to bring about change in relation to the problem identified.
Please note, the word counts above are approximations. You might find you need to write a bit more in your conclusion, and less in your introduction. However you use the word count across the complete report, remember the upper word limit is 3,500 words.
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This is a group report, which are consisted of 4 people. The rest of people in the group are doing their own work, and I need to work on ***TASK NUMBER 5.***
Tasks we have divided are:
1- Executive Summary
2- Brief outline of New Trade Theory
3- Brief outline of Porters Theory of national Competitive advantage
4- Outline the current position and issues of the Australian industry you have chosen
5- (THIS ONE) Outline and justify what industry strategies and government policies you would recommend be adopted to improve Australia’s position in the industry for the short and long term. (THIS ONE)
6- Conclusion
SAMPLE ANSWER
Industrial Strategies and Government Policies
Over the last decades, the airline industry of Australia has been faced with stiff competition that has seen other players such as Singapore airline making remarkable profits at the behest of the former. Homsombat and Fu (2014) note that unless something serious is done, the industry will still continue to register losses as the Asian airlines make huge profits and continue dominating the market. As such, it is upon the government and the management to employ strategies and policies that will ensure the airline industry survives in the international airline market. This section of the paper presents policies and strategies that will see the company rejuvenates to its dominance in the airline industry.
Industrial Strategies
Lowering prices and offering affordable tariffs
One of the strategies to attract customers is by lowering prices in a manner that does not affect the business. Although quanta’s authorities say that the increase of travel charges is specifically based on the increase of fuel cost, consumers are weary since other airlines charge relatively low prices yet have the same fuel costs. Homsombat and Fu (2014) say that the high charges have swayed local consumers to preferring the Asian airlines over domestic airlines. An example of the continuous increase of fare price is evidenced in March 2014. One way flight on Qantas Jumbo from Australia to London has a $380 fuel charge, while it costs $340 on an A380 to the United States (Cavusgil et. al., 2014). Therefore, are the imposts really fair? Fuel prices have been at generally high, balancing between $US120 and $US140 a barrel (Cavusgil et. al., 2014). Passengers have been benefiting from the stiff competition from state-sponsored Chinese and Middle Eastern airlines, which keep on driving down fares on strategic routes to Australia. It suggests that airlines, including Qantas and other Australian airlines, are losing big money and dominance on long-haul routes. Lowering of rates has been the strategy of the current commanders of the airline industry. For example, in the last decade, Middle East giants such as Qatar, Emirates, and Etihad lowered their prices, and at the same time had superb networks (Homsombat and Fu,2014). New airlines such as airAsiaX and china southern airline will dominate the industry due to their strategy of low rates
. Therefore, one of the best strategies for the Australian industry is to lower their tariffs and the company will attract international and domestic customers that will not only bring profits but also assist the company to strive through the stiff competition.
Initiation of innovation
Australian airline has to fight to be among the first to initiate innovation. As air travel is often associated with high risk and faces skepticism from consumers, Aviation organizations combat this negative stereotype with increased comfort ability. Therefore, efforts to initiate innovation towards comfort and infrastructure are ways to assure customers that their wellbeing is the concern of the company (Airlines Industry Profile, 2014). Australian customers have been leaving the airline for years. Primarily, it was because of cabin offerings. Malaysia, Cathay pacific and Singapore airline are the veterans of free drinks that were started in 1960s.
Qantas and other airlines reluctantly followed. Czinkota (2010) articulates that originality is something that makes customers believes in you. This can be seen through; “that nobody would believe any Mercedes Benz manufactured in Africa since the originality of Benz is somewhere far from Africa” (Czinkota 2010). In 1990s, the airlines of Singapore led the industry with seatback videos and games for economy passengers. Virgin Atlantic and emirates also adopted the entertainment system that pleased many customers. Inextricably, Qantas, an Australian airline was still stoic in its resistance. Gao and Shi (2011) suggest that Australian airlines had no reason for charging such high prices without these new aviation features. At that time, airlines that were the first movers in innovation took over from the Australian airlines. As such, other companies like Qantas of Australia should employ innovation as the only strategy that attracts customers to the services and mold popularity in the country instead of copying others.
The Australian airline should recognize that to sustain the differentiation, the company must maintain a continuous development, and be in a position to dispose programs or services that do not provide competitive differentiation any more.
Merger and alliance strategy
The Australia airline should use the merger and alliance strategy to dominate the market. As defined by Peng (2013), merger strategy is the system by which two or more companies come together or merge to form one company with strong objective and diversified ideas from different individuals. One of the major factors in the Australian industry is that the domestic competition between local airlines such as Qantas and other airlines does not prompt growth. Therefore, it may be advantageous for aviation companies to merge in order to deplete competitive pricing and allow for greater growth and development. One major benefit of merger is the creation of a large customer base and the rebranding opportunity of the organization. Although mergers were discouraged during regulated era, they have been very effective during the deregulated period (Prince & Simon, 2009). Those alliances have not materialized so much, but they might be resurrected in future to assist the firms that are heading towards bankruptcy (Cavusgil et. al., 2012). Additionally, major carriers may suggest mergers, and some new entrants into the market might be absorbed in a future wave of airline industry consolidations. As much as this method had been started in Australia, its full implementation has not been given a serious focus (Cavusgil et. al., 2014). For instance, Virgin airline charges an average of $310 to US but not charges the levy to Europe since the company is in a strategic alliance with Etihad airline. Therefore, to become relevant in the competitive airline industry, Australia airlines should form a merged cooperation to consolidate resources, technology, and customers to compete with rivals such as Qatar Emirates.
