Public Organization, the Word "Policy" Refers to

¶ … public organization, the word "policy" refers to the direction that the organization is taking (Dictionary.com, 2014). The organization has a mandate which serves as a broad sense of direction, but the policies it enacts are more specific actions that it undertakes. At some government levels, policy can be more generalized, such as a policy of promoting free markets, for example. Organizations set policies, so the strategic direction that the federal government is taking with respect to environmental issues will affect other agencies or public organizations.

For example, if the federal government has a policy to take strong action on climate change, it will initiate a number of policy initiatives that will seek to change the actions of the other public organizations. Many organizations can be affected by a policy, depending on the type of policy that the government enacts. A broad policy like one of budget cutting in order to balance the budget would affect all agencies, including those that work with the environment.

A specific policy of the proposed carbon swaps will affect a public organization such as the IRS. The carbon swaps will create different tax obligations and the IRS has to then sit down and figure out how they will want to implement this new policy.

In addition to how the IRS implements the policy with others, it might also need to change some of its procedures, such as finding different ways to reduce its carbon footprint, by reducing flights for executives, maybe cutting its paper usage for record-keeping and other pro-environment responses to bring IRS activities more in line with government policy. Phase 1 Discussion Board There are differences between financial, environmental and social policies because they are targeting different things.

Financial policies are based on the idea that improving the bottom line of the organization is the most important thing; environmental policies place high importance on environmental outcomes and social policies place importance on people. The triple bottom line emphasizes that the best policies are ones that allow the organization to optimize all of these, or as many as might be possible (Slaper & Hall, 2011). The idea is to find the idea solution, rather than just optimizing one of these things.

I think that the differences between these policies is because they are oriented towards different objectives. A company might choose to maximize one of these, and ignore the other two. The triple bottom line emphasizes the need to maximize all three, so that there is basically one policy that satisfies all needs. It is a technique that should deliver better policies.

So of course a financial policy will be whatever maximizes profit, but maybe when there is balance with the other elements a solution is found that generates almost as much profit, but significantly higher environmental and social outcomes. That would be the ideal policy. When a company tries only to maximize one policy, the result is that typically that is the only one where the company makes any progress.

So you might have a social work agency only trying to maximize the social and it doesn't make any money, just spends it. A corporation might only seek profit. So it is necessary that there is a balance that is struck between these different objectives, to show that they are not competing with each other, but can be pursued in harmony. Phase 1, Discussion Board 3 The policy development process typically begins with setting of mandates and objectives at the leadership level.

The leaders of an organization have a sense of the types of things they are supposed to achieve, and the policies are developed in order to ensure that this happens. For most public organizations, there is a consultation process where research is conducted, and stakeholders become involved. To the cynic, this most means special interests, but it can mean consultations with a wide range of groups that are affected by the general policy area (Le Grand, 2003).

Once the feedback has been provided by the different stakeholders, the policy will begin to take shape, as a lot of times the feedback will set the parameters for what the organization will be able to do. There will be a budget set, social needs identified, and environmental restrictions also identified, and the policy.