Blog

Is healthcare a fundamental human right

Is healthcare a fundamental human right

Is healthcare a fundamental human right?

Student’s Name

Institutional Affiliation

Course

Instructor

Date

There is a great deal of debate over whether or not healthcare is a fundamental human right. Many people believe it is a basic human right, while others contend that it is a privilege that should be earned. Several key points should be considered when debating this topic. Ultimately, the decision of whether or not healthcare is a fundamental human right is a complex one. There are valid arguments on both sides of the issue (Ayubdar, M., & Vang-Phu, T. (2021). Therefore, there are several reasons on healthcare is a fundamental right.

From this article, “Healthcare as a Universal Human Right: Sustainability in Global Health by Nunes,” I learned that healthcare is a fundamental human right. This means everyone has the right to healthcare, regardless of income, race, or social status. Healthcare is essential for human dignity and well-being and should be accessible to everyone (Nunes, 2021). Unfortunately, healthcare is not accessible to everyone in many parts of the world. This is often due to poverty, lack of infrastructure, and political instability. To make healthcare a reality for everyone, we must address these issues. We need financial support for countries that lack the resources to provide healthcare to their citizens. We also need to build infrastructure and promote political stability. Only then will healthcare be a reality for everyone—Healthcare as a fundamental human right and the importance of sustainability in global health. The author discusses the concept of healthcare as a human right and the various ways it can be achieved. The author also discusses the importance of sustainability in global health and the multiple ways it can be achieved.

However, the article “Access to Healthcare as a Fundamental Right or Privilege? by Verulava” taught me that healthcare is not a fundamental human right. The author argues that healthcare is a privilege, not a right and that access to healthcare should be based on need, not on a person’s ability to pay. The author also argues that healthcare is a scarce resource and that rationing is necessary to ensure that everyone has access to the care they need. While healthcare is a fundamental human right in many countries, there are several reasons why it is not considered a fundamental human right in others (Verulava, 2021). One reason is that healthcare is a service someone must provide, and not everyone has the same access to healthcare providers. Another reason is that healthcare is a costly service, and not everyone can afford to pay for it. Finally, some argue that healthcare is not a fundamental human right because it is not an absolute right and that other rights are more important.

Works Cited

Nunes, R. (2021). Healthcare as a Universal Human Right: Sustainability in Global Health (p. 224). Taylor & Francis. https://library.oapen.org/handle/20.500.12657/52617Verulava, T. (2021). Access to Healthcare as a Fundamental Right or Privilege?. Siriraj Medical Journal, 73(10), 721-726. https://he02.tcithaijo.org/index.php/sirirajmedj/article/view/253306Ayubdar, M., & Vang-Phu, T. (2021). ACCESS TO HEALTHCARE AND INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY RIGHTS REGULATIONS. Journal of Legal, Ethical and Regulatory Issues, 24, 1-12. https://search.proquest.com/openview/74c7710b7592dd38a549f25fb0e7f569/1?pq-origsite=gscholar&cbl=38868

Posted in Uncategorized

IS EDUCATION WORTH THE COST

IS EDUCATION WORTH THE COST

IS EDUCATION WORTH THE COST?

Student’s name

Instructor

Course

Date

Is Education Worth The Cost?

Different norms and beliefs define a society. However, when it comes to education, there is a manner in which it is viewed as one that determines a person’s place in the community. Education in the contemporary world has been taken as one of the essential parts of society. However, in a real sense, it is not everything that matters. First of all, education is very costly and in this concerning college and university education. Many people spent a lot of money on education, which does not help them that much, and education does not get into their minds. This is what becomes for some college students a time well spent making new friends and having new experiences‌ (Kerr, 2019).

Most high school students in the United States wait eagerly after finishing high school for a letter of acceptance or rejection from their different universities of choice. This means, therefore, the transition has to take place, and most of the parents have to use a lot of money to prepare their children for college life. Most of the parents go shopping and pay school fees, which are very much, and they can sometimes go even a further effort to get loans for their children to have a college education. This especially happens in developing countries. However, the question that remains unanswered is whether the education these students pursue after high school education is worth the cost. This is a question that has been debated for so long, and it keeps on bringing new perspectives every day. Some individuals believe that education is essential and that people should pay all the possible amount of information to ensure that education is gained.

On the other hand, some individuals believe that education is not very important. The best way to teach is to provide information to the person who wants to be educated and to learn. I agree with the latter perspective.

This means education is not worth the amount of money different pay to get this education. Therefore, the best thing to do is stop education at all costs and ensures that every individual gains access to information. Therefore if the education system factors in making information available even before students can get into college, if the information is provided, there will no need for teachers, and there will be a tremendous loss. Therefore teachers are not required there will be better places for experiments carried out by the uncontrolled science of the world(Kerr, 2019).

Acceding to Forbes, the cost of attendance in public in-state colleges is approximately $27,000 per year. On the other side for private colleges, this amount goes to around $55,000. Compared to the reality of issues, this amount of money is too much just for getting a certificate that may come without all the required skills. It, therefore, turns out that education is self-based and not school-based. This is because unless a person decides to study and use the resources to develop themselves into what they need, it is challenging for them to learn. With this realization, it turns out why education is so expensive (Tretina, 2020).

First of all, it is essential to consider that education is just an arrangement of the freely available information in most sites, libraries, and other places in an orderly manner. This means that when a person studies a degree course, they are just paying for the arrangement of the information and not for the information they are getting. Other things a person can pay for are the time spent within the institution and their skills from their lecturers who have had experience. Therefore, information is not paid for since it can be easily obtained and at a meager price compared to school fees‌ (Abbiati, & Barone, 2017).

Therefore it is a significant consideration for some people to make. The most important reason people go to universities and colleges is for their improvement of skills and the desire to look for better employment with better salaries. However, this needs skills, and there is always a question; which one is better? College certificate or skills?. It is why some individuals like Elon musk are against the education system and focus on the formation of a person and what they like and believe to be their true identity and calling to perform and achieve.

References

‌ Abbiati, G., & Barone, C. (2017). Is university education worth the investment? The expectations of upper secondary school seniors and the role of family background. Rationality and Society, 29(2), 113-159.

‌ Kerr, E. (2019, June 17). Is College Worth the Cost? US News & World Report; U.S. News & World Report. https://www.usnews.com/education/best-colleges/paying-for-college/articles/2019-06-17/is-college-worth-the-cost

Tretina, K. (2020, December 29). Is College Worth The Cost? Pros Vs. Cons. Forbes Advisor. https://www.forbes.com/advisor/student-loans/is-college-worth-it/

Posted in Uncategorized

Is Death Penalty Effective

Is Death Penalty Effective

Is Death Penalty Effective

Student’s Name

Institutional Affiliation

Course

Professor’s Name

Date

Is Death Penalty Effective

The death penalty, also referred to as capital punishment, involves the offenders’ execution sentenced to death following the conviction by courts of law of particular criminal offenses. Although the terms death penalty and capital punishment are sometimes used interchangeably, Clark (2017) shows that the execution does not always follow the penalty. The proponents of death punishment argue that death punishment helps deter crime and fulfill other goals of punishment. However, death punishment opponents say that it is unethical, inhumane, and does not meet the punishment goals. There has been a lot of controversy regarding the imposition of the death penalty.

In the United States, death punishment has been restored since the year 1976. The number of approximately killed inmates was thirty in 2015 (Spitzberg et al. 2018). Most states that were affected were Virginia, Florida, Texas, and Missouri. It was said that two thousand nine hundred and eighty-four convicts were waiting on the death row (Spitzberg et al. 2018). For the last two decades, research has shown that Americans were in great support of punishment through death. The support has been seen to fall steadily with time though the majority of the republicans are in agreement with the act. The Democrats oppose this capital punishment and ask for its review (Spitzberg et al. 2018). Also, the issue of racial discrimination has been evident in many death penalties. African American people have become most victims of this punishment (Steiker et al. 2015).

Firstly, there is controversy concerning whether the death punishment helps in enhancing retribution. According to Villalobos (2020), the proponents of death punishment argue that it satisfies the principle of retribution when punishing severe offenses like murder. The proponents’ primary argument is that guilty individuals should be punished and that the punishments should proportional to the crime severity. These arguments are based on the belief that justice requires individuals to suffer for their wrongdoing and suffer in a manner that reflects their crimes. Retribution requires all offenders to face punishments that reflect their punishments. Therefore, in such cases, the most appropriate punishment for murder would be the death penalty. Chan et al. (2018) also show that the proponents of death punishment also argue that the courts should heed to the society’s cry for justice and judgments that befit various crimes. Steiker et al. (2019) show that capital punishment proponents often support their arguments with the biblical concept of “an eye for an eye.” However, Baumgartner et al. (2017) show that the idea is usually misinterpreted. The idea means that only the guilty should face punishments and that the sentences should neither be too lenient nor too severe. Most opponents of the death penalty argue that the penalty acts as vengeance somewhat instead of retribution, and it is a morally wrong concept. Also, Villalobos (2020) claims that the anticipatory suffering of the offenders who may sometimes be kept in a death row for too long awaiting their execution makes the punishment too severe, violating the principle of retribution the amount of penalty should reflect the crime.

Secondly, there are dilemmas regarding whether the death penalty acts as a deterrence against murder and other serious crimes. The death penalty proponents argue that executing convicted murders would instill fear and prevent other peoples from committing similar crimes. However, Steiker et al. (2019) argue that there is no significant correlation between the death penalty and murder deterrence. Also, Chan et al. (2018), some of the executed individuals could not be prevented from engaging in similar crimes due to mental defects and illness. According to Clark (2017), some murders are committed in very emotional states that contain the offenders from thinking about the consequences of their acts, hence previous execution of the convicted criminals cannot deter such crimes. Also, there are doubts about whether the death penalty deters crimes more than life imprisonment. The opponents of the death penalty argue that the anticipatory period before the convicted criminals’ execution minimizes the death punishment’s deterrent effect. Villalobos (2020) indicates that a long gap between the crime and the punishment, either by certainty or time, nullifies the punishments’ deterrent effect. Also, capital punishment’s deterrent effect would be more significant if the punishments were executed in public places and in a humiliating way. However, convicted criminals are always perpetrated in private places and relatively painless methods that use drugs and injections, reducing the criminals’ deterrent effects. However, some proponents of the death penalty argue that the sentence is effective even if it fails to satisfy the punishment’s deterrent goal. For instance, Steiker et al. (2019) argue that executing murderers helps reduce their number, hence decreasing the murder of innocent individuals.