Staff trainings
Australian aviation organizations such as Quanta’s, need extensive staff training. Building positive relationships with customers will ensure satisfied and repeat flyers. Training must run to all employees within the organisation, and the training must align with the business strategy and direction. Nand Singh and Power (2013) explains that it is one of the major factors that brought Singapore airline to where it is. Senior managers and all staff members require functional skills in addition to the skills they possess in their area of professional work. For Singapore, they believed training is next to godliness (Peng, 2013). By training the staff on regular changes (including the CEO), will ensure factors such as improper fare payments are dealt with in accordance to how the rivals charge their customers. It is for that reason that training managers and employees on a regular occasion is required in the industry.
Government policies
Government policies
for the government of Australia, open skies agreement with other competitive nations will give room for price reduction. Australia has signed polices such as these with countries such as the United States of America. Although the Australian government trade with numerous countries that have not yet joined open skies policies, The Open Skies policy eliminates interferences of flights between two countries which paves the way for additional competitors (Peng, 2013). For Australia the signed agreement between itself and the US has enabled Australian airlines such as Qantas to increase its flight services with up to forty-eight flights landing weekly in the mainland of US. These creating many add on affects for Australia with Increased profits and awareness, as well as its competitor stance against US airlines (Cavusgil et. al., 2014). With such outcomes, important agreement and policies between countries like Singapore and other airline oriented countries proves that growth and development of Australian airline industry is still productive. Potential growth in clientele, price reductions and profit increases as well as greater market share are all potential outcomes that policies such as these allow for nations and their growing industries. Therefore if polices such as the Open Skies policy was to be iniated and signed by largely dominated airline nations then potential growth due to improved market availability, greater profits and lower costs will enable increasing competition and nations ability to grow.
By creating awareness of agreement policies, especially with companies in Asia where fare is quite high, deregulated conflicting business will be implemented after lowering the national security enabling travelling to be easy for travellers. Ideally if the Australian government were to sign a policy that regulates taxes and fees than they would be equally aligned with competitor countries allowing for the increase in their expansion and development of airlines.
As much as the Australian government has taken on US airline processes and procedures which has increased the amount per trip Captor, Australian airlines have still been subject to poor growth as fees and taxes remain a heavy burden upon the Australian airline industry (Cavusgil et. al., 2012). For the Australian government to reduce these burdens a review of taxes and fees would be a must and in this case the lowering of tariffs and taxes imposed on the Australians airlines would be a necessity. Nand ,Singh and Power (2013) argue that the fees have been a source of dominance of other airlines in countries. While possessing the ability to offer cheaper ticket with a deregulated market facilitates the loyalty of the customer, expensive air ticket is one of the factor that destroy the engagement of the customer. Therefore, for customers choosing between Singapore and Australian airlines little consideration for choice is needed.
A rate of return policy is in some cases used as a restriction to direct judgments by lowering of the prices per each trip made.That is the policy authority enabling a fair rate of return on the worth of the assets needed to produce those services. It gives incentives for the company to upsurge its “rate base” by capitalizing more on capital input that is relative to labor input; alternatively, the firm under rate-of-return limitation has comparatively more money than is required to manufacture any given output. This is an imperative source of inefficiency caused by the regulation.
Over-capitalization,is the tendency of companies to engross in excessive amounts of capital accretion to expand the volume of their profits. If companies’ profits to capital ratio are controlled at a certain level then there will be strong incentives for firms to invest in order to increase profits overall.
Therefor this alludes to the idea that the government should employ more policies that govern the Australian airspace to eliminate the unnecessarily traffics. Air services guided by the policy should review the aeronautical pricing for terminal navigation products in the first quarter as composed by Czinkota (2010) with a view to forming a framework that propagates the augmentation of air traffic services in Australia including major regional airports. The Government should then task the Aviation Policy Group agencies to launch clear criteria selections that are aligned with the complexity and nature of operations at people’s locations that will assist to determine when new, modified or a substitute air traffic services and facilities are needed. The policy will ensure that there is no air space traffic that can inconvenience the domestic flights and other international flights from other countries.
References
Airlines Industry Profile: Australia. (2014). Airlines Industry Profile: Australia, 1-33.
Cavusgil, S.T., Knight, G., Riesenberger, J.R., (2014) International Business: The New Realities 3e, Upper saddle River, N.J. : Pearson Prentice Hall.
Cavusgil, S.T., Knight, G., Riesenberger, J.R., Rammal, H.G., Freeman, S., (2012) International Business: The New Realities Australasian Edition, Pearson Australia.
