Week_9_Discussion_Reply

Write an opinion/response/feedback on the posts mentioned in the word document. The responses should have references and also valid in-text citations (APA Format) (total 4 responses)

(These posts are posted by Professor and other students, so when you write the response please relate to their statements.

Post 1

Participative Budgetary Process serves several benefits for managers in an organization. This process involves the participation of managers from all levels within the organization in the final decision regarding the allocation of budget with mutual consent. In participative budgetary process it utilizes the proficiency of managers in specific areas, with these the realistic and attainable goals are achieved. As it tends to produce budgets that are more achievable since lower-level employees are better positioned to inform their supervisors where funds need to be allocated. It also provides a good channel for communication between departments and managers and thus, it allows for better understanding between the internal goals of departments and helps in building cooperation within the organization. Participative budgeting shows management’s confidence in its staff. It acts as a motivation to employees since they can focus to meet the budget objectives. Employees feels recognized if they participative in the process thus giving them the impression that they are valued. Employee involvement in the process improves their morale, providing them with a greater urge to work harder towards the attainment of the goals that they helped set.

Four deficiencies in Patricia Eklund’s participative policy for planning and performance evaluation purposes and recommendations of how the deficiencies can be corrected:

The participatory process is defeated by the arbitrary revision of the budgets that are approved. The contingency budget should be separate, over and above each department’s original submission.

The fixed costs such as salaries and contracts are to be included in the budget. Since these costs are fixed, organizations should try to eliminate the dependence on cost-cutting requirements.

The fiscal responsibility is treated here as a tool of control as well as performance evaluation. This alone can’t be used as performance evaluation. Increase in the costs might have produced additional excess returns. So along with costs exceeding in the budget, the reasons should also be evaluated.

Contingency funds created by holding a specific proportion of funds of each department may not be correct. As some departments have good prospects coming up but they may fail due to lack of funds. Managers of all departments should be included in decision making while allocating funds to the respective departments.

Post 2

1. Some of the operational and behavioral benefits that are generally attributed to a participatory budgeting process are as follows:

a. Utilization of the best knowledge of activities in a specific area, because the participants are close to daily operations

b. Goals that are more realistic and acceptable.

c. Improved communication and group cohesiveness.

d. A sense of commitment and willingness to be held accountable for the budget.

2. Identify deficiencies in the participative policy and recommend correction for the same as follows

a. A Specified percentage of budget amount is held back: I would recommend that this should not be done as a department has a prepared budget to the point of their requirement. Holding back the amount results into the shortage of fund in the department. A contingency budget should be prepared separately.

b. Revision of budget after approval of the budget: I would recommend that whenever departmental budget revises, all associated budget changes accordingly. This should not be done once the budget is approved or effect should be given to overall budget

c. Managers should be involved in the revision of budgets. Managers could submit a budget with programs at different levels of funding.

d. Divisional constraints could be communicated at a budget meeting; however, individual limits of controllable expenses should be set by each manager.

Post 3

By installing applications without proper security policies leads to security breach of sensitive information. I don’t think giving administrative permissions to all users to a work station in a company is not a good idea. Even though giving all the rights makes life easier in some ways but it may cause serious security issues such as data breaches, malware installation, reduce system performance. Cyber security plays a vital role in the modern world.

If users were given access to install application either from a DVD or internet some time few applications may inject virus into computers. Injecting virus in computers may have harmful effects on your computer. Users may give rights to install few applications with right permissions and rules. Restricting access to few websites may lessen the harmful malware installation on computers.

This type of behavior may have problems to a system hence it is better to avoid granting permissions to a user to install or download data from internets. Below are the few reasons why a user should be restricted while accessing public websites while using company devices.

Security Breaches

Reduce effectiveness of a system

Increase expenses to maintain virus affected computers.

Malware installations.

Licensing/ Certificates issues.

Security against Usability:

We can distinguish security and usability into four different scenarios below is the possibilities with the combinations.

Bad security and Bad usability:

Everyone suffers under this situation which is followed by more pain and issues.

Good Usability and Bad Security:

This leads to bad security issues by installing unnecessary applications from internet.

Good Usability and Good Security:

There will be no issues as security is not compromised.

Good security and Bad usability:

This may lead Problems or inconvenience to users with strict security rules.

Security issues may be reduced by installing additional anti-virus applications helps sometimes.

Also using the single sign on feature to install application works great to overcome the above mentioned issues with access restriction and bad security problems (Gleason, 2018).

Post 4

Users want the freedom to install whatever they want on their workstations. These days, most administrators go to great lengths to lock down and secure their networks. One aspect of the network’s overall security that is often overlooked, however, is a good software installation policy. Regardless of how lax your corporate culture may be, it is critically important to configure your workstations in a way that prevents users from installing applications on their own. End users and Employees should refrain usage of workstations either for personal shopping or social networking and strictly use only for business purposes. As the usage of private websites has severe threats such as malware and Identity theft of employees. Moreover, saving personal data in work office laptops is a privacy threat for employees too as most companies have clauses usage of work laptops any personal data we put into work laptops will be owned by the company as per the norms any data on the work laptop is completely owned by the companies it’s both beneficial by refraining usage of work laptops for personal use.

Another reason for not allowing users to install applications of their own is because of the threat of malicious software. There are two different types of threats that you have to worry about when it comes to malicious software. One threat is malicious software that is piggybacked onto legitimate software. The other type of malicious software that you have to worry about is the type that gets installed without the user’s knowledge or consent. A classic example of this is the fact that a major record company was busted placing rootkits onto audio CDs.