Rehabilitation is another crucial goal of punishment. Clark (2017) shows that rehabilitation involves changing a criminal’s behavior to mold them into legally abiding citizens of society. However, the death penalty does not allow the rehabilitation of the offenders’ behaviors and returning them to the community. The proponents of death punishment argue that the penalty enables the criminals’ rehabilitation during the anticipatory periods. For instance, Villalobos (2020) indicates that some offenders use the anticipatory period to express remorse of their acts, repent, and undergo spiritual rehabilitation before their execution. However, the argument does not support capital punishment but seeks to prove that capital punishment can lead to rehabilitation.

The death penalty proponents also argue that the penalty prevents reoffending since the executed criminals cannot kill again; however, the opponents of the penalty dispute this argument by providing other punishment methods for offenders from society. The proponents of the death punishment counter this argument by arguing that although there are minimal cases, some people escape from the prison and kills again, hence necessitating the death penalty. The proponents of capital punishment also argue that although the imprisonment without parole prevents the society from the threats caused by the convicted murderers, the murders are a significant threat to the prison police and the staffs. Therefore, the best way of preventing the reoccurrence of murder offenses would-be offenders’ execution.

Some proponents of the death penalty argue that it acts as an incentive to help police in their investigations. Baumgartner et al. (2017) show that plea bargaining is used to support the police in their investigation in most countries. The process enables the prisoners to get a reduced jail term if they agree to collaborate with the police in digging more evidence. Clark (2017) indicates that when the death penalty is the most probable punishment, the prisoners are more willing to collaborate with the police officers to reduce their punishments, at least to life imprisonment. However, Villalobos (2020) argues that using the death penalty to fetch for evidence from individuals is torture and should be never be tolerated.

According to Chan et al. (2018), the death penalty is also used for psychological benefit. For instance, Clark (2017) shows that the penalty usually symbolizes that bad things happen to people who deserve them in Japan. Also, Villalobos (2020) also shows bad things happening to people who deserve them, reinforce the contrary view that good things happen to those who deserve them, creating a psychological effect that makes people feel rewards for good deeds, hence fostering hard work and other values.

Conclusion

In conclusion, there is massive controversy on the effectiveness of the death penalty in averting crimes. The proponents of the death penalty serve various principles of the punishments including the deterrence, retribution, sacrificial rehabilitation, avoids reoccurrence of crimes, makes the prisoners collaborate with the police in various investigations in exchange with a reduced jail term, and reinforces psychological believes that fosters hard work and lead a good life. However, the opponents of the death punishment do jot exhaustively serves the punishment goals. Death penalties fail to provide a chance for offenders’ rehabilitation and do not enhance retribution and deterrence against crime. Proponents of death punishment also argue that although the police use the penalty in doing their investigations in exchange for reduced jail term. However, the penalty acts as the offender’s humiliation to produce some evidence, amounting to torture. In general, the death penalty is unethical, and it fails to satisfy all the punishment goals. The NGOs, public, and other stakeholders should continue advocating for the complete removal of the death penalty, considering ethical consideration and respect for human dignity.

References

Baumgartner, F., Davidson, M., Johnson, K., Krishnamurthy, A., & Wilson, C. (2017). Deadly Justice: A statistical portrait of the death penalty. Oxford University Press.

Chan, W. C., Tan, E. S., Lee, J. T. T., & Mathi, B. (2018). How strong is public support for the death penalty in Singapore?. Asian journal of criminology, 13(2), 91-107.

Clark, R. (2017). To Abolish the Death Penalty. In Capital Punishment (pp. 176-180). Routledge.

Steiker, C. S., & Steiker, J. M. (2019). The American Death Penalty: Alternative Model for Ordinary Criminal Justice or Exception that Justifies the Rule? New Criminal Law Review, 22(4), 359-390.

Villalobos, A. (2020). Countering Pro-Death Penalty Attitudes.

Ye, X., Sharag-Eldin, A., Spitzberg, B., & Wu, L. (2018). Analyzing public opinions on death penalty abolishment. Chinese Sociological Dialogue, 3(1), 53-75.

Steiker, C. S., & Steiker, J. M. (2015). The American death penalty and the (in) visibility of race. The University of Chicago Law Review, 243-294.

Is Death Penalty Effective

Citation:

Baumgartner, F., Davidson, M., Johnson, K., Krishnamurthy, A., & Wilson, C. (2017). Deadly Justice: A statistical portrait of the death penalty. Oxford University Press.

Annotation:

The authors in their book try to bring out a bigger picture of the death penalty. They suggest that retribution is not enough evidence for capital punishment. They bring up questions on how the punishment could be made proportionate and given to the worst offenders. Also, they suggest that a limit should be kept on the number of crimes to which the death penalty is to be given.

Citation:

Chan, W. C., Tan, E. S., Lee, J. T. T., & Mathi, B. (2018). How strong is public support for the death penalty in Singapore?. Asian journal of criminology, 13(2), 91-107.

Annotation:

The article studies the strength of public support for the death penalty in Singapore. It states that Singapore is well known for use using the death penalty for drug trafficking and murder cases. Singapore makes the death penalty mandatory but later amended for the judge to give an option of life imprisonment. The article reports on findings that assess knowledge and support of the death penalty.

Citation:

Steiker, C. S., & Steiker, J. M. (2015). The American death penalty and the (in) visibility of race. The University of Chicago Law Review, 243-294.

Annotation:

This article talks about the American death penalty and racial discrimination in the ruling. The authors say that racial injustice is common in American criminal justice and this causes suffering to most black Americans as they become victims. The article details how the blacks were mistreated during the civil war and how the Supreme court avoided racism.

Citation:

Steiker, C. S., & Steiker, J. M. (2019). The American Death Penalty: Alternative Model for Ordinary Criminal Justice or Exception that Justifies the Rule? New Criminal Law Review, 22(4), 359-390.

Annotation:

This article looks at the alternative models for the ordinary criminal justice system. The authors state that the Supreme Court has come up with a substitute justice system limited to capital cases. This includes; proportionality in sentence outcomes, the requirement of individualized sentencing, and regulating the defense counsel. These regulations were set under the statement that ‘death is different.’

Citation:

Villalobos, A. (2020). Countering Pro-Death Penalty Attitudes.

Annotation:

In this article, the authors suggest that the death penalty has been the main issue in many prisons. The authors tested two methods regarding how they would change the minds of individuals towards the death penalty. They tested the innocent-risk argument that suggests that there is greater risk in killing someone innocent. They then tested the deterrence-risk argument that states that the death penalty is not the best way to handle a capital offense. They found out that the innocent-risk situation increased the probability of reducing death penalty attitudes.

Posted in Uncategorized

Irving and Poe Writing Styles

Irving and Poe Writing Styles

Irving and Poe Writing Styles

Student’s Name

Institution

Irving and Poe Writing Styles

Irving and Poe were both authors who demonstrated the writing style of the Romantic period. The two had numerous comparisons, and nonetheless, they possessed even more dissimilarities, in both writing the subject as well as style. All this is apparent in their writings, “The fall of the House of Usher,” written by Poe and in “Rip Van Winkle,” by Irving. They both apply their inordinate aptitudes to take and guide the readers into the story. It is evident that Edgar Poe contributed a lot to the revolution of the short story for example from a tale to an art. He effectively generated the detective story and improved the psychological thriller (Poe, 2018). Correspondingly he created some of the most significant fictional criticism during his period. Therefore his contributions are strong theoretical statements on poetry as well as the short story, and thus this has resulted in a positive worldwide influence on literature. He assisted in pioneering the short story through the use of prevailing plus innovative essentials whereby he afterward revolutionized literature.

The differences between Irving and Poe are that Irving typically applied humor in his works whereas Poe applied horror. An instance of Irving applying humor is his explanation of Rip developing some asleep from the alcohol consumption for about twenty years when met the Dutchmen. On the contrary, Poe took the more morbid method of nightmare, evil, death, and crime towards his writings (Irving, 2014). He did this by exploiting the fear that is in each of every person by bringing horrific actions and imaginations in his writings. Consequently, Poe implements the Gothic method in composition, by captivating a full benefit of gothic subject matter, fundamentals and some conspiracies besides lingering on murder, violence as well as insanity. A classical piece of this type is “The Fall of the House of Usher,” which presents a distressing atmosphere, man’s psychological terror and the dark plot to disclose the procedure of disintegration plus obliteration of the humanoid mind (Poe, 2018).

The two authors use distinctions of classic goliath writing in their workings. The two significant features of the goliath in literature are the use of colors, precisely black, red plus white besides the depiction of supernatural concepts or beings in daily life. All these are evident in both the authors’ writings. Poe has used colors in his writings and also uses supernatural notions as convincing forces that interrelated with their characters. In his short story “The Fall of the House of Usher,” Poe uses both the interplay of dark and light colors and also moods plus supernatural ideas. In “The Legend of the Sleepy Hollow, Irving exhibits Crane riding home through the woods where he is continually showing the shifting shadows as well as the interplay of light plus dark in the trees (Irving, 2014). Moreover, the whole story is based on beliefs in ghosts plus supernatural beings. Therefore in both of these stories by these two authors, they have applied gothic in a significant manner as they have used color, the interplay of dark plus light as well as supernatural beliefs and ideas.

References

Irving, W. (2014). The legend of sleepy hollow and other stories. Penguin Classics.

Poe, E. A. (2018). The Fall of the House of Usher. Clap Publishing, LLC..

Posted in Uncategorized

Introduction Facts about Iran

Introduction Facts about Iran

Iran’s Policy-Making Process

Student’s name

Institutional affiliation

Introduction: Facts about Iran

Iran is a Middle Eastern country located to the north of the Persian Gulf and South of the Caspian Sea. Iran shares borders with Pakistan, Turkey, Iraq, Afghanistan, Armenia, Turkmenistan, and Azerbaijan. Iran covers a total area of 1, 648, 000 square miles and has an estimated population of 80, 840, 713 million (Alipour, Hafezi, Amer, & Akhavan, 2017). Iran’s chief of state is Ayatollah Khamenei and the president is Hassan Rouhani who had held the position since 2013. Its capital city is Tehran with an estimated 7.304 million. With regard to the system of governance, Iran has had an Islamic theocracy since 1979.