De Roos, N, Mills, G, & Whelan, S 2010, ‘Pricing Dynamics in the Australian Airline Market’, Economic Record, 86, 275, pp. 545-562
Gao, T, & Shi, L 2011, ‘How Do Multinational Suppliers Formulate Mechanisms of Global Account Coordination? An Integrative Framework and Empirical Study’, Journal Of International Marketing, 19, 4, pp. 61-87
Homsombat, W, Lei, Z, & Fu, X 2014, ‘Competitive effects of the airlines-within-airlines strategy – Pricing and route entry patterns’,Transportation Research Part E, 63, pp. 1-16,
Nand, A, Singh, P, & Power, D 2013, ‘Testing an integrated model of operations capabilitiesAn empirical study of Australian airlines’,International Journal Of Operations & Production Management, 33, 7, pp. 887-911,
Peng, M., (2013) Global, Mason, Ohio, Southwestern Cengage Learning, (ON RESERVE)
Part 1 1000 words maximum
Part 2 1000 words maximum
Part 1; There have been numerous corporate scandals in the past 15 years, most of which caused the companies affected to subsequently experience financial difficulties. Prominent frauds include HIH Insurance and Onetel (Australia), Satyam computers (India), Societe-General and Parlamat (France), World.com, Enron and Waste management (USA), Barings Bank and Equitable life Ins (UK) Royal Dutch Shell (Holland), Olympus (Japan), Duetche Bank (Germany) and Siemens (Greece).
(i) Select a fraud from three different countries and describe the nature of the fraud.
(ii) Explain the causes of the frauds using the fraud triangle.
(iii) Using the fraud triangle as a framework, compare and contrast the influence of cultural and social factors in each international jurisdiction on the cause of the frauds.
Part 2; Answer the following questions based on the case study below:
Alex McAdams, the recently retired CEO of Athletic Shoes, was honoured to be asked to join the Board of Consolidated Mins (CMI) International Inc. Alex continues to sit on the Board of Athletic Shoes, as well as the Board of Pharma Advantage another publicly traded company on the New York Stock Exchange. However, CMI, as it is known, is a major step up for Alex.
CMI was formed as the United Mines Company in the 1870s, by an American railway magnate, and in 1985 it became Consolidated Mines International Inc. It operates mines in Central America and northern South America. In 2004, its revenue were approximately $4.5 billion and it employed about 25,000 people worldwide.
In deciding whether to accept the board seat, Alex conducted his own due diligence. As a result, there were two issues that he wanted to raise with Cameron Derry, the CEO of CMI. One concerned the allegations of questionable business practices. The other concerned the political instability in several of the Latin American countries in which the CMI mines are located. Today Alex was meeting with Cameron at the Long Bar Lounge.
During lunch Cameron candidly talked about the history of the company and the bad press that it often received. “In the 1920s we were accused of bribing government officials and using our political connections to have unions outlawed. In the 1950s we were accused of participating in the overthrow of a Latin American government. In the 1990s there were charges that we were exploiting our employees, polluting the environment, and facilitating the importation of cocaine into the U.S. But, none of these allegations has ever been proven in court of law,” said Cameron. “And we’ve even successfully sued one newspaper chain that published a series of these unproven stories about us”.
“As for the political environment, Alex, you’re right. There is no effective government in many of the countries in which we operate. In fact it is often the paramilitary that are in control of the countryside where we have our mines. These are very unsavoury organizations, Alex. They have their own death squads. They have been involved in the massacre, assassination, kidnapping, and torture of tens of thousands of Latin Americans, most of them peasants and workers, as well as trade unionists and left wing political figures.”
“Do they interfere with CMI’s operations?” asked Alex.
“No, and that’s because we’ve been paying them off. It’s now 2014 and we’ve been paying them since 1997. To date we’ve given them about $1.7million in total. Don’t look so shocked, Alex. Occasionally, we have to do business with some very unsavoury characters. And the United Peoples Liberation Front that controls much of the region around our mines is probably the worst of the lot. They are involved in disappearances, murder, rape and drug trafficking. The payments we make to them are for our protection. If we don’t make these payments it could result in harm to our personnel and property.”
“That’s extortion!”
“We don’t call it that. We list these payments as being for ‘security services, but we have no invoices to support the payments, and beginning in 2002 we began making direct cash payment to them. But, we now have an additional problem. The United State government has declared the United People Liberation Front to be a terrorist organization, and our outside legal counsel has advised us to stop making the payments. But if we stop I’m afraid of what might happen to our employees. I don’t want to support drug trafficking and terrorism, but I need our mines to stay open.”
“I’m telling you this Alex, because when you join the Board, the first item on next months’ agenda is these payments. I want the Board to approve that we continue to make these payments in order to ensure the safety of our Latin American employees and operations.”
(i) Discuss the ethical issues in the case above with reference to the principles of professional conduct.
(ii) What should Alex do? Justify and analyse the case above using AAA ethical decision making model and arrive at a decision.
SAMPLE ANSWER
Governance and Fraud
Part 1
Corporate scandals in India, USA and Australia have indicated that corporate accounting fraud is the greatest problem in the corporate world that is rising in occurrence and severity. Research shows that the alarming rates of fraud have damaged the reliability of financial reports, resulted to considerable economic losses and corroded the assurance of investors on the efficacy and consistency of financial statements (Jones, 2011).
Corporate accounting fraud is an economic or political scandal that arises from the disclosure of fiscal offenses by trusted organization managerial. Such fiscal offenses often involve multifaceted ways of mishandling or misusing funds, overstatement of corporate value assets, understatement of corporate expenses, overstatement of revenues, or under-reporting the extent of liabilities (Romney & Steinbart, 2008).
