Ethics and Behavior in Organizational Culture a

Ethics and Behavior in Organizational Culture A number of distinct advantages, as well as disadvantages, apply to Zero-Based Budgeting (ZZB). Essentially, this budgeting format requires an organization to completely re-analyze every single expenditure on its budget. It works by starting with a blank slate, and then evaluating all aspects of expenditures in order to see how they can be reduced to meet their objectives.

The benefits for such an approach include the fact that organizations can increase their degree of competitiveness as well as restructure themselves according to the results of the budget -- which is useful in situations in which transformational leadership is employed or perhaps even required. Other benefits include the fact that a number of expenses can be reduced and lead to alternative means of accomplishing the same objective such as through consolidation, outsourcing, and other modern forms of downsizing.

Conversely, determinants include the fact that there is considerable less stability in an organization that is restructuring itself as thus, and employees might lose their jobs or see their livelihoods reduced in the process. Additionally, ZZB is extremely time consuming (The Economist, 2009) as it requires analyzing every single expenditure and determining how to justify it and decrease it. There are also boons and drawbacks associated with Planning-Programming Budgeting (PPB).

The way this process works is it requires an organization to plan out its objectives, then design programs that can specifically meet those objectives (Donvito, 1969). Finally, that organization produces a budget around those programs. The benefit of this approach is that it enables an organization to create a specific means of facilitating its objectives. There is a degree of specificity in this approach that is beneficial. Additionally, it requires an organization to consider its objectives for the long-term.

Drawbacks include the time consuming nature of this method, which requires lots of statistical and financial analyses and is not well suited for low-latency implementation. Implementing the ZZB method to D.A.R.E. would require examining every single aspect of the budget from this program. The first step would be to compile a list of the current expenditures related to D.A.R.E.

Then one would have to systematically examine them and look for ways in which those expenses could be reduced by streamlining them and increasing the program's efficiency while reducing its cost. No consideration is too small for a ZZB approach. One would need to consider the cost of police officers traveling to elementary schools, as well as the costs associated with creating and maintaining materials used for the students.

It would also be beneficial to attempt to quantify the amount of costs incurred if the program was ineffective and students went astray and incurred drug and alcohol problems. Utilizing PPB for D.A.R.E. would necessitate one elucidating the core objectives of this program. Then, it would require that person to come up with measures that would meet those objectives. It is probably beneficial to approach both of these steps from a fresh perspective, and to think of measures that might not already be in use.

Logistical concerns need.