The question of whether Iran is a democracy or an authoritarian system is a tough question to answer. The country is said to be a democracy but it is not entirely democratic. Currently, Iran’s politics adopt a framework that combines both presidential and theocracy democracy. In theory, a democratic system of governance is inscribed in the constitution but in some ways, they are not a democracy. At one point, Iran was a complete democracy in 1952 where they elected Muhammad Mossadegh. However, after two years, he tried to nationalize the oil industry by putting it under the control of the government. Currently, the formation of the Iranian government begins with the citizens who elect a president and 290 members of parliament every four years. Additionally, the citizens also elect 86 individuals to serve as members of the Assembly of Experts after every eight years. Once elected, the president has to appoint 22 cabinet members to be approved by parliament. As such, Iran can be described as both a presidential and parliamentary democracy system because citizens decide who joins parliament and who becomes president. Iran can be classified as a gray zone as evidenced by some of the tools it employs including having proxies and surrogates in countries across the Middle East, and the use of Quds Force. The proxies and surrogates are armed actors that support how Iran projects power in the region. These actors have already developed local legitimacy in communities in Syria, Lebanon, and Iraq hence allowing them to become social and political actors.

Iran is a unitary system that is Islamic with one legislative house. Iran’s 1979 constitution put Iran in a system of government that is mixed whereby the judiciary, executive, and the parliament are overseen by various clergy bodies. A rahbar meaning leader doubles as the head of the state and still oversees the institutions. The authority and duties of a rahbar are equated to those of a head of state. A unitary system contributes both negatively and positively to towards the policy-making process. Among the advantages is that legislation of laws happens more quickly and the power government has clear cut powers. Additionally, unitary systems often respond quickly to emergencies and citizens are more informed and less confused about the system of governance. Further, unitary systems have a smaller government which makes them less costly to run. On the other hand, unitary governments cause a detachment in the citizens’ needs and lead to hyper centralism which has to do with overreliance on the central government. Additionally, unitary systems often lead to dictatorship

Iran’s decisions are made in line with the country’s constitution. The Islamic Republic of Iran has a constitution that was adopted in 1979 in a referendum held on the 2nd and 3rd of December. The constitution which is still in use today replaced the Constitution of 1906. To date, the constitution is referred to as a hybrid of the democratic and theocratic elements. While the first two articles vest sovereignty to God, article six warrants popular elections for positions of parliament, presidency, and the Majlis. Article one stipulates that “The form of government of Iran is that of an Islamic Republic.” Nevertheless, the main democratic procedures, and rights are subordinate to the Supreme Leader and Guardian Council who powers are also stipulated between articles 107 and 112. Iran’s constitution has been amended once; on 28th July 1989. The first legislature and executive were formed on 14th March 1980 and 5th February 1980 (Juneau, 2016). Worth noting, some aspects of Iran’s constitution cannot be altered, for instance, the government’s democratic character, the republic’s objectives, the Islamic nature of the laws and the government, Ummah’s leadership, and its administration.

The institution that holds primary policymaking power in Iran is the executive particularly the Supreme Leader of Iran. His status is that of Head of State and he works closely with the elected president. Although the president is in charge of the day-to-day running of the county, he does not decide the general guidelines of the domestic and foreign policy of the country, and neither does he command the security organs and armed forces. This authority is vested in the hands of the Supreme leader as vested in the constitution. Through the clerical commissar’s system, the Supreme leader is bale to monitor state policies. The Iranian government has various restrictions begin with the fact a President cannot run for office for three terms combined. Further, Iran has an intricate set of balances and checks and for this reason, it is likely that the government will get hung up during times of crisis. Regarding the judicial review, Iran’s judicial restrictions are subjected to limitations such as Precedent where cases are decided based on the laws and findings of prior cases. They are required to follow precedents set by higher courts. The council of guardians comprises twelve jurists; six are appointed by the parliament while the rest are selected by the Supreme leader. The council of guardians is tasked by the constitution to interpret the laws and decide if the laws are in line with Islamic law. This means that the council or guardians holds veto power over parliament. The Iranian government has a limitation on the confidence vote. The Islamic government is formed on the basis of religious guardianship and the constitution regards Islamic contents of the revolution including the nature, conditions, and limits of the duty pointing that the vote of confidence can be sought from the Assembly of Council of Ministers.

The legislative branch of the Iranian government has two components namely, a unicameral parliamentary chamber known as the Islamic Consultative Assembly and a reviewing power. Without the existence of simultaneous existence of the Guardian Council, the Parliament does not have legal status. Hence the existence of the Council is a condition for the efficiency of the legislative power. This is because the bills that are passed must be submitted to the council of enactment. The Unicameral assembly representatives are selected via multi-seat vote where 290 representatives are elected to serve four terms. The candidates are approved by the Council of Guardians. The executive Branch is selected through democracy in elections where the head of state is selected to serve a four-year term. The chief of state, that is the supreme leader is selected by the Assembly of Experts. The cabinet, i.e., Council of Ministers are elected by the president and approved by the legislature. The supreme leader also has control over some ministries and appointments. The President serves four years and cannot run for three terms while the Supreme leader serves a maximum of eight years. Iran’s executive has extensive power of emergency decree particularly in the case of accidents and other emergencies where every person has a right to medical attention and health. Bureaucracy plays a vital role in policy legitimating and policy formulation in Iran. It has proved effective in reforming the regime of politics following that the country has is among the oldest bureaucratic empires in history. Without a doubt and just like other nations, Iran continues to battle various problems with corruption in both public and private sectors taking center stage. To eliminate the problem requires a powerful system of political nepotism and patronage pervading all sectors of the economy. With many Iranians suffering the effects of a floundering and mismanaged economy, the Iranian regime has attempted to blame the distress of its citizens on going by the suctions implemented in countries like the United States. Iran has an intricate set of balances and checks and for this reason, it is likely that the government will get hung up during times of crisis. Regarding the judicial review, Iran’s judicial restrictions are subjected to limitations such as Precedent meaning that they made decisions based on prior cases, and from the deliberations, it is evident that the inputs fail to match the outputs. Despite the many strategies placed by the government to improve the lives of its citizens, its efforts have not emerged as successful.

References

Alipour, M., Hafezi, R., Amer, M., & Akhavan, A. N. (2017). A new hybrid fuzzy cognitive map-based scenario planning approach for Iran’s oil production pathways in the post–sanction period. Energy, 135, 851-864.

Juneau, T. (2016). Iran’s policy towards the Houthis in Yemen: a limited return on a modest investment. International Affairs, 92(3), 647-663.

Posted in Uncategorized

IRAN AND UNITED STATES THEOCRACY

IRAN AND UNITED STATES THEOCRACY

IRAN AND UNITED STATES THEOCRACY

Students Name

Course

Professor

Date

Theocracy is a complex word which combined refers to a form of government by which certain religious beliefs are aimed at by the belief in a god. Iran and the United States are two great governments that familiarize on the outside. However apart from the common significance on the surface both Iran and the United States have got apparent dissimilarities that lies in the fact that Iran is an Islamic theocracy. In this case rulers specifically undergo certain religious beliefs who claim to be directed by his or her god. Compared to the ancient days of cultural and religious beliefs it is an historical event that see these rulers as messengers of their god through straight revelation to their people and nation as whole. The United States and Iran have unlike approaches in the present globe from histories, culture, religious beliefs and economics that pose threat to both nations as they are expanding in various ways of human kind merits.

The Islamic democracy refers to an opinionated ideology that seeks to be relevant with the Muslim principles to the civic rule. Iran is an example a Muslim position in the form of Islamic republics that endeavor to institute the Sharia law and more comprehensive enclosure of Islam into the associations of the state. However the constitution creates authority in other branches, since the ultimate leader has supreme power to set out of any person or rule. Contrasting the ideological arguments for the Iranian to the ideology behind the more secular ideas of the United States declaration of independence and constitution the United States was from the formal colony meaning that the U.S government was derived from the British government.

The partition of the church and the federal state resulted to executive, judiciary and legislative divisions to the United States becoming a democratic nation globally. The basic structure of the Iranian government starts at the top with the supreme leader known as Ayatollah Ali Khamenei who succeeded Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini since 1979 when Islamic Republic was found. The supreme leader’s who is also the commander-in –chief of the armed forces role was to set the tone and direction of Iran’s domestic and foreign policies. The supreme leader has the authority to select and release the supreme commander of the Islamic revolutionary Guard Corps and the leaders of the judiciary. In addition the Supreme Leader’s legislative body is more authoritative than the president’s ministers and has the power to get involved in any subject of state on the Supreme Leader’s behalf.

The president is the second highest official, however contrasting him with the Supreme leader the president’s power is often cut off by the constitution which subordinates the whole executive branch to the supreme leader resulting to the only branch that does not control the armed forces. The leader executives of both Iran and the United States are referred as presidents. Although, the president of Iran is nominated by means of the supreme majority of the well-liked vote, and uncommon occurrence, while in the United States the majority takes part in an election through the Electoral College. In cooperation executives appreciate a four year term with the alternative to show the way for one more term. As for concerns of duty and power within their relevant governments, the position as president of the United States immensely overcomes that of the president of Iran.

The President of the United States serves as the chief of approximately all facets of management for instance the chief diplomat, chief of state, commander-in-chief, chief legislator, but the Iranian President is only accountable for the inner workings of the executive organization. Apart from the president there are other eight vice presidents and a cabinet formed of twenty two ministries who serve under the president. The Iranian structure is also formed of the parliament whose body consists of 290 members. Legislative body forms legislation and confirms the country’s budget. The assembly of experts in the Iran constitution follows after the parliament. The members in turn elect the supreme leader from within their own position.

The supreme leader appoints six jurists from twelve of them that are consist of the council of guardians. They are comprised with the power to interpret the constitution and determine if the laws passed by parliament are in the line with the Sharia law. Ayatollah Khomeini created the Expediency council to provide advice to the supreme leader. These resulted to the expediency council being powerful in the governing structure in the nation. In 2002 the Iran parliament speaker said that reforming the Expediency council is in line with the people’s devotion for change, which they incurred in different elections. These call invoked the United States president in which he alleged the unelected in Iran. The laws of the Special clerical court, that takes place separately of the customary judicial structure and is liable merely to the supreme leader are as well ultimate and cannot be amend. The Iran government is largely held by the top leader who appoints the leader of the magistrate who later appoints the head of the highest court and the chief republic prosecutor.

National security and Intelligence of the Iranian government is not controlled by its executives, although the president has ostensible law over the Supreme National Security Council and the Ministry of Intelligence and Security. Comparing and contrasting this basic structure of the Iranian government with the American government both constitutions explain the rights of people, the roles of the supervision regime and the needs of the Iran’s constitution. Differentiating the Iranian constitution with the United States constitution, America has confirmed that it formed a valuable government to look after its community and defend their human rights. Compare to the United States constitution, Iran constitution is more in particular determined on the religious power but not in the rights and freedom of an individual. A constitutional theocracy is a theocracy, linked on a constitution, where designated officials function within the limits of the constitution rather than in a straight line in the bounds of the religion. Religion is still the major power of a legitimate theocracy as well as the management bases laws and their enforcement on a constitution.