In the US, corporate accounting fraud has crippled many companies. The Enron Corporation, an American energy company located in Texas, was declared bankrupt in 2001 following claims of immense accounting fraud that led to the loss of $78 billion in stock market value, leading to the fall of Arthur Andersen and the enactment of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002. Following a severe fall in the company’s stock price in 2001, the shareholders of Enron filed a $40 lawsuit, which prompted the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to begin an investigation. Dynegy, Enron’s rival made an offer to buy the Enron at an extremely low price, but Enron put down the offer, and Enron was compelled to apply for bankruptcy under Chapter 11 of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code. Enron Corporation’s $63.4 billion in assets made it the biggest corporate bankruptcy in the history of the United States until WorldCom took up the bankruptcy record in the following year.
Regardless of legislative reactions to the rising trend of corporate accounting fraud in the United States, which led to much stricter corporate guidelines with amendments to the UN Sentencing Guidelines and the enactment of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002, colossal corporate fraud still continues to prevail in the country.
The collapse of a prominent Australian corporation OneTel has indicated the inadequacy of corporate governance practices in Australia (Albrecht & Albrecht, 2004). HIH Insurance was liquidated in 2001 with losses ranging between AU$3.6 billion and AU$5.3 billion. In a similar way, just prior to its collapse, OneTel, which was once ranked as the fourth largest telecommunications company in Australia and one of the ASX’s fastest growing companies, revealed an operating loss of AU$291 in 2000. The collapse OneTel was triggered by many problems including questionable related party dealings, potentially unnecessary management compensations, unproductive working capital management, improper auditing, destructive financial reports, untenable business policies, and poor corporate governance. The failure of this Australian company highlights the significance of not only having good corporate governance practices but also ensuring thorough execution of the same rather than plain paid “lip service” (Jones, 2011).
The fundamental problem of Australian companies as highlighted in OneTel is their keenness in pursuing low yielding businesses and failing to set aside adequate capital to cater for future liabilities. Predictably, the problem has been catalyzed by the failure of management and the board of directors to efficiently implement and scrutinize due diligence practices.
India has also experienced massive corporate fraud particularly since the wake of the 21st century. In 2009, it was revealed that the chairman of Satyam Computer Services, one of Inida’s largest computer IT companies serving many global corporations such as 185 Fortune, had manipulated corporate books in various commercial dealings. Satyam’s chairman was also found to have engaged in mishandling of assets, increasing expenses, forging documents, and manipulating of profits, inventory value and income, since 2001. The losses encountered by Satyam were estimated to be US1.5 billion, that is, two and a half times the sum of the Enron Scandal (Bhasin, 2013).
The fraud triangle consists of three components that act together to lead to fraudulent behavior and they include pressure, opportunity, and rationalization (Albrecht & Albrecht, 2004). Pressure involves the motivation of a person to commit fraud. It includes financial, lifestyle, and emotional motivation. In Enron’s case, financial pressure existed for top management to meet the Wall Street analysts’ expectations. As for Satyam and OneTel, the top management engaged in fraud due to lifestyle motivation.
Opportunity refers to the condition or situation that allows a person or an organization to commit the fraud, hide it, and switch it to personal gain (Barney, 2009). The conditions at Enron, Satyam, and OneTel that provided an opportunity to commit the fraud were the companies’ control framework; the control environment, the control procedures, and the accounting system. The companies’ top management failed to accept the responsibility to provide conducive work environment. In addition, proper and effective accounting systems could have provided an audit trail, particularly a paper trail that could make it easier to detect fraud. Furthermore, the conditions in the three countries provided opportunities for the perpetrators to switch the misrepresentations into personal gains. During the respective frauds, top management received large bonuses.
Rationalization is a form of mental justification by perpetrators of their illegal behavior. Most perpetrators in the three fraud scenarios were first-time offenders with no criminal history that allowed them to use rationalization to hide their dishonesty. Due to the fact that the crimes committed were non-violent, the perpetrators did not appreciate the consequences of their actions.
The frauds committed by the three companies were influenced by cultural and social factors. The Enron scandal was triggered by the pressures for economic success that had commenced in the late 20th century and was characterized by a perceived expansive growth that heightened the expectations of corporate success. Enron was a victim of these expectations which resulted to the growth of a fraud designed to mislead the public until the economic face improved.
The management in all the three companies did not carry out effective fraud education training to the employees to tell and show them the devastating consequences of fraud. Since the top executives of the companies condoned fraud, the other employees did not feel that fraud had devastating consequences and thus, they could not hesitate to commit fraud. The frauds were also influenced by permissiveness of the activities in their cultural environments and lack of an ethical environment that condemns fraud.
Part 2
Ethical issues in the case with reference to the principles of professional conduct
The principles of professional conduct are varied due to the fact that every profession has its own code (Weissman & Debow, 2003). However, all codes often work towards the promotion of the public interest, integrity, objectivity, independence, confidentiality, technical and professional standards, competence and due care, and ethical behavior. These principals also apply to all members in public practice.
As regards public interest, while acting in the course of the interests of their employers, professionals must put into account legal requirements and any loyalties and responsibilities owed to the community. Thus, in all its endeavors, CMI should ensure that it does not disregard public interest while furthering its own interests. Integrity requires members to show straightforwardness, sincerity, and honesty in their approach to professional work. An employee who discovers that his employer has committed or is about to commit an unlawful act should make all relevant efforts to convince the employer not to continue perpetuating the unlawful act and to rectify the matter. Objectivity requires professionals to be fair and not allow prejudice and conflict of interest to override their objectivity.
