Question #1 (Chapter One): Watch the Damon Horowitz (2011, May) TED Talk video (Course Materials, Videos, and Podcasts).
“Closely linked with the strategic role of HR is the way managers and HR staff influence the ethics of employees, as well as the ethical practices of organizations as a whole” (Valentine, Meglich, Mathis, & Jackson, 2025, p. 22).
Horowitz (2011) instructed his audience to “Think of the last time you had a decision to make where you were worried to do the right thing. Where you wondered, ‘What should I be doing’? Bring that to mind, and now reflect on that and say, ‘How did I come up [with] that decision?’ ‘What did I do’?”
Describe a prior situation (i.e., dilemma, decision) at work that required you to do the right thing.
How did you use one of the below-listed actions to do the right thing?
How did your manager and/or HR staff influence your ethics?
Followed my gut feeling
Had somebody vote on it
Sought legal counsel
Evaluated what would maximize pleasure and minimize pain
Used reason to figure out what would be intrinsically right
Other (fill in the blank)
Question #2 (Chapter Two): Organizational core values are the “principles that create the operating philosophy for organizational decisions” (Valentine, Meglich, Mathis, & Jackson,2025, p. 39). The core values of Bowie State University (BSU) are excellence, inclusivity, integrity, accountability, and innovation (Bowie State University Core Values, n.d.).
Choose one of BSU’s core values and describe how you have observed it being enacted (i.e., performed, represented, portrayed) at BSU.
Question #3 (Chapter Three): Disparate treatment “occurs when individuals with particular characteristics that are not job-related are treated differently from others” (Valentine, Meglich, Mathis, & Jackson, 2025, p. 80). “Hostile environment sexual harassment occurs when an individual’s work performance or psychological well-being is unreasonably affected by intimidating or offensive working conditions” (Valentine et al., 2025, p. 92).
“…[A] group of male employees [have decided to go] to a strip club after work… If they invite a female colleague to attend, she may be uncomfortable, and the experience could be used as evidence to support a hostile work environment claim. If they try to avoid the hostile work environment claim by excluding the woman, the exclusion may serve as evidence of a “boys’ club” in a gender discrimination claim” (Segal, 2008, para. 37).
What should the group of male employees in this situation do to reduce a potential liability for hostile environment sexual harassment?
What should the male employees in this situation do to reduce a potential liability for allegations of disparate treatment?
Question #4 (Chapter Four): “A job description identifies a job’s tasks, duties, and responsibilities. It describes what is done, why it is done, where it is done, and, briefly, how it is done” (Valentine, Meglich, Mathis, & Jackson, 2025, p. 147).
Provide a job description for your current job (or former job) that includes ALL of the following sections (Valentine et al., 2025).
Identification
General summary
Essential job functions and duties
Job specifications.
Refer to the Department of Labor’s Occupational Information Network (O*NET Online, n.d.) or your employer, if needed, for supplemental information. Sample job descriptions are in Figure 4- 11 and Appendix A of your Valentine et al. (2025) textbook.
Question #5 (Chapter Five): “Retaining top talent is a concern for many employers, and understanding retention is the key to keeping more of those top performers” (Valentine, Meglich, Mathis, & Jackson, 2025, p. 180). “Figure 5-10 illustrates some of the drivers of retention, or areas in which employers can take action to increase the probability of keeping employees” (Valentine et al., 2025, p. 181).
Choose one of the six drivers of retention (Valentine et al., 2025).
Explain how your one chosen driver of retention has influenced your decision to stay at your current place of employment.
Make sure that you name your current place of employment.
Question #6 (Chapter Six): Recruitment is the “process of generating a pool of qualified applicants for organizational jobs” (Valentine, Meglich, Mathis, & Jackson, 2025, p. 198). Job posting, organizational databases, and employee-focused recruiting are common methods of internal recruiting (Valentine et al., 2025). Media sources, competitive recruiting sources, employment agencies, labor unions, job fairs and creative recruiting, and educational institutions and recruiting are common methods of external recruiting (Valentine et al., 2025).
Which recruitment method(s) did you utilize to obtain your current job? Why?
Make sure that you identify your current job.
If you currently do not have a job, then which recruitment method(s) do you plan to utilize to obtain a future job? Why?
Question #7 (Chapter Seven): “One of the most widely accepted approaches to studying personality traits is the ‘Big Five’ personality framework. The Big Five traits are generally considered to be useful predictors of various types of job performance in different occupations. The factors are shown in Figure 7-7” (Valentine, Meglich, Mathis, & Jackson, 2025, p. 251).
Complete the Big Five Personality Test (John, 2000). There are no right or wrong answers to the Big Five Personality Test (John, 2020), which is available on BB (Assignments & Tests/Exams).
Provide your scores for two of the traits/characteristics: extroversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, neuroticism, openness to experience.
Describe how these two traits/characteristics provide support for your belief that your personality either is, or is not, a good fit for your chosen career field.
Make sure that you identify your chosen career field.
Question #8 (Chapter Eight): Participate in the BSU Academic Computing Training for Students: Asynchronous (self-paced) training – Blackboard Learn ULTRA Student Orientation (Bowie State University Academic Computing Training for Students, n.d.). The weblink is available on BB (Course Materials).
“Training can be designed to meet many objectives and can be classified in various ways” (Valentine, Meglich, Mathis, & Jackson, 2025, p. 283). Figure 8-3 shows four types of training: legally required, basic/remedial skills, job/technical, and soft skills (Valentine et al., 2025).
“A widely used model by Donald L. Kirkpatrick identified four levels at which training can be evaluated. As shown in Figure 8-12, they are reaction, learning, behaviors, and results (Valentine et al., 2025, p. 305).
Which type of training category does the asynchronous Blackboard Learn ULTRA Student Orientation training best fit: legally required, basic/remedial skills, job/technical, and soft skills? Why?
Describe how you would use one of the levels of training evaluation to assess the asynchronous Blackboard Learn ULTRA Student Orientation training that you participated in.