The major difference between the United States and the constitution of Iran are for instance religious freedom, civil rights and civil liberties. Under article two of the Islamic Republic constitution states that Allah is the only one god. On the other hand the United States use the institution clause to point out that the assembly shall make no law respecting an establishment of religious beliefs. The Americas constitution enrolled the legislature, judiciary and the executive division to only discuss the significance of each duty of the articles. The Iran’s constitution drastically altered a lot of changes from the French Fifth constitution. These were as a result of religious control and later lacked the concern and opinion from the community.

In addition the Iran’s constitution is unstable and it is not religious free as it reflects its constitution more to the Islamic Sharia law and thus not letting the community in the nation free to cultural and religious beliefs. In prior to that, the United States is more flexible to its constitution and thus resulting to it being more stable and more religious free to its people. Contrasting the civil rights between these two nations, in general the United States civil rights are not limited. The American declaration of independence and constitution criticized the Iranian regime’s record of human rights violence and abuse because the Iranian citizen cannot choose their leaders with the freedom of expression since the Guardians of Council manage the election procedures. In addition because the Iran’s Interior and Intelligence ministers have been concerned in human rights abuse the Iran’s constitution has led to worsening background for civil liberties.

Abundant restriction to the freedoms of an individual is a significant and a vulgar impact to the community as the Iran government cannot protect its people. The political parties and interest groups influence the governments of Iran and the United States revolutionary. Within the republic of the political civilization of Iran every key to governmental decision were made by the shah and his ministers. This fusion revolution resulted in the appearance of a well known political culture. The prime factor of this political rhythm is omnipresent state of mind that the institution is obliged to guarantee social justification to the citizens participating in politics. The change of the political civilization owed much to the personality of the first supreme leader. His determination was to overthrow the kingdom and replace it with a fresh culture that devoted its values from Islam.

Though the parties in the Iran nation are not much profession compare to the parties in the United States. The reason as to why these parties in Iran are not well organized is because it is bounded with inadequate leadership by religion. In Iran Mass political participation has been a purpose and character of post revolutionary. But the membership is not via political parties but through religious organization. The influence of political parties in the government of the United States had a long history during the era of federalists and anti-federalists. These political parties and interest groups in Iran betrothed in political associates rather than full fledged groups of adequate time activists. In concise, Iran parties are yet at a premature stage of growth and party diligences. This makes the Iran government still in an emerging concise of political growth. Various sectors for example schools and offices also have Islamic managements that undergo similar interests to those of the mosque deliberate institutions. In addition many secular groups exist. The Iranian and the United States government’s influence over mass media have provided freedom of the press. While, according to the Iran’s government, the influence to freely relate to the parliament is not as for the United States. The Iran’s constitution provides freedom to the press only if the press implies and agrees with the Islamic principles. These require every mass media to have a legal and valid publishing license to permit the mass media. Still, if the mass media comprises of any subject that is perceived or linked to be anti-Islamic is not permitted a publication license. There are also other newspaper published but the fact that they are considered to be appropriately Islamic they do not comprise of the essential government.

In addition any published book that is referred to as un-Islamic can be affirmed and considered as an offence of both the author and the publisher as liable to attempting to insult the Islamic morals. Prior to that all the radio stations and television broadcasting is under the control of the government. The community of Iran is pressured with the Iran’s constitution comprised with the Islamic principles known as the Sharia law. The press takes part in a vital position in the social equality of the United States. Many journalists in the United States see themselves as protectors of their nation. When the role of the press is pursued with passion it is vault to annoy the superior leaders in the government. These create tension at times between the press and politicians. In a wide range of view the community at times agrees with the press but other times they disagree and side with their elected politicians. The press is mostly blamed for many aspects of American political ventures, however at times the politicians wish to side with the press and take advantage of attempting to get their messages out to the public.

While the public relies on the mass media as a source of information comprising politics the politicians also depend on the press. On a different point of view the politicians at times favor the press with a motive of them shortening their schedules and political fights and keep them up to date. The politicians believe that the money and trust they devote to the press will pay off later in the form of re-elections and political rallies for their rule suggestion. The attempt of the government to control the media is not without consequences because the function of the media links the governors and the governed.

The evolution of press has greatly influence what United States be on familiar terms with the politics. These is because the politicians became reliant on the press and tried to benefit from them but later the press responded forcefully defending themselves as watchdogs of democracy. Comparing and contrasting the Iran government and the United States government, the Iran constitution does not protect the human rights of an individual as it includes religious belief and culture. It supports and relies mostly on the Islamic principles that hinder the Iranian each and every freedom granted to him or her. The United States being in political asperities for a long time has led it to be flexible to its constitution and therefore giving and ensuring each and every citizen protection and effective measures to human rights of an individual.

In addition the Iran government may be considered as unfit to be the ruler of a free person and of justice of humanity, unlike the United States that considers each and every right of an individual in either different state of culture, religion and political affairs. The America and Iran have different modes of ruling in the modern world. At this time the American nation is fitting reliant on the oil whereas the Iran nation is further susceptible to the fuel, natural gas and mineral deposits. These two great nations should come to a firm agreement to protect its people globally and maintain the equality of humanity.

Biography

Beisner, Robert. American Foreign Relations since 1600 a Guide to the Literature, Second Edition. 2nd ed. Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO, 2003.

Cordesman, Anthony H.. Iran’s military forces in transition conventional threats and weapons of mass destruction. Westport, Conn.: Praeger, 1999.

Geer, John Gray, and Wendy J. Schiller. Gateways to democracy: the essentials – an introduction to American government. Second Ed.

Mafinezam, Alidad, and Aria Mehrabi. Iran and its place among nations. Westport, Conn.: Praeger, 2008.

Habeeb, William Mark. Iran. Philadelphia: Mason Crest Publishers, 2004.

Hiro, Dilip. Iran under the Ayatollahs. Hoboken: Taylor and Francis, 2013.

Posted in Uncategorized

Involvement of Women in Criminal Activities

Involvement of Women in Criminal Activities

Involvement of Women in Criminal Activities

Institution:

Date:

Involvement of Women in Criminal Activities

The article by Jody tries to explore the role of women in criminal activities. In the United States, men appear to be the dominant gender that engages in criminal activities. According to Jody, the most predominant gender-based criminal activities include rape and robbery. Jody recorded that the number of women who participated in criminal activities accounted for a negligible percentage. From various reports by the criminal investigation department, there were high rates of manslaughter and acts of burglary (Miller, 1998). Jody looked at the central idea of women’s presence of women in the male-dominated criminal activities. Ideally, the focus was to understand what makes male criminal violent compared to women in similar criminal activities.

Jody was concern about the lack of severe critic on the involvement of women in criminal activities. There is a wide gap in criticism that occurs following criminal activities involvement than when women engage in similar activities. The author further presents how prejudice exists when crimes involving women appear (Miller, 1998). Colorism appears with criminal activities, young colored ladies and particularly those from economically unstable families are subject to unruly behaviors. While male criminals focus on suburban setting, female criminals appear to target nondomestic streets to carry out their activities.

The behavior of these women in the male-dominated field is their survival tactics. Most of the female offenders focus on avoiding victimization, either my men and other people in society. Although some women committed the crime out of victimization by their counterparts, others have other motivating factors to engaging in criminal activities (Miller, 1998). Different studies attributed the involvement of women in criminal activities to express underlying anger following rape, alienation, and to some extent, class oppression.

In terms of ethnicity, African Americans living in urban areas are more likely to engage in criminal activities than other racial groups. Stress and economic factors contribute to women’s involvement in criminal activities. Inequality between genders is a crucial concept in criminal activities in urban settings.

Primarily, the main reason for involvement in criminal activities is the need for money and the gaining of material goods. Most of the criminal have the urge of acquiring goods in a short time due to drug addiction. Most criminals aim to achieve class, including having some designer clothes, jewelry, and pleasure level (Miller, 1998). Besides, most people who engage in criminal activities feel like they should be the source of attention. In contrast, some women feel like they should obtain money and material goods to support family members. Female offenders engage in criminal activities by targeting women through personal confrontation while they target men in sexual manners.

References

Miller, J. (1998). Up it up: Gender and the accomplishment of street robbery. Criminology, 36(1), 37-66.

Posted in Uncategorized

Investigating the Impact of Romantic Relationships on Academic Performance of High

Investigating the Impact of Romantic Relationships on Academic Performance of High

Investigating the Impact of Romantic Relationships on Academic Performance of High

School Students

Student’s Name

Institution Affiliation

Course Name and Code

Professor’s Name

Abstract

Romantic relationships have become common among adolescents. Like everything else in life, romantic relationships both positively and negatively affect psychological health and students’ academic achievement. However, most studies exploring the impact of academic relationships on students’ academic performance focus on college students, leaving high school students largely ignored. The primary goal of this study is to explore how engaging in romantic relationships impacts high school students’ academic performance. The study will adopt a correlational research design, and data will be collected from a sample of 300 randomly selected high school teachers. Participants will be recruited from public high schools in the US. Data will be collected using survey questionnaires. The questionnaire will be self-constructed to enable the investigator to measure all the study variables. The collected data will be aggregated in MS. Excel and then exported to SPPS version 26.0 for analysis. First, a reliability test will be performed. Pearson’s correlation will then be performed to test whether there is a significant correlation between being in a romantic relationship and the academic performance of high school students. The findings of the study will help determine whether or not romantic relationships among high school students should be encouraged.

INTRODUCTION

Introduction

Romantic affairs have become part of teenagers’ daily lives, and dating is a common topic of teenage conversations. Supporting this statement, Honghao et al. (2021) reveal that more than half of high school students today are in a romantic relationship. Most romantic relationships among teenagers are superficial and do not require long-term commitment, causing frequent breakups (Clayborne et al., 2019). These breakups cause stress and anxiety among students, which adversely affects their academic outcomes. However, other scholars have shown that romantic relationships have positive effects on adolescents. For instance, Fults (2019) reveals that romantic relationships increase learners’ self-acceptance, self-respect, and a sense of belonging and provide a positive learning climate. To contribute to this area of research, this study aims to explore the association between romantic relationships and the academic performance of high school students. This section covers the problem of the study, the research question and hypothesis, and the definition of operational terms.