The principle of independence requires that professionals should act independently without any interest that is considered inconsistent with objectivity and integrity. Despite the fact that employees cannot be independent of their employers and there are certain legal duties such as keeping information confidential, they also have responsibilities towards directors, shareholders, other executives and employees, and third parties such as customers, banks and suppliers. Another principle of professional code of conduct is confidentiality. It is important to respect the confidentiality of information acquired in the course of work and disclosure to a third party without specific authority is unethical. Professionals also need to observe ethical behavior by conducting themselves in a manner consistent with the good reputation of their profession and refraining from any conduct which might bring discredit to their profession (Flanagan & Clarke, 2007).
The principles of professional ethics require all professionals to promote and support the highest level of ethics in their profession and uphold the highest standards of professional conduct. Professionals are also required to use only ethical and legal means in their course of operations while protecting the public against unfair practices and fraud and promoting all practices that bring respect and credit to the profession. It is also an ethical requirement for professionals to provide accurate and truthful information with regard to the performance of their duties at all times.
The facts of the case indicate that CMI has several ethical issues. The first ethical issue is with regard to integrity. The company’s bribing of government officials and using its political connections to outlaw unions raises integrity issues. It also raises the issue of employee mistreatment whereby the top executive officials make decisions to mistreat other employees, even to the point of breaking the law. The outlawing of unions deprives employees a platform for them to raise their concerns on issues such as paid leave, working hours, wages, discrimination, sexual harassment, and wrongful and unfair dismissal.
Other ethical issues are in respect to the company’s pollution of the environment, exploitation of employees, and facilitation of the importation of cocaine into the US. These issues are against the principle of protection of public interests. In addition the company’s funding of the United Peoples Liberation Front raises ethical concerns due to the fact that the organization is involved in harmful activities such as drug trafficking, rape, murder and disappearances. Making payments to this unsavoury terrorist organization raises the question of public interests, integrity, and competence and due care.
What Alex should do using AAA ethical decision making model (The Institute of Chartered Accountants in Australia, d.)
Determine the facts
Alex should establish the facts as to who, what, where, when, and how the problem was committed. Alex should find out the facts before raising the matter with Cameron. He should document his findings, noting that the employees have been mistreated, the company is funding a terrorist organization, polluting the environment, and facilitating drug trafficking.
The significant stakeholders and definition of the ethical issues
Stakeholders of CMI include Cameron Derry, directors of the organization, shareholders, and creditors. The ethical issues include Alex’s responsibility to Cameron Derry versus his own integrity, Alex’s responsibility to the organization versus his responsibility to Cameron, and Alex’s responsibility to the organization and Cameron versus public interest. Overall, Alex’s dilemma is what further action he should take regarding the information he has gathered.
The applicable fundamental principles and any other rules or values
Alex needs to demonstrate integrity, technical and professional standards, and competence and due care.
The alternatives
By doing nothing, Alex would breach the principles of integrity, technical and professional standards, and competence and due care. Resignation would satisfy the three principles, though it would abrogate responsibility. Raising the concerns with the board members informally would not give Alex an opportunity to explain himself. By trying to convince Cameron Derry to stop breaching ethical and legal duties, Alex would be acting in consistence with integrity and it allows Alex the opportunity to explain himself.
Assessment of the consequences
If Alex decides to do nothing and allow the company to continue funding the terrorist organization, it would pacify the ethical problems affecting the company, and this would cause devastating legal consequences to the operations of the company. This would cause Alex to breach his ethical standards as outlined in the Code. If he chooses to resign, the problem might never be identified, which may cause detrimental problems to the company. If he talks informally with the board members, it may preserve Alex’s integrity and may lead to an independent investigation, though it can have a negative impact on Alex’s career aspirations. If he tries to convince Cameron to put an end to harmful practices, Cameron might consider rectifying the problem.
Decision-making
In light of the analysis, first, Alex can once more convince Cameron to rectify the issue basing on his findings. If this is not successful, Alex can raise his concerns with the board and other stakeholders. If again not successful, Alex can resign.
References
Albrecht, S. & Albrecht, C. (2004). Fraud Examination and Prevention.
Barney, J. L. (2009). Corporate scandals, executive compensation, and international corporate governance convergence: a US-Australia case study. Temp. Int’l & Comp. LJ, 23, 231.
Bhasin, M. L. (2013). Corporate Accounting Fraud: A Case Study of Satyam Computers Limited. Open Journal of Accounting, 2: 26-38.
Flanagan, J., & Clarke, K. (2007). Beyond a Code of Professional Ethics: A Holistic Model of Ethical Decision‐Making for Accountants. Abacus, 43(4), 488-518.
Jones, M. J. (2011). Creative Accounting, Fraud and International Accounting Scandals. John Wiley & Sons.
Romney, M. B. & Steinbart, P. J. (2008). Accounting Information Systems. Reading, mass: Addison-Wiley.
The Institute of Chartered Accountants in Australia. Joint Guidance Notes GN – Members in Business Guidance Statement. Retrieved from: http://www.apesb.org.au/attachments/GN1.pdf
Weissman, H. N., & Debow, D. M. (2003). Ethical principles and professional competencies. Handbook of psychology.
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For this paper, it is critical that the writer clearly respond to the four main points listed in the questions. the paper must be detailed and concise, and the writer must pay attention to grammatical errors and APA formatting which will be to follow the 6th edition . Resources are also included at the end of the questions to assist the writer in getting the material needed to write this paper.
