- Why Civic Engagement is Important
As the City Manager of this wonderful city, I have the honor to let you know of the city’s growth plan for the next twenty years. However, while making this plan, I understand that the civic participation is important to the realization of the city’s goal. The public participation is an important ingredient to the success of our city’s blue print. Our success is based on the very fact that the city is owned by the public. It is the public that pays the taxes that we use to make decisions that affect every family in this city. This is the reason that while making decisions that will affect the future of our city, we recognize that input of the city’s residents. So the question is why is Civic Engagement such an important component of the success of our city?
First, we must understand that civic engagement is an ongoing process that involves dynamic conversation involving the public on the issues or as we put it the “road-map” to the planning of our city’s future. As the leader of this committee, I am very aware that civic engagement to the understanding of the meaning of the contemporary challenges that bedevil our city. I understand that the commitment to civic engagement lies on the bedrock of engaging the public and building sustaining relationship with the members of the community on matters that are pertinent to the locals.
Psychologists reason that the human brain has myriad reactions that have some biases. In some cases, the human brain is subject to heuristic shortcuts that necessitate making judgments when faced with limited data. While making these decisions can be important in some cases, they could also lead to inaccurate generalizations, incomplete recalling of events, and the problem of poor estimations. Moreover, the human brain has the problem of building complex when faced with difficult situations or hard problems, overlooking information that is contradictory, and to emphasize casual relationships over probability. Foreign policy decision makers are subject to these flaws. In most cases, they are elderly people, overconfident, unaware of trends, and also abhorrence of ambiguity. The charisma of the individual over the advisors, their fear, and share of the same values and understanding of the terrain would make important choices that affect how an individual resigns over the other in the final world.
Perhaps one of the most important reasons for civic engagement lies on the fact that as the city develops, we will face conflict between the citizens and the public. In some cases, peoples’ land will be used for the sake of construction of public utilities and amenities such as roads, schools, libraries, parks and others. Because of this reason, we will seek the public to understand the meaning of law of eminent domain. The concept of eminent domain is also called condemnation. The Missouri Bar Center defines eminent domain as a legal occurrence where a public body or a private utility company such as corporations, railroad companies among others, acquire legal rights over private property for public use by constitution, statue or ordinance. The private owner of the property acquired is called the “condmnee” while the public or private owner accruing legal rights over the property is called “condemner” (Missouri Bar Center, 2012). Under the Fifth Amendment of the United State’s constitution, the owner of an acquired property has a right of compensation which is defined by the fair market value of the property. Compensation is argued for through a process defined as “condemnation proceedings” (Larson, 2004). Under eminent law, some member of the community will lose property for the sake of the community, it in order for the public to be aware that this process might affect them. If we have the community behind us, we are sure to succeed in the process.
Lincoln once said that “With public sentiment on its side, everything succeeds: with public sentiment against it, nothing succeeds.” It is our desire to union on one side so that we realize the goal of fostering the growth in our city. Contemporary scholars in public management and policy formation have favored a slightly lose structure compared to the traditional model of public management. In the United States, the period of Ronald Reagan presidency towards the Bush presidency of 2000- 2008 witnessed an increasing surge of privatization and the increasing role of corporate management in the government affairs. In contrast, the Obama administration has slightly taken a different route by a pursuing an increasing government role in the affairs of the state. Perhaps one such example is the Obamacare that attempts to provide universal healthcare for all Americans ( Hozler& Schwester, 2011).
Proponents of the new school of public administration argue for increased flexibility and creativity on the affairs of government. The central premise of this argument is the strive for increased customer satisfaction. Included in the platform is the decrease of instruction from the top administrators and increasing role of lower managers on decision making. The benefit of such management skills allows for creativity and productivity. It also allows managers to take ownership of the decisions that they make form the grassroots. The United States, being a humongous political entity, would be governed better with a more consistent and sound public participation. Community engagement on the affairs of the state would be key in the implementation and success of government operation. With limited public participation, the success of the new school of management would be futile (Benz and Sommernan, 2004).
- Importance of Diversity in Government Decisions
Workforce diversity is the similarities and differences in such characteristics as age, gender, ethnic heritage, physical abilities and disabilities, race, and sexual orientation among the employees of organizations. The neo-policy presents opportunity for governments to realize diversity at work. Workforce diversity has become an increasingly important issue in the last few years as employees, managers, consultants, and the government finally recognizes that valuing diversity only benefits the workplace and when a workplace does discriminate, an issue arises. Today’s workforce is a variety of different races, ages, genders, ethnic groups, religions, and lifestyles. Diversity in the workplace can bring a competitive advantage to and organization. If not, however, the work environment can become harsh, uncomfortable and unwelcoming, not only to employees, but customers as well.
Perhaps the most significant lesson I learned about working relations was on the aim of diversity is to foster cultural understanding and global awareness. Diversity produces a lot of joy for the community and reinforced the original idea of the United States as the melting pot of cultures. It not only provides the authenticity of cultures but also brings meaning to the community creating a bond that transcends, race, culture, religion and nationality.