Problem Statement

Engaging in romantic relationships creates a wide range of problems for teenagers. Honghao et al. (2021) reveal that fantasy and genuine romantic affairs contribute to adolescents’ emotional uncertainty, negatively affecting their interpersonal ability and academic performance. Also, most adolescents’ romantic relationships last for about 6 to 12 months, which makes adolescents experience frequent breakups. These breakups lead to stress and anxiety, thus, adversely affecting their academic outcome. Li et al. (2019) further reveal that balancing academic performance and romantic relationships is a challenge for teenagers.

On a different note, Li et al. (2019) urge that although the relationship between romantic relationships and student academic performance has been the focus of scholars for many years, much of the work focuses on college students. This implies that the existing literature concerning the impact of romantic relationships on high school students is limited in scope, creating the research gap for this study.

Although engaging in a romantic relationship causes various challenges to students, there is an increased number of high school students getting into romantic relationships. Examining how being in a romantic relationship impacts high school students’ academic performance is important because it will unveil the effects that high school students’ engagement in romantic relationships has. This fills a gap in the existing knowledge because although engagement in the romantic relationship among college students has positive and negative effects, it is not known whether this is the same with high school students. Also, the knowledge gained through this study will benefit society by enlightening them on whether or not it is right to support teenagers’ romantic relationships.

Research Questions and Hypothesis

Quantitative Research Question

Is there a significant correlation between romantic relationships and the academic performance of high school students?

Hypothesis

H0: There is no significant correlation between being in a romantic relationship and the academic performance of high school students.

H1: There is no significant correlation between being in a romantic relationship and the academic performance of high school students.

Definitions of Operational Terms

This study has one dependent and one independent variable. The dependent variable of the study is academic performance. In the context of this study, academic performance is used to refer to the measurement of a student’s achievement across different academic subjects. On the other hand, the independent variable is romantic relationship. In the context of this study, a romantic relationship is defined as an ongoing, mutual, and voluntary interaction between two partners characterized by intimacy and affection.

Conclusion

Conclusively, this section unveils that most high schoolers are engaging in romantic relationships despite the increased risks of this behavior. The results on the impacts of romantic relations on student academic performance are inconsistent and inconclusive. Also, the scope of the existing literature on the effects of romantic relationships on high school students’ academic performance is limited in scope and warrants further investigations.

LITERATURE REVIEW

Introduction

The literature review section aims at providing a comprehensive synthesized review of previous journal articles and other scholarly materials related to student involvement in a romantic relationship and its impact on academic performance so as to provide the researcher with a comprehensive understanding of the topic under investigation as well as identify the research gaps in the existing literature. To identify the appropriate literature to review, the researcher searched different reputable databases, including EBSCOHost, Emerald, CINHAL, and Google Scholar. These databases were preferred since they contain peer-reviewed journal articles, thus making the chosen materials credible for use in the study. Books and book chapters were also considered for review. The literature review covers reasons adolescents engage in romantic relationships, the effects of romantic relationships on student academic performance, and an empirical review of previous studies exploring the relationship between romantic relationships and student academic performance. Finally, a research gap is identified.

Why Adolescents Engage in Romantic Relationships

Research reveals that in the contemporary world, more than half of high school students are in a romantic relationship (Honghao & Tianyu, 2021). Adolescents engage in romantic relationships due to various reasons. To begin with, human beings are considered to be “social animals,” and their interaction with other people is fundamental to their well-being (Ben-Ze’ev & Teitelbaum, 2021). The social nature of human beings also makes them want to form intimate relationships where love can be received and given freely; the state psychologists refer to as “the need to belong” (Baumeister & Leary, 2017).

Also, research reveals that engaging in romantic relationships involves physical contact, which leads to the release of chemicals such as endorphins, oxytocin, and vasopressin among the people engaged, and they also gain the love and confidence that they are seeking (Raman, 2010). The author also adds that these chemicals bring about short-term happiness and euphoria, making adolescents want to engage in romantic relationships.

Furthermore, Kapur (2015) argues that individuals during their adolescence stage experience how to be socially independent. During this stage, teenagers tend to be curious about how it feels to have a partner; thus, exploring this curiosity leads them to a romantic relationship while still in high school. However, this form of relationship might not result in a fulfilling and passionate love affair. This is simply the outcome of their curiosity and attempts to discover their place in the world as they try to figure out what life is all about. As adolescents strive to find their place in the broader and social world, the majority of them enter into romantic relationships. Backes and Bonnie (2019) reveal that as teenagers transition from puberty to late adolescence, romantic connections become more and more important to them in their social world.

Effects of Romantic Relationships on Student Academic Performance

Engaging in a romantic relationship has both positive and negative effects on an individual. Fults (2019) urges that quality personal relationships that provide care, stability, and trust, such as romantic relationships, increase learners’ self-acceptance, self-respect, and a sense of belonging and provide a positive learning climate. Additionally, Vygotsky’s theory states that social interaction contributes significantly to an individual’s cognitive development. Based on this idea, psychologists argue that romantic relations, which are sort of social interactions, contribute positively to student academic outcomes, which are facilitated by cognitive development. Teenagers assist in the cognitive development of their partners by studying together. Also, romantic relationships serve motivate learners to study (De Winter et al., 2021). On the same note, Ahamed et al. (2017) revealed that romantic relationships boost student academic performance of students. Supporting their findings, the authors argued that most adolescents are inclined to attend class due to their romantic partners.

On the negative side, romantic relationships result in stress and anxiety, which negatively impact student academic performance. Clayborne et al. (2019) reveal that most adolescents’ romantic relationships last for about 6 to 12 months. As such, adolescents who engage in romantic relationships experience frequent breakups, which leads to stress and anxiety. Consequently, this adversely affects their academic outcome.

Additionally, the time spent with someone’s partner tends to consume time that could have been used to study. Since time management is a significant impact on student academic performance, this results in romantic relationships having a negative impact on the academic outcome of students. Li et al. (2019) reveal that balancing academic performance and romantic relationships is a challenge for teenagers. Also, having a romantic relationship when one is a student is both a source of stress and a disturbance. According to Capariňo (2011), having a romantic affair is disturbing to students since students must manage time between the romantic side and school, which leads to most students giving the academic side a lesser priority.

Empirical Evidence

The existing literature related to the topic under investigation is full of empirical studies exploring the relationship between romantic relationships and student academic performance. Firstly, Schmidt and Lockwood (2017) conducted a study to explore the impact of a romantic affair on university students’ academic performance. A sample of 300 students was recruited to take part in the study. Data were collected using questionnaires, and multivariate analysis was performed. Findings revealed that engaging in a romantic relationship increases the chance of not attending classes, which negatively affects the student’s academic outcome. These findings align with those of Li et al. (2019), who examined the impact of involvement in romantic affairs and dating behaviors on the psychological functioning and academic performance of college students. Li et al. (2019) found that involvement in romantic relationship results in lower academic performance among adolescents.

Karki et al. (2018) also performed an empirical study to examine the impact of relationship status on academic performance among college students. The study involved a sample of 300 participants who were chosen using the purposive sampling technique. Data were collected using survey questionnaires, and descriptive and differential statistics were computed. Findings revealed that being in a romantic affair had a significant positive impact on student motivation to learn and a moderate impact on student anxiety levels.

Research Gap

Overall, the literature reviewed reveals that there is a growing number of high-school students engaging in romantic relations. Further, it was established that being in a romantic relationship can positively and negatively impact student academic performance. However, all the reviewed empirical studies focused on the impact of romantic relationships on college students’ academic performance. This has created a research gap for this study. With the increasing number of high school students engaging in romantic relationships, it is important to explore how being in a romantic affair impacts high school student’s academic performance. To fill the research gap, this study examines how being in a romantic relationship impacts high school students’ academic performance.

METHODOLOGY

Introduction

This section covers the methodological approach that will be employed in this study. The section is organized into various subsections, including the research design, study setting, population and sample, instruments, recruitment procedures, and data collection and analysis procedures. Another subsection covered here is the ethical considerations put in place to guarantee participants’ safety. The research question and the hypothesis will guide this section. The research question examines whether there is a significant correlation between being in a romantic relationship and the academic performance of high school students. On the other hand, the hypothesis is that there is a significant correlation between being in a romantic relationship and the academic performance of high school students.

Research Design

The main research methods include quantitative, qualitative, and mixed-methods research. The type of research method to guide the study depends on the research goal (Ranganathan & Aggarwal, 2018). An appropriate research method must be chosen to sufficiently address the research question(s). This study will adopt a quantitative research method. This research method will be ideal for this study since this study will involve the use of numerical data. Creswell and Creswell (2018) reveal that the quantitative research approach is ideal for large numerical data studies. Also, this research method will be suitable for this study since the study will involve testing the hypothesis mentioned above. Research reveals that a quantitative research method is ideal for studies that seek to test hypotheses and relationships between variables (Bloomfield & Fisher, 2018).

Since the study will adopt a quantitative research method, a quantitative research design will be chosen. The main quantitative research designs include experimental, descriptive, and descriptive research designs. This study will adopt a descriptive research design. Specifically, a correlational design will be chosen for this study. Usually, a correlational research design is utilized to establish any statistical association between variables under study. Therefore, since this study will examine the association between being in a romantic relationship and the academic performance of high school students, the correlational design will be suitable for this research. Supporting the choice of this research design, Aggarwal and Ranganathan (2019) also urge that correlational design enables the researcher to use inferential statistics to analyze the relationship between variables being studied.

Research Setting

This is the social, physical, or experimental context within which the study is carried out. An accurate description of the research setting in a research paper is crucial since the study findings depend heavily on it. The setting of this study will be public high schools in the US.

Participants

Population describes the entire group about which a conclusion is drawn (Majid, 2018). The population for this research study will be high school students in the US. The target population is defined as the populace from which a sample is drawn from (Majid, 2018). A sample encompasses all the items of a particular type that the researcher gets information on. The target population for this study will be teachers from public high schools in the US. A sample of 300 teachers will be selected for this study. Only teachers who have taught for more than two years in the chosen schools will be allowed to participate in the study. This is because they will have had enough time to interact and know their students better. Teachers will be recruited to take part in the study since they understand their students better and know most students who are engaged in romantic relationships. Besides, teachers are in a better position to tell how engagement in romantic relationships impacts students’ academic performance since they interact with students who are in romantic relationships and those who are not. Also, since most high schools are minors (below the age of 18), they will not be the ideal respondents to provide data for this study.