Corporate Governance
One of the most significant debates about corporate governance centers on whether the organization owes a greater responsibility to the shareholder who has invested in the company or to the stakeholders and those who can most be affected by its actions, namely the employees, suppliers, creditors, and customers.
After reviewing the resources for this week, respond to the following:
• Use the Internet to research alternative goals for shareholder wealth maximization.
• Identify countries with goals that differ from the U.S. or countries that are home to firms that have differing goals from those based in the U.S.
• Compare and contrast the difference between stakeholder focus goals versus shareholder focus goals.
• What are potential problems with both?
Resources to be use for this paper.
• Readings
Course Text
• Ross, S. A., Westerfield, R. W., & Jaffe, J. (2013). Corporate finance (10th ed.). New York: McGraw-Hill Irwin.
Chapter 1, “Introduction to Corporate Finance”
This chapter introduces some of the basic ideas in corporate finance; namely, capital budgeting, capital structure, and cash flows. In addition, there is a discussion on maximizing the value of stock, one of the most important concepts in finance.
Chapter 2, “Financial Statements and Cash Flow”
This chapter introduces and discusses basic corporate accounting procedures, as well as devices used to calculate a corporation’s cash flow from operations, changes in fixed assets, and changes in working capital.
Articles
• Adams, S. (2008, February). Fundamentals of business economics. Financial Management (UK), 46–48. Retrieved from Business Source Premier Database.
This article provides an analysis of the principal-agent problem and discusses some of the ways that many companies address the issue.
• Rappaport, A. (2006, September). Ten ways to create shareholder value. Harvard Business Review, 66–77. Retrieved from Business Source Premier Database.
In this article, the author states his belief that there are certain principles that when followed will result in increased shareholder value for a company. He provides a review of the 10 steps he has found to be most important and provides a brief description of each.
• Shleifer, A., & Vishny, R. (1997). A survey of corporate governance. Journal of Finance, 52(2), 737–783. Retrieved from Business Source Premier database.
The authors use a survey instrument to study how financial suppliers use corporate governance to assure that they receive a return on their investment.
• Almazan, A., Banerji, S., & DeMotta, A. (2008). Attracting attention: Cheap managerial talk and costly market monitoring. Journal of Finance, 63(3), 1399–1436. Retrieved from Business Source Premier database.
This article presents a new theory as to the best way to increase shareholder value by seeking market attention while the firm is undervalued.
SAMPLE ANSWER
There are a number of goals for shareholder wealth maximization. One of the reasons for shareholder wealth maximization is to increase their wealth and to attain a high market value of their shares (Adams, 2008). In addition, shareholders wealth maximization can be done with the aim of increasing shareholder expectations, leading to reduced conflicts between the management and the shareholders. These conflicts arising among the shareholders may be as a result of directors managing money with less care since it is not their own. Companies can address this issue by encouraging the directors and managers involved in the shareholder business to take note and interest on all matters arising from various interest groups to restore and maintain sanity (Shleifer &Vishny, 1997).
Rappaport (2006) argues that countries differ from one another in matters related to corporate social responsibility. In the United States,the shareholders are more protected by the means of an extensive system of rules that ensure that the rights of the shareholders and the stakeholders and protected accordingly. Germany and Japan had different goals as compared to those of the United States; whereby, they aimed at shaping their banks to be more powerful financial instruments with the capability of driving the economy. The issue of the type of the large investors in the country is also what contributes to making of profit by the financial suppliers with the aid of corporate governance. Large companies are incorporated to adopt the corporate laws that serve the interest of the shareholders and this contributes to the use of corporate governance inorder to gain profit.
Since shareholders and stakeholders forms different groups of people in a company, the views and aspirations concerning the company may slightly differ (Ross, Westerfield, & Jaffe, 2013). Unlike the stakeholders, shareholders are more concerned with the economic activity of their business thereby only seeing an organization in profitable terms and as instruments of its owners. On the other hand, the stakeholders of a business are more concerned with the social responsibility and demand that the business server the interest of all parties. The problem with shareholders focus is that it neglects the dreams of other interest groups of the business while the problem with stakeholders focus is that it may result into low profitability due to overindulgence in social affairs. When the firm is undervalued, there are three methods of seeking to increase shareholder value with the aid of market attention and they include the presence of managerial agency that the shareholders must addressto be able to achieve positive results (Adams, 2008). The ability of market speculators to produce additional information about the firm at a cost is another method for seeking to increase the shareholders of different companies.
Almazan, Benerji & Demotta (2008) argues that there are some ten principles when followed well will result into increased shareholder and one of them is when one does not manage earnings or provide earnings guidance. This is important because organizations only comprise value when they invest at rates below the cost of capital. A company should also make clear strategic decisions that will help in maximizing of the expected value, which is the weighted average value for a range of plausible scenarios even if it’s at the expense of lowering near-term earnings. Cash should be returned to the shareholders even when there are no credible value-creating opportunities to be able to invest in the business since this will help result to increased shareholders (Mallin, 2013). Senior executives and CEOs of companies ought to be rewarded so that they can continue delivering quality services that will help lead to increased shareholders. A company also has the responsibility of rewarding executives of the operating-unit for being able to add superior multiyear value and the middle managers for having delivered superior performance that influences the increase of shareholders directly. In order to bear the risk of ownership, a company requires senior executives to do so and by the provision of investors with value relevant information, there will be increased shareholder in the company
References
Adams, S. (2008). Fundamentals of Business Economics. Financial Management (UK), 46–48. Retrieved from Business Source Premier Database
Almazan, A., Banerji, S., & DeMotta, A. (2008). Attracting attention: Cheap managerial talk and costly market monitoring. Journal of Finance, 63(3), 1399–1436. Retrieved from Business Source Premier Database
Mallin, C. (2013). Corporate Governance. Oxford University Press; 4 edition
Rappaport, A. (2006). Ten ways to create shareholder value. Harvard Business Review, 66–77. Retrieved from Business Source Premier Database
Ross, S. A., Westerfield, R. W., & Jaffe, J. (2013). Corporate finance (10th Ed.). New York: McGraw-Hill Irwin.