It is important to know that while being a global citizen, culture still stands out to be greatest impediment to global harmony. Globalization heavily markets and promotes western ideas while the ideas from “others” are marginalized. It is interesting even to point out that the paradigms that promote these ideas of globalization are not the same. In the case of the United States, the biggest struggle is the misconception of “the others “. The others in this context refer to the minorities in the United States who are not the mainstream identity of what it means to be an American. In order to solve this, there must be a strong and genuine desire on the part of all the stakeholders. If there is not such commitment, the pursuit of harmony would be hard to realize.
The world today is homogenous in culture; almost every country in the world is multiethnic, multiracial and multilingual. The need for cultural and racial enlightenment is imminent. However, little is done to correct the situation. Most people acknowledge that cultural conflict that exists in the world and there is a need to find a solution so that people can live together.
B) Diversity in the Cognitive sense of Utility
Form a marketing standpoint, cognitive utility refers to the ongoing process of transforming diversity into a profit making venture. Here, diversity becomes an opportunity for government to prosper and increase the already existing resource channels. Another role that diversity plays is improving quality. Using Porter’s model in organizational management, we can understand that diversity can play an instrumental role in the advancement of capacity building and competency. Porter fronted an argument that a nation has the ability of creating new factors for making stable industries. Such factors include skilled labor, technological base, support from government and cultural values among others. Porter’s five forces are a threat of new competition, threat of substitute products and services, the bargaining power of clients, and suppliers’ bargaining power. Several resources need to be transferred in a community for the functionality of this model. Labor, both skilled and unskilled, need to be uniformly distributed well in all the plants. However, before venturing into new ways of getting resources, the community should first strengthen the already existing markets.
David (2011), report that companies ought to be innovative enough not to be susceptible to influence but be able to change the environment for the positive. He writes that external factors in business “are largely beyond the control of a single organization.” However, how can a firm influence the external factors that affect it? Fred David argues that, for the political and legal forces, a company must become law abiding by relating to changes in laws and regulations. Keeping within the law allows a business to find ways that the new law affect how they must behave. Businesses can make use of new economic forces by ensuring that they use the bulging economy as an opportunity to make profits. This way, they welcome rising living standards among their customers. Socially, a business ought to welcome changes in the nature of the population, as well as in shaping consumer culture and analyzing how the change affects buying patterns.
C) What does the government lose by simply putting a sign on the door that says “open for business”?
When working close to, or together with equipments, an organization’s main consideration should be for the safety of any member of the workers and public that is present in the work area as well the environmental effects of the equipments used. Section 8 (1) of the Occupational Health and Safety Act 2000 state that an “an employer must ensure that health safety and welfare at work of all the employees of the employer” (OHS Act 2000). Since the advent of globalization in the last two decades, market oriented companies has intensified competition to pursue internalization strategy for their supply management, human resources, and product policy. Because of the cutthroat competition at the global stage, aspiring companies must make decisions where their companies can attain competitive advantage over other corporations in the country that they want to explore. Several factors determine the choice of location. First, the company must have an edge over its rivals in terms of technology, distribution system, market base, and efficiency. Companies must have efficient organization skills and distribution skills to realize competitive advantage. Most importantly, a company pursues formidable product policy as it engages in a highly globalized market environment while keeping peace with the social and political world. If a government says that we are “open for business” that defies the very fact of the new model of business. Government must emphasize service delivery just like the private sector and embark on activities that are driven towards service.
References
Siedentopf, Benz and K.P. Sommermann. Traditional Public Administration versus The New Public Management: Accountability versus Efficiency (Berlin,Germany: Duncker Humbolt, 2004), pp. 443-454.James P. PfiffnerGeorge Mason University.
Holzer, Mark, and Schwester, Richard. Public Administration, ME Sharp, New York, 2011
Arjen Boin. Public Administration, Chicago, IL, 2013.
Missouri Bar Center. “Eminent Domain.” Find Law. For Legal Proffessionals. Missouri Bar Center, 2012. Web. 12 Jan. 2012. <http://library.findlaw.com/1999/May/25/130971.html
U.S. Census Bureau (2008b). Hispanic Americans by the numbers. Washington, DC.Doublebas
Mediamark Research & Intelligence (2007). Hispanic/Latino Market Profile. New York: Magazine Publishers of America.
Cheskin Research (2006). Hispanic teens are the new avatars of cool. Redwood Shores, CA: Cheskin Research.
Selig Center for Economic Growth (2006). The Multicultural Economy Report 2006. Athens,GA: Selig Center for Economic Growth.
Beebe, S. A., Beebe, S. J., Redmond, M. V. (2005). Interpersonal communication: Relating to others (4th ed.). Boston, MA: Pearson.
Gordon, Milton 1964) Assimilation in American Life: The Role of Race, Religion, and National Origins. New York: Oxford U