Instruments

A survey questionnaire will be adopted to gather the primary data required for this research. The questionnaire to be used will comprise close-ended questions. These questions will entail placing responses within categories from which the respondents will be chosen from. The questionnaire will adopt a continuous rating scale to allow the investigator to measure the participants’ views and opinions quantitatively. The questionnaire will be self-constructed to enable the investigator to measure all the study variables. The questionnaire will have three sections. The first section will collect participants’ demographic information. The second section will measure student academic performance, and the third will measure students’ engagement in romantic relationships. The items for each construct will be adopted and adapted from past studies. The questionnaire will use the Likert scale (whereby 1=Strongly disagree, 2= disagree, 3= Neutral, 4= Agree, 5=Strongly Agree).

Although the survey questionnaire will be adapted from different past studies, the reliability and validity of the instrument will be validated. Experts in this area of study will validate the content validity of the questionnaire. A copy of the questionnaire draft will be submitted to the validators, who will vet the questionnaire in terms of its coverage of the content area, relevance to the subject matter, appropriateness of language use, and clarity of purpose. All the recommended changes will be made, and the research supervisor will approve the instrument. The reliability of the questionnaire will be measured after data collection. Cronbach’s Alpha test be performed. According to George and Mallery (2003), a coefficient >.9 is excellent, >.8 is good, .7 is acceptable, >.6 is questionable, >.5 poor, and <.5 is unacceptable. For this research, Cronbach’s coefficient will be maintained at >.7.

Recruitment Procedure

The 300 participants for this study will be selected from different public high schools in the US. A simple random sampling technique will be employed to select this study’s participants. Random sampling is a sampling technique whereby every element of the sample has an equal probability of being chosen (Carlisle, 2017). The random sampling technique will be preferred since it is the simplest way of choosing respondents from a large target population. To select the 300 participants, a total of 30 public high schools in the US will be randomly selected to take part in the study. Ten teachers will then be randomly selected from each school to take part in the study.

Data Collection Procedure

The identification of the research participants will mark the start of the data collection procedure. The investigator will send a letter to various US secondary schools requesting them to participate in the study. The letter will be addressed to the school principal. In the letter of request, the investigator will inform the school administration of the study’s aims, goals, and purpose. The researcher will then randomly select 30 schools out of all the schools that will be willing to take part in the study. The investigator will then request the school principal to assist them with the contact details of teachers in their schools. The researcher will then send a letter to all the teachers in these schools requesting teachers who have spent more than two years in the chosen school to take part in the study. From each school, a total of ten teachers will be chosen to take part in the study.

Informed consent forms, along with the study brief, will be sent to the research participants via email before the questionnaires are shared with the respondents. Participants will be requested to carefully read the study brief, which will comprise brief information about the study aims and objective, the purpose of the study, and what will be required from the participants. Afterward, they will be required to sign and resubmit the informed consent form to the researcher, which will serve as evidence of voluntary engagement in the study. The researcher will then share the survey questionnaires with the participants. Questionnaires will be sent to respondents via email. Participants will be requested to complete and send the questionnaires to the researcher in 30 days. A reminder email will be sent to the respondents after 14 days reminding them to submit the questionnaires before the 30 days elapse. After thirty days, the researcher will send a thank you note to all the participants, appreciating them for taking part in the study. Questionnaire responses will be aggregated into an excel file for analysis.

Data Analysis Procedure

The data analysis procedure will begin with data cleansing. The data cleansing will be performed using MS Excel. Responses with more than 50% missing data will be eliminated. The cleansed data will then be exported to Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) software for analysis. First, a reliability test will be performed. Further, descriptive and inferential statistics will be performed. Pearson’s correlation will be performed to test whether there is a significant correlation between being in a romantic relationship and the academic performance of high school students.

Limitations of the study

The first limitation of this study relates to the confounding variables. Students’ academic performance may be affected by other factors rather than engagement in a romantic relationship. To eliminate the confounding effect of other factors, the researcher will encourage the participants to give their opinions on only how engagement in a romantic relationship impacts student academic performance. Also, since the questionnaire will be self-c constructed, this will increase the internal threat to the validity of the data collection instrument. To deal with this threat, the questionnaire constructs will be adapted from the previously validated questionnaires. Another limitation of this study is that the researcher will be limited to the use of primary data, which will limit the ability of the researcher to gather secondary data.

Ethical considerations

Ethics are the principles and the norms that guide the study. The researcher will adhere to the required ethical standards to ensure the protection of the research participants as well as ensure the protection of data and accuracy of the collected data. Firstly, before the initial data collection process, the participants will be required to sign an informed consent form. This will serve as proof of participants’ voluntary participation in the study. Also, participants will be informed that participation in the study is free and voluntary. Any participant who wishes to withdraw from the study during the data collection process will be allowed to do without being questioned. Furthermore, the researcher will maintain the anonymity and confidentiality of the research participants. The collected data will not be shared with third-party participants to ensure confidentiality. To ensure that data is not accessible by a third party, the gathered data will be stored on a password-protected personal computer. The backup data will be stored in a flash disk, which will also be available to the researcher only. All the data will be permanently deleted three years after data analysis and reporting. On the other hand, participants’ personal data, such as names, addresses, and mobile numbers, will not be collected to ensure anonymity. Participation in this study will not have any potential risks.

Conclusion

Overall, this section presents the methodological stance that will guide the study. The study will adopt a quantitative research method and a correlational design. This design will be ideal for this study since it will examine the association between variables. A sample of 300 participants will be randomly chosen to participate in the study. The sample will comprise teachers from public high schools in the US. Data will be collected using survey questionnaires. The collected data will be analyzed using SPSS. Descriptive and inferential statistics will be performed. The researcher will adhere to ethical standards to protect research participants.

References

Aggarwal, R., & Ranganathan, P. (2019). Study designs: part 2–descriptive studies. Perspectives in clinical research, 10(1), 34.

Ahamed, A. S., Mahmood, N. T., & Rahman, R. M. (2017). An intelligent system to predict academic performance based on different factors during adolescence. Journal of Information and Telecommunication, 1(2), 155-175. https://doi.org/10.1080/24751839.2017.1323488Backes, E. P., & Bonnie, R. J. (2019). The promise of adolescence: Realizing the opportunity for all youth.

Baumeister, R. F., & Leary, M. R. (2017). The need to belong: Desire for interpersonal attachments as a fundamental human motivation. Interpersonal development, 57-89.

Ben-Ze’ev, A., & Teitelbaum, M. (2021). The Value of Politeness in Romantic Love. In The Philosophy of (Im) politeness (pp. 137-153). Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-81592-9_8Bloomfield, J., & Fisher, M. J. (2019). Quantitative research design. Journal of the Australasian Rehabilitation Nurses’ Association, 22(2), 27-30. https://doi.org/10.33235/jarna.22.2.27-30Capariňo, V. (2011). The Effects of Romantic Relationships on the Academic Performance of University of the Philippines – Cebu College Students ACKNOWLEDGMENTS. Academia.edu. Retrieved 8 September 2022, from https://www.academia.edu/7736954/The_Effects_of_Romantic_Relationships_on_the_Academic_Performance_of_University_of_the_Philippines_Cebu_College_Students_ACKNOWLEDGMENTS.

Carlisle, J. B. (2017). Data fabrication and other reasons for non‐random sampling in 5087 randomized, controlled trials in anesthetic and general medical journals. Anaesthesia, 72(8), 944-952.

Clayborne, Z. M., Varin, M., & Colman, I. (2019). Systematic review and meta-analysis: adolescent depression and long-term psychosocial outcomes. Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry, 58(1), 72-79. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jaac.2018.07.896Creswell, J. W., & Creswell, J. D. (2018). Research design: Qualitative, quantitative, and mixed methods approaches. Sage publications.

De Winter, T., Van Mol, C., & de Valk, H. A. (2021). International student mobility aspirations: The role of romantic relationships and academic motivation. Journal of Studies in International Education, 25(5), 505-523. https://doi.org/10.1177%2F1028315321990747Fults, J. R. (2019). Identifying teacher emotional-social competencies that predict positive & negative relationships with students (Doctoral dissertation, Bowling Green State University).

Honghao, J., Po, Y., & Tianyu, Y. (2021). The influence of adolescents’ romantic relationship on individual development: Evidence from China. International Journal of Chinese Education, 10(3), 1-15. https://doi.org/10.1177%2F22125868211070036Kapur, S. (2015). Adolescence: the stage of transition. Horizons of holistic education, 2, 233-250.

Karki, P., Bhutia, D.K., Ghataney, B., Tamang, C., Chettri, H., Sharma, H., Tamang, P., Acharya, P…, Limbu, S. (2018). Influence of Relationship Status on the Academic Performance of Students from Selected College of Gangtok, Sikkim, International Journal of Current Research, 10(11), 74955-74959. https://doi.org/10.24941/ijcr.32868.11.2018Li, X., Huang, C. Y. S., & Shen, A. C. T. (2019). Romantic involvement and adolescents’ academic and psychosocial functioning in Chinese societies. Children and Youth Services Review, 96, 108-117. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.childyouth.2018.11.036Li, X., Huang, C. Y. S., & Shen, A. C. T. (2019). Romantic involvement and adolescents’ academic and psychosocial functioning in Chinese societies. Children and Youth Services Review, 96, 108-117.

Majid, U. (2018). Research fundamentals: Study design, population, and sample size. Undergraduate research in natural and clinical science and technology journal, 2, 1-7. http://dx.doi.org/10.26685/urncst.16Raman, J. R. (2010). Correlates Of Tertiary Student Life Satisfaction (Doctoral dissertation, University of Waikato).

Ranganathan, P., & Aggarwal, R. (2018). Study designs: Part 1–An overview and classification. Perspectives in clinical research, 9(4), 184. https://doi.org/10.4103%2Fpicr.PICR_124_18Schmidt, J., & Lockwood, B. (2017). Love and other grades: A study of the effects of romantic relationship status on the academic performance of university students. Journal of College Student Retention: Research, Theory & Practice, 19(1), 81-97. https://doi.org/10.1177%2F1521025115611614Schmidt, J., & Lockwood, B. (2017). Love and other grades: A study of the effects of romantic relationship status on the academic performance of university students. Journal of College Student Retention: Research, Theory & Practice, 19(1), 81-97. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1521025115611614

Posted in Uncategorized

Investigating the Impact of Romantic Relationships on Academic Performance of High School Students

Investigating the Impact of Romantic Relationships on Academic Performance of High School Students

Investigating the Impact of Romantic Relationships on Academic Performance of High School Students

General Research Question

1. What is the relationship between romantic relationships and the academic performance of high school students?

Specific Research Questions

1. What is the impact of romantic relationships on the student’s motivation to study?

2. What is the impact of romantic relationships on student time management?

3. Is there a significant difference in the academic performance of female and male students in a romantic relationship?

Hypothesis

H0: There is a significant relationship between being in a romantic relationship and student motivation to study.