Shleifer, A., &Vishny, R. (1997). A survey of corporate governance. Journal of Finance, 52(2), 737–783. Retrieved from Business Source Premier Database
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Federal, state, and local partnerships are crucial to the implementation of many policy programs in the United States given that all these levels of government cover different administrative areas, which could not operate independently of the two. The federal government covers the whole nation and is most concerned with implementation of policies across the whole country. Some of its roles include the construction and maintenance of interstates highways and the national healthcare system. The state government has jurisdiction only over the individual state that it is responsible over and it executes all the administrative duties within a particular state in conjunction with the federal government (Ebel, Petersen, & Vu, 2013). Lastly, the local government, on the other hand, is usually responsible for a small administrative unit such as a county or a municipal and is usually in direct contact with the residents of a particular area. The local government is usually the most effective at reaching out and coordinating government programs with the local residents. For maximum efficiency, these three levels of government must work in partnership with each other in order to implement government programs in crucial areas such as education, healthcare, and trade facilitation among many other partnerships as explained below.
Federal/State Partnerships in the Support of Humanities Councils
The National Endowment for the Humanities is a federal agency that operates independently under the executive arm of government whose main function is to provide general operating support to the state humanities councils for over 56 jurisdictions (NEH, n.d). The NEH through the Federal/State partnerships office provides grants to most of the state humanities councils that are run by volunteer boards and also provide technical support on the ground in the implementation of most of the state humanities councils’ programs. The Federal/State partnership enables the NEH to achieve its two critical mandates of advancing knowledge and understanding of the humanities throughout the United States and of increasing public awareness, support, and access to the humanities. The partnership office gives grants to the state councils, consults with them onsite and reviews their work, offers the councils insurance and maintains a communication network across the humanities network. Through this partnership, people in most local areas of the state have been able to benefit from specific humanities programs that target them with content that is relevant and interesting to them. The impact of this partnership has been profound on local communities as they get access to humanities they could not access without the grants given through the partnership.
Federal and Local Partnerships Crucial to Public Safety and Justice
At a recent meeting organized by the National Association of Councils (NACo), the importance of federal and local council’s partnerships in terms of the implementation of justice and public safety programs was emphasized. Most of the councils represented reiterated the need for greater partnership with the federal government in the areas of administration of justice, especially in relation to the indigent defense system (Harris & Murray, 2011). Many county councils asked for more funding from the federal government so that they could deliver better services to their local communities, which especially relates to the rural communities that rely heavily on government programs. The Department of Justice was also put to task about how they could assist local councils in setting up demonstrations that would create rural public defender systems. Other issues that were covered included the steps that were to be taken for the implementation of bail reform, the issue of long-term communications infrastructure for disaster management and recovery, and the role of partnerships between governments in reducing prison populations. All the issues raised and discussed at the meeting highlighted the critical role that the federal government plays in the implementation of justice and public safety programs that affect local people especially in the rural areas.
State-Federal partnerships in healthcare
One of the major roles of the federal government is tom provide universal healthcare to all Americans and it cannot achieve this mandate without the full collaboration of state governments that are usually responsible for staff and provision of care. The most crucial role of the federal government in the healthcare industry is to provide health insurance to all Americans through programs such as Medicaid and other social safety programs. State governments play a crucial role in ensuring that everyone receives the appropriate medical coverage that they deserve under the health insurance programs funded by the federal government (Fisher, 2012). Under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) there were several options that were created for both state-based and federal medical insurance programs with majority of the states opting out of the state-based insurance exchanges that place responsibility for the program directly on state governments. Many state are leaning towards the state-federal partnership option in the insurance exchanges program where most of the heavy lifting is left to the federal government as these partnerships do not require a 50-50 split in labor between the state and the federal government. Observers and experts warn that these partnerships could cause major problems for the federal government.
Conclusion
In summary, the few topics do not come close to describing the full scale of federal, state, and local partnerships in the United States, as such partnerships exist in all government functions with only a few exceptions. It is important that these partnerships continue to be nurtured and refined so that they become more effective for the benefit of the local citizen who pays taxes and funds most government activities. Therefore, I believe that these partnerships are crucial to the welfare of all Americans.
Ebel, R. D., Petersen, J. E., & Vu, H. T. (2013). The Great Recession: Impacts and Outlook for U.S. State and Local Finance. Municipal Finance Journal, 33/34(4/1), 33-77.
Topic 3 given
Reddel, “Local social governance and citizen engagement”, Ch.10 in Smyth, Reddel and Jones (eds) Community and Regional Governance in Australia, Pp.187- 204)
50-introduction
50-conclusion
There are five readings for your second analysis essay. Three of them are accessible via links on the Analysis 2 page. Commissioner Bret Walker SC dismisses recollections from former water minister Tony Burke that the sustainable level of water “take” was determined purely by environmental concerns, saying it was not consistent with contemporaneous records.
