Individual Application, Reflection, and Synthesis Paper Instructions

Write a 1,000-word paper that applies, reflects, and synthesizes the following questions:

• What does Keller mean when he claims that work is intended for both “cultivation” and for “service?” Why are both purposes critical for us to consider as Christian business practitioners and academics?Especially relative to HRD?
• Hardy provides a quote from the Apocrypha (Ecclesiaticus or Sirach 38:34, NOT canonized as part of the Bible) as introductory to his book, and the title of his book is pulled directly from this quote. How does this quote, along with Genesis 1:27 from the Bible, provoke Christian worldview thinking regarding HRD as a key focus for any business organization?
• Analyze and assess the differences between a traditional/administrative view of HRD and a contemporary/strategic view of HRD. How does Christian worldview thinking apply here?
• How do Equal Employment Opportunity-related statutes inform HRD practice? What are 2 or 3 key ways that the Bible and the creation-fall-redemption-consummation meta-narrative delineate both the inherent “righteousness” of, and the pragmatic “necessity” of, EEO statutes?
• Review Reading 2.1 and Reading 3.1 from Mello (2019). What are 3 or 4 primary claims of both readings regarding human capital and employee engagement? Synthesize these claims/findings with Keller’s and Hardy’s introductory thinking regarding the importance of working in business (as “vocation” or “calling”) in God’s world.

Required Sources

You must use the course texts as well as articles from scholarly and practitioner journals. Be sure to use current APA format, and include in-text citations for the following sources:

• At least 2 citations from Mello (2019).
• At least 2 citations from Hardy (1990).
• At least 2 citations from Keller (2012).
• At least 2 citations from related scholarly journals (e.g. Human Resource Development Quarterly, Human Resource Development Review, Human Resource Management Journal, Journal of Applied Psychology, Journal of Strategic Human Resource Management, Journal of Biblical Integration in Business, Christian Scholars Review),
• At least 1 citation from a related trade/practitioner publication (e.g. Harvard Business Review, HR Magazine, T&D Magazine, Business Week, Wall Street Journal).

Create a metaphor or analogy that captures the essence of the major lessons learned in the program (like business administration is like . . .).

• Discuss the single most interesting or surprising thing you learned in the administration program program, as well as what made it so.

PART A – PLEASE RESPOND TO CLASSMATE DISCUSSION WHETHER YOU AGREE OR NOT & A DETAILED WHY: Business Administration is a lot like parenting or teaching. You’re responsible for the welfare of your employees and your business, and while everyone has a theory and an understanding of what is needed, no one knows the right answers for sure and the right answers often change with each generation (or child). There is no “one size fits all” when it comes to management but learning as many tools and techniques as we can will better arm us to make other successful; and in turn, ourselves.

The most interesting thing I learned this semester was discovered in Sociology and supported in Statistics. It’s that people will often make the numbers say whatever they want, but the raw data doesn’t lie. This was shown in statistics when we learned about a correlation between the number of African Americans who commit blue collar crimes. Many people in the world will stop at that data and generalize about the whole race, but Sociology taught us to keep looking deeper. We discovered that the data more appropriately correlates between African Americans and the impoverished, and the impoverished against blue collar crimes, with the middle and upper class committing just as many white-collar crimes. Our society will see the data how they want to see it, and lose sight of this isn’t about race, it’s about poverty, and the impoverished need a ladder to climb up.