H1: There is no significant relationship between being in a romantic relationship and student motivation to study.

H0: There is a significant relationship between being in a romantic relationship and student time management.

H1: There is no significant relationship between being in a romantic relationship and student time management.

H0: There is a significant difference in the academic performance of female and male students in a romantic relationship.

H1: There is no significant difference in the academic performance of female and male students in a romantic relationship.

Posted in Uncategorized

Investigating the Ethical Concerns Associated with Corporate

Investigating the Ethical Concerns Associated with Corporate

Investigating the Ethical Concerns Associated with Corporate Finance and How to Manage them

Student’s Name

Institutional Affiliation

Professor’s Name

Course

Date

INTRODUCTION

Background of the Study

Investors all over the world are becoming more interested in ethical finance. Research reveals that the growth of ethical or Socially Responsible Investment (SRI) continues to outperform that of traditional investment techniques (Chelawat & Trivedi, 2013). For instance, at the beginning of 2010, SRI assets surpassed $3 trillion, an increment of roughly 34% in five years, compared to barely 3% for traditionally managed assets. Also, SRI assets increased by 13% during the recession, compared to 1% for traditional, professionally managed assets (Chelawat & Trivedi, 2013). The author further adds that a growing number of investment consultants and analysts acknowledge the significance of ethics and integrate them into investment decision-making. Marantika et al. (2020) further reveal financial decisions impact company value in corporate finance, and they are influenced by corporate manager decisions about the uptake, distribution, and allocation of financial resources, all while remaining under the control of corporate governance. Thus, corporate finance has become more important in terms of business valuation, which has a positive impact on the generation of value. Notably, corporate finance refers to the financial decisions made by corporate executives to improve the effectiveness of the company’s financial management (Marantika et al., 2020).

Research reveals that the underdeveloped nature of banking systems and financial markets of many nations (mainly in frontier and emerging markets) has led to alternative investment financing options, such as microfinance firms (Sahut et al., 2018). To serve this niche, some of the major international banks have partnered with providers of local microcredit to demonstrate their commitment to social development and make a profit. Banks are progressively rethinking their actions and requirements to finance projects and businesses in developing nations. In times of economic crises, investment funds tied to social commitment goals demonstrate more consistency in their benefits than funds whose main goal is profit, as Gangi and Trotta (2015) point out. According to Sahut et al. (2018), this implies that the economic and moral values associated with ethics provide balance and solidity to corporate finance during profit-seeking in the markets. Despite this fact, to the best of my knowledge, researchers have focused very little effort on investigating the ethical concerns in corporate finance. This study aims to fill this research gap by investigating the ethical concerns in corporate finance and defining ways to manage them so that corporate finance can continue enjoying the benefits of ethics in the financial industry.

Statement of the Problem

According to the literature review, ethical finance and socially responsible investing research have been focused on a few areas. While certain significant topics, such as the financial performance of ethical funds and indices, have gotten sufficient attention from scholars, many others require more investigation (Chelawat & Trivedi, 2013). One of these areas is ethical issues associated with corporate finance. Sahut et al. (2018) reveal that an in-depth investigation of the topic of ethical finance and governance is particularly pertinent owing to the increasing number and severity of corporate fraud episodes. The WorldCom, Lehman Brothers, and Enron scandals have served to undermine investors’ and public confidence. On a different note, Melé et al. (2017) urge that we must retain the future before it is too late by reversing the financialization procedure and ensuring that finance sector operates in the interest of human dignity. To achieve this, this study aims to uncover the ethical concerns associated with corporate finance.

Research Aims and Objectives

Following the recent financial crises and its ramifications, it has become more important than ever to consider the relationship between finance and accounting, means of integrating ethics and efficacy, and how to empower and to motivate finance practitioners to commit to fairness, to justice, and increased understanding, as well as to enhance their integrity (Melé et al., 2017). The primary goal of this study is to uncover ethical concerns prevalent in corporate finance and define how they can be managed. The following specific objectives will guide the study to achieve this goal.

To determine how ethics affect corporate financial performance.

To determine ethical concerns in corporate finance.

To define ways of managing ethical concerns associated with corporate finance.

Research Questions

The following research questions have been formulated from the research aims and objectives to guide the study.

What are the effects of ethics on corporate financial performance?

What are the ethical concerns in corporate finance?

How can ethical concerns associated with corporate finance be managed?

LITERATURE REVIEW

This section covers the literature review related to the topic under study. The goal of this section is to provide the reader as well as the researcher with a comprehensive understanding of the research topic. The section covers the concept of corporate finance and ethics. It further discusses ethics in finance.

Corporate Finance

Corporate finance is an important aspect of any company in today’s economic world. It is the department in charge of how firms and organizations manage their funding sources, accounting, capital structuring, and investment decisions. Corporate finance encompasses a wide variety of activities, ranging from capital investment decisions to investment banking. For instance, it is concerned with increasing shareholders’ value through financial planning, dividend distribution, and other tactics (Ethics in Corporate Finance, 2022). They are also in charge of taxation and capital investments. Furthermore, the department regulates managers’ behavior to improve the worth of the firm to shareholders without being motivated by self-interest. It also provides analyses and methods for allocating financial resources.

Ethics and Corporate Ethics

Ethics refers to a person’s collection of moral principles. The role of ethics is to determine what is wrong and what is right. It’s also known as a code of conduct, which most individuals do not want to break. Ethics exist to assist us and provide advice for our actions that have an impact on others (Ethics in Corporate Finance, 2022). Morals, standards, and values are all important aspects of ethics. People will act unethically if they quit following their own morals, which might result in adverse effects such as job loss, jail time, large fines, or reputational damage. Eisses (2017) defines corporate ethics as the sense of ethical content in an organization’s procedures and practices by its members.

If a behavior does not conform to a high standard or if it is morally wrong, it is termed unethical. A perfect example of unethical behavior in a business is insider trading. Businesses must ensure that their employees embrace honesty, fairness, and respect to avoid this. Even if governments and regulators use legislative reform to prevent misconduct, it is still not enough to ensure that a company is totally ethical. This is the main reason why businesses must build an ethical framework and a culture of integrity. Firms require a well-developed set of ethical guidelines to assist in analyzing decisions and their potential conduct from an ethical perspective. Since ethical issues in corporate finance have been largely ignored by scholars, it is important to uncover the unethical issues in this sector. These issues can serve as a guide for developing a set of ethical guidelines to assist in analyzing decisions and potential conduct of financial institutions from an ethical perspective.

Ethics in Finance

Research reveals that accounting and finance are technical tools with a close connection to ethics (Melé et al., 2017). The South African divestment movement is an excellent example of how ethics ties in with corporate finance. When South Africam(SA) was under the segregationist apartheid system in the mid-1980s, American university students attacked American companies doing business in SA in an attempt to overthrow it. Divestment campaign’s participants lobbied their own institutions to divest from those corporations. The plan was to destabilize South Africa’s finances to the point that it would be forced to change, and the strategy was a success. Over 200 American companies had divested from SA by 1990, taking approximately $1 billion worth of investment from the nation’s economy. Those businesses had clearly received the message from the student-led university divestment and chose to conduct business elsewhere. The corporations’ activities represented an ethical use of financial capital, even though their motivation was purely financial. There are now publicly available lists of companies that exemplify SRI. Companies with strong environmental policies, social responsibility, and governance are more likely to be included on the list (Ethics in Corporate Finance, 2022).

While explaining the relationship between corporate finance and ethics, Melé et al. (2017) urge that accounting and finance cannot work without, and trust cannot be achieved without ethics. Ethics in finance is also built on a culture of integrity. Notably, ethics covers actions, anticipated repercussions, and people participating in any human activity, with or without their virtues (Melé et al., 2017). In the field of finance, the definition of ethics relates to the proper use of money, whether it is one’s own or someone else’s money. Christen (2022) further urge that dealing with a company’s financial resources entails a lot of risks and decision-making, which presents many opportunities for unethical practices. Government and regulator regulatory improvements are insufficient to ensure that a corporation is entirely ethical; therefore, firms require a created set of standards to analyze actions and evaluate prospective conduct from an ethical standpoint (Christen, 2022). In order to establish such a set of standards in corporate finance, it is vital to understand the most prevalent unethical practices in this sector. This study will uncover the ethical issues associated with corporate finance.

Investors, customers, and the general public have been known to reject and boycott businesses that violate ethical standards. However, businesses that adhere to ethical standards reap substantial financial rewards. Therefore, individuals involved in corporate finance in the contemporary world must have a strong basis in ethics (Ethics in Corporate Finance, 2022). Ethics in finance is associated with various benefits, including assisting in avoiding legal issues, maintaining a good reputation with customers and high consumer confidence, minimizing financial risks, and allowing an organization to enjoy a positive corporate culture and a motivated and dedicated ethical workforce. Ethics also allow financial institutions to understand their social license to operate and promote social responsibility (The Importance of Ethics in Finance, 2022).

METHODOLOGYIntroduction

This section includes an outline of the research methods employed in this study. Various concepts are covered, including research design, search method, and data gathering and analysis procedures.

Research Design

In this research, I employed a literature-based approach. Newman and Gough (2020) reveal that literature analysis is used to construct arguments based on what a researcher already knows and does not know about a subject. To determine how ethics affect corporate financial performance, the ethical concerns in corporate finance, and determine ways of managing ethical concerns associated with corporate finance, I used a meta-analysis and full systematic literature review. A systematic literature review is a research strategy for identifying and critically evaluating relevant research and gathering and analyzing data from previous studies (Snyder, 2019). On the other hand, a meta-analysis entails merging results from several researchers to compare and emphasize links, patterns, and conflicts that emerge in the context of various studies on the same topic (Snyder, 2019).

Search Strategy and Selection Criteria

I used recognized databases such as EbscoHost, Google Scholar, ProQuest, Sage publications, and Science Direct to select the most relevant publications for review. Several search phrases were used to find relevant data sources. “Effects of ethics on corporate financial performance,” “corporate finance and ethics,” “managing ethical issues in corporate finance,” and “ethical issues and corporate finance” are among them. I also refined the search results using Boolean operators such as NOT, AND, OR, and truncation and wildcard techniques. Also, I used an ancestry search to locate potential sources. This entailed keeping track of all relevant footnotes and cited references and incorporating them in the review. To discover relevant and reliable sources of data, I devised a set of exclusion and inclusion criteria.