Assessing Australia’s obligations towards asylum seekers
Assessing Australia’s obligations towards asylum seekers
Order Instructions:
The welfare and future of asylum seekers in Australia have been very contentious contemporary issues. Findings based on content analysis of media releases in 2001 and 2002 reveal the unrelentingly negative way in which the federal government portrayed asylum seekers.
SAMPLE ANSWER
Assessing Australia’s obligations towards asylum seekers
Influence of the international human rights law on the sovereignty of Australia
In the recent years, public debate has increasingly related the issue of border protection with the presence of asylum seekers at the shores of Australia (Brennan, 2012). The Immigration and Multicultural and Foreign Affairs Minister has occasionally emphasized, with reference to unauthorized boat arrivals, that Australia as a sovereign country needs to defend the integrity of its borders. The Australian courts have also made affirmations on the issue of who should and should not enter and remain in the country. It’s evident that Australia is entitled to establish, administer and execute its immigration policy as well as maintain national security, and these objectives inevitably involve border protection (Creek, 2014).
Today’s concept of sovereignty, nevertheless, is not absolute. Sovereignty does not imply that a nation may do whatever it wants, whenever it wants, to whomever it wants. If it was this way, then there would be a breakdown in international cooperation. Australia, as a sovereign nation, acknowledges that respecting certain rights and obligations is paramount to the maintenance of its position in the international community (Foster, 2011).
Australia has shown its willingness to participate in the international legal system as well as entering into agreements with other sovereign states. In this regard, Australia has agreed to bind itself to the international system of rights and duties, which influences the manner in which sovereign states conduct their affairs. Some of the international rules that Australia has bound itself in the context of asylum seekers include; the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UNDHR), the International Convention on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), the 1967 Protocol Relating to the Status of Refugees (the Refugee Convention).Through the ratification of these treaties, Australia has shown its express agreement to ensure that new laws are enacted or existing laws are applied in line with the requirements of the treaties. Thus, as a ‘global citizen’, Australia must act in obedience to the treaties to which it has bound itself. Accordingly, the country needs to protect human rights and humanitarian treaties while protecting the integrity of its borders. In addition, Australia, as a ‘global citizen’ governed by the rule of law, has bound itself to the duty of enforcing its international rights and responsibilities by integrating them into the practices of the domestic courts, executive, and legislature. Australia is thus obligated to protect the fundamental human rights and freedoms of all asylum seekers who arrive in the country, regardless of the manner of their arrival (Foster, 2014).
Australia’s response to asylum seekers
The complexity and magnitude of issues arising from the influx of refugees and asylum seekers has posed numerous challenges to the world’s destination countries such as Australia. Australia has continually struggled with the maintenance of a balance between the protection of national borders and protection of millions of asylum seekers. Historically, Australia has for a long time accepted refugees for resettlement. Since 1945, over 700,000 displaced persons and refugees have settled in the country. Despite the country’s long-term commitment, Australia is experiencing a massive deal of misinformation and confusion in the public debate with regard to ‘boat people’, ‘queue jumpers’, ‘illegals’, refugees, and asylum seekers. These terms are often used interchangeably and/or incorrectly.
The Australian offshore policy provides for the detention of unauthorized both arrivals at offshore places such as Christmas Island until a Visa is granted or they are removed from Australia. The asylum seekers who do not meet the definition of refugees as provided under the UN Convention are resettled. The government has also set a program for assisting some asylum seekers while their applications for protection are being processed. The forms of assistance include welfare services such as professional assistance and income support and temporary eligibility for Medicare. However, these assistance are not usually granted to all applicants as one must be in financial hardship and their eligibility is usually reviewed by the government on a regular basis to establish any changes in the situations. Nevertheless, Australia has been criticized for using too much authority over its sovereignty to subject asylum seekers to unfavorable conditions that contravene international human rights law and the refugee law.
Australian politicians have been criticized for fueling anti-asylum seeker sentiments among the people in order to get votes, by labeling asylum seekers as “queue jumpers” and relating them to criminal activities such as smuggling (Tuckfield, 2014). More recently, there was a “stop the boats” campaign that aimed at reducing the number of asylum seekers drowning at the sea. In addition, the government has been advocating for the incarceration of innocent asylum seekers through adverse ASIO assessments. Furthermore, the former government ensured that foreign workers were placed at the back of the queue for Australian jobs.
The UN Human Rights Committee, in 2013, stated that Australia had acted in violation of the International Convention on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) through the arbitrary detention of refugees, failure to provide an effective judicial remedy, and subjecting detainees to harsh conditions which are psychologically harmful (Creek, 2014). Thus, Australia should make efforts to ensure that the rights of asylum seekers are protected.
Bibliography
Brennan, F. (2012). Australia’s 20 year search for the right asylum policy. Eureka Street, 22(12), 27.
Creek, T. G. (2014). Starving for freedom: an exploration of Australian government policies, human rights obligations and righting the wrong for those seeking asylum. The International Journal of Human Rights, (ahead-of-print), 1-29.
Foster, M. (2011). Refugees, Asylum Seekers and the Rule of Law. International Journal of Refugee Law, 23(2), 431-434.