Based on the inclusion criterion, I only reviewed articles on corporate finance and ethics. I reviewed studies published in the last ten years to ensure that only the most up-to-date material was included in the report. Also, I only included publications written in English to ensure that the data sources were understood. In my analysis, I only included peer-reviewed and scholarly journal papers. Furthermore, I only considered papers that were published in full text and had free access. This was done to ensure that full information regarding the study under consideration was readily available. All studies that did not match the criterion for inclusion were excluded.

After preliminary screening, I retrieved all of the studies that were deemed relevant and trustworthy for this research. I prepared a data extraction sheet, which included publication information as well as study parameters such as sample size, location, design, and results. The risk of bias for the papers selected for review was established by focusing on methodological issues such as the research design’s adequacy.

Data Analysis Procedure

I performed a thematic and content analysis of the secondary data to address the three research questions. I started data analysis by performing thematic analysis to amass evidence from the different sources and generate themes. I then performed content analysis to critically analyze the generated themes. The findings are resented in the next section.

RESEARCH FINDINGSIntroduction

The goal of this research was three-fold. First, the study aimed to determine the ethical concerns in corporate finance. Secondly, this study sought to determine how ethics affect corporate financial performance. Lastly, the study sought to uncover practical ways of managing ethical concerns associated with corporate finance. This section presents the study findings. The research questions guided the presentation of findings.

RQ1: What are the effects of ethics on corporate financial performance?

One of the effects of ethics on corporate financial performance is the validation of return on investments. Usually, corporate finance relies on venture capital funding and the reinvestments of own capital, which requires ethical conduct. As such, ethics helps keep accurate records of the long-term success of corporate finance. By keeping the records, the corporate finance can announce the returns, which are the products of the fraudulent accounting that may lead to issues that rises to ultimate hurt on the performance (Kim & Li, 2021). Therefore, ethical practices help corporate finance avoid negative financial results and legal challenges upon discovering unethical conduct. As a result, the company can prove the consistency of the return on investments by focusing on the effective operation by limiting the distractions of the negative public perception and bad press that may hurt the business.

Ethics also assists in improving the employee’s morale. In the corporate finance department, employees prefer working where they get treated with dignity, fairness, and respect. When corporate finance uses a high standard of business conduct, employees will work with the perception of moral and ethical treatment (Landi & Sciarelli, 2018). In return, the employees accord the customers utmost respect while delivering the services. As such, the customer’s loyalty gets generated, leading to the achievement of more market share, thereby creating business success.

Ethics also assist in minimizing financial risks. The ethics in corporate finance minimizes the financial risk since the financial managers and operator works with integrity and moral uprightness as defined by the ethical values. Also, ethics enables the controllers to develop accounting procedures principled in a particular dimension characterized by the internal control for credibility (Landi & Sciarelli, 2018). Therefore, the financial controller behaves ethically in both the professional ad private life leading to the minimization of financial risks like thefts and miscalculations. Furthermore, through ethical conduct, the worker understands the social license that operates and promotes social responsibility in the management of finance documentation.

RQ2: What are the ethical concerns in corporate finance?

One of the most common ethical issues in finance is insider trading. Insider trading entails the purchase or sale of stocks and securities based on information that has been shared but is not publicly available (Ethics in Corporate Finance, 2022). An insider is typically someone in a business management position of a corporate entity or an individual with whom they share information for their personal gain. Insider trading in corporate finance is motivated by the opportunity of making a large profit using information not yet made public. Such information provides the trader with a significant competitive advantage over other traders in the same security.

Another ethical concern in corporate finance is fraud. Melé et al. (2017) claim that frauds have been reported in corporate finance, with the most commonly reported causes being ineffective corporate governance and control mechanisms, inefficient boards, accounting irregularities, distorted incentive schemes, auditor failures, dysfunctional behavior of managers, and a lack of a sound ethical tone at the top.

Another ethical issue in corporate finance is a lack of professionalism. In corporate finance, it is expected that professionalism complies with all applicable regulations without misinterpretation and misconduct (Bagry, 2022). All dealings/transactions should be conducted with transparency and integrity. Financial managers must also operate in the best interests of their clients and employers when conflicts of interest arise. Another aspect of your job is to protect your own and your employer’s reputation. Some argue that the risk of embarrassment and reputational damage is enough to deter financial executives from acting unethically. According to industry experts, more regulation is required since financial ethics cannot overcome temptation (Bagry, 2022).

Other ethical issues in corporate finance include cheating clients about their trading profits, misuse of customers’ funds for personal gain, corruption and larceny, unauthorized translations, and mispricing customer trades.

RQ3: How can ethical concerns associated with corporate finance be managed?

One way to manage the ethical concerns associated with corporate finance is by adhering to the ethics codified in corporate finance. A significant number of American Companies and financial markets have adopted ethical codes, which are usually issued by regulatory authorities such as the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), which is one of the leading securities industry regulators. This agency is in charge of enforcing federal laws and regulations that govern the ethical behavior of organizations and individuals in the securities sector. Furthermore, a number of firms have established their own ethics departments to self-regulate their financial behavior.

Another way of managing ethical concerns is through the promotion of good management. Melé et al. (2017) urge that most unethical decisions and financial scandals have taken place due to pressure to achieve immediate results. According to the author, such decisions could be avoided with effective management.

Another way of managing ethical issues in corporate finance is by promoting professionalism. Lail et al. (2015) urge that even though reforms should be the first step in restoring financial reporting systems, virtuous professionalism is required to restore corporate finance.

Another way to manage ethical issues in corporate finance is by imposing legal liability on professionals. According to Alzola (2016), among the causes of increasing corporate scandals and recent financial crises is the inability of professional gatekeepers to detect and disrupt corporate misbehavior. Alzola (2016) further urges that the solution to this problem is imposing legal liability on professionals.

CONLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONConclusion

The first goal of this study was to determine the effects of ethics on corporate financial performance. Findings revealed that ethical practices help corporate finance avoid negative financial results and legal challenges upon discovering unethical conduct. As a result, the company can prove the consistency of the return on investments by focusing on the effective operation by limiting the distractions of the negative public perception and bad press that may hurt the business. Also, findings revealed that ethics assists in improving the employee’s morale and assist in minimizing financial risks.

Another goal of the study was to identify the ethical concerns in corporate finance. Among the identified ethical issues is insider trading. This is the purchase or sale of stocks and securities based on information that has been shared but is not publicly available. Fraud is another ethical issue in corporate finance. Other ethical issues identified include lack of professionalism, cheating clients about their trading profits, misuse of customers’ funds for personal gain, corruption and larceny, unauthorized translations, and mispricing customer trades.

Lastly, this study sought to uncover practical ways of managing ethical issues in corporate finance. One way to manage the ethical concerns associated with corporate finance is by adhering to the ethics codified in corporate finance. Other ways of managing ethical concerns are through the promotion of good management and imposing legal liability on professionals.

Limitations of the Study

There were a few drawbacks to this study. To begin with, the study was restricted to the use of secondary data, preventing the researcher from obtaining primary data to supplement the findings from the secondary data. Besides, the fact that the researcher was responsible for data extraction, processing, and interpretation, increased the risk of researcher’s bias. However, to deal with this limitation, the researcher cited all the materials from which data were extracted.

Recommendations

Corporate finance should adhere to the ethics codified in corporate finance, practice good management, promote professionalism, and impose legal liability on professionals. Since this study has focused on ethical issues in corporate finance and how to manage them, future scholars should explore guidelines to assist corporate finance in analyzing decisions and their potential conduct from an ethical perspective.

References

Alzola, M. (2017). Beware of the watchdog: Rethinking the normative justification of gatekeeper liability. Journal of business ethics, 140(4), 705-721. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-017-3460-3Chelawat, C. A., & Trivedi, I. V. (2013). Ethical finance: Trends and emerging issues for research. International Journal of Business Ethics in Developing Economies, 2, 2.

Chelawat, C. A., & Trivedi, I. V. (2013). Ethical finance: Trends and emerging issues for research. International Journal of Business Ethics in Developing Economies, 2, 2.

Christen, T. (2022). Corporate Finance in relation to Ethics. Retrieved 18 April 2022, from https://www.gestiopolis.com/corporate-finance-in-relation-to-ethics/.

Eisses, M. T. (2017). The effect of corporate ethics on corporate financial performance focussing on internal stakeholders.

Ethics in Corporate Finance | UT Permian Basin Online. The University of Texas Permian Basin | UTPB. (2022). Retrieved 18 April 2022, from https://online.utpb.edu/about-us/articles/business/ethics-in-corporate-finance/.

Gangi, F., & Trotta, C. (2015). The ethical finance as a response to the financial crises: An empirical survey of European SRFs performance. Journal of Management & Governance, 19(2), 371-394. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10997-013-9264-7Kim, S., & Li, Z. F. (2021). Understanding the impact of ESG practices in corporate finance. Sustainability, 13(7), 3746. https://www.mdpi.com/1050564Lail, B., MacGregor, J., Marcum, J., & Stuebs, M. (2017). Virtuous professionalism in accountants to avoid fraud and to restore financial reporting. Journal of business ethics, 140(4), 687-704. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-015-2875-yLandi, G., & Sciarelli, M. (2018). Towards a more ethical market: the impact of ESG rating on corporate financial performance. Social Responsibility Journal. https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1108/SRJ-11-2017-0254/full/htmlMarantika, A., Rathod, H. S., Chauhan, R., Putri, L. T., & Maseleno, A. (2020). Ethics in Finance, Financial Globalization, and Stakeholder Responsibility: New Concept of Corporate Finance. International Journal of Psychosocial Rehabilitation, 24(01), 1556-1563.

Melé, D., Rosanas, J. M., & Fontrodona, J. (2017). Ethics in finance and accounting: Editorial introduction. Journal of Business Ethics, 140(4), 609-613.

Newman, M., & Gough, D. (2020). Systematic reviews in educational research: Methodology, perspectives, and application. Systematic reviews in educational research, pp.3-22.

Sahut, J. M., Saadi, S., Switzer, L., & Teulon, F. (2018). Ethical finance and governance. Journal of Applied Accounting Research.

Sifah, D. (2009). Ethics: An essential prerequisite of the financial system. Finance Bien Commun, (1), 46-57.

Snyder, H. (2019). Literature review as a research methodology: An overview and guidelines. Journal of business research, 104, pp.333-339. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbusres.2019.07.039The Importance of Ethics in Finance | Build a Culture of Business Integrity. Kelley School of Business Executive Education. (2022). Retrieved 18 April 2022, from https://execed.kelley.iu.edu/the-importance-of-ethics-in-finance/.

Posted in Uncategorized