THE SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION

OF Corruption: The Liberian Case Study.

Presented to:

Strayer University

Department of Sociology

Presented by:

Amos M. D. Sireaf, Ph.D.

Professor of Sociology

February 26, 2010

INTRODUCTION

This presentation seeks to articulate that the history of Correction is

also the history of a Scientific- cultural of poverty, papered to be

imbedded in the DNA of the Liberian socio- cultural, and

transplanted historic social and political structures. Corruption in

Liberia is an idea from mankind, specially, It is distinctly a Western

emulated and learned behavioral philosophy. No society is composed of genetically “pure” people.Society tends to rank themselves into hierarchies based on race with one race assumed to be better than another. We are in fact one race - human.

In essence, Social Construction of race is

a cultural of fallacy based on hypothetical or

conditional propositions.

Professor Marilyn FitzpatrickCompensation Management ─ BUS 409Mary F. SirleafMarch 14, 2011

Mary F. Sirleaf•Describe the differences between job analysis and job evaluation and how these practices help establish internally consistent job structures.Job analysis is a systematic process for gathering, documenting, and analyzing information in an effort to describe jobs. Additionally, the process describes the content or job duties, worker ’s requirements, and sometimes the working conditions. Equally so, job evaluation is used to systematically recognize differences in the relative worth among a set of jobs and to establish pay differentials accordingly. As such, both processes set the stage for compensation professionals to recognize that jobs that require higher qualifications, more responsibilities, and more complex job duties should be paid more than jobs that require lower qualifications, and fewer responsibilities, and less complex job duties. Indeed, both processes serve as a “cornerstone” in clearly defining and establishing internally consistent job structures.•Describe the challenges in developing compensations that are both internally consistent and market competitive.An organization's compensation practices can have serious effects on its competitive advantage. However, to develop a competitive advantage in a global economy, the compensation program of an organization must support totally the strategic plans and actions of the organization." The fact that labor costs greatly affect competitive advantage as they represent a large portion of a company's operating budget, compensation professionals must be effective in controlling these costs by exercising leadership skills. As such, policy decisions must strategically link positions with pay scales and unit performance. That is, build a more internally consistent pay structure.

Mary F. SirleafThere must be different levels of pay in the relative worth among a set of jobs, because among workers, there are different levels of responsibilities and skills. •Two employees perform the same job and each received exemplary performance ratings. Discuss whether it is fair to give one employee a smaller percentage merit increase because his pay falls within the 3 rd quartile but give a larger percentage merit increase to the other because his pay falls within the 1 st quartile and explain why.While the concept of measuring performance in service businesses may seem difficult, it serves as a link between additional pay and rewards that employees receive for their job performance. However, if the performance-based compensation affirms the idea that pay raises are not given for equal and exemplary performance accomplishments, then employees may perceive the result inequity in compensation. In essence, the employee who receives a smaller percentage merit increase because his pay falls within the 3 rd quartile may perceive the compensation manager as someone who manipulated the process. This may cause dissatisfaction and may eventually leads to higher turnovers or cause serious problems in recruiting qualified people.•Discuss the basic concept of insurance and how this concept applies to health care.Obviously, insurance has been around for a very long time basically to circumvent the potential of financial losses in case of unforeseen circumstances, such as a major illness, significant medical injury, a car accident, and more involved procedures which may cause a major out-of pocket expenses. As such, people often make insurance decisions based on differences between their personal situations and the estimated overall risk of their expenses. However, the basic

Mary F. Sirleafconcept of insurance and how it applies to health care, originated from the fact that, life is full of uncertainties and it is well understood that we are all at the mercy of nature which no one can ever predicts. Ultimately, the only way we can lessen the threats and can afford the overall costs of the medical expenses that may accrue by these unexpected conditions, which often double on average, created the concept of insurance which generally affects health care. This concept is used to invest a small amount of individual earnings as insurance to take care of these sudden conditions.•Except for the Family and Medical Leave Act, the remaining legally required benefits were conceived decades ago. Describe the changes in the business environment and society that might affect the relevance or perhaps the viability of any of these benefits.Historically, the legally required benefits mandated by the Social Security Act of 1935, was largely prompted by the rapid growth of industrialization in the United States in the early nineteenth century during the Great Depression of the 1930s. However, the basis of the law was to initiate social insurance programs designed to minimize the possibility that individuals who became unemployed or severely injured while working would become impoverished. Therefore, the programs aimed to stabilize the well-being of the individual, as well as his/her dependent family members. Additionally, early social insurance programs were designed to enable retirees to maintain subsistence income levels. Realistically, the concept of these legally required benefits remain an integral part of today ’s business environment. However, unlike the initial concept of minimizing the possibility of an impoverished unemployed or severely injured worker and his/her dependent family members, legally required benefits currently apply to

Mary F. Sirleafvirtually all U.S. employees, who view companies’ benefits as entitlements that serve as motivational tools to enhance workers’ productivity, as well as to promote good management practices.

INTRODUCTION

Race & Ethnicity are Social Constructs

depending on the nations and the minds

set of its occupants.Race becomes a social construct when it draws an artificial boundaries among people, nations, and that artificially divides people into distinct groups based on characteristics.

THEORIES

A. That your present situations were meant to be; therefore, there has to be a policy put in place to sustain your situation.

B. That you appear to be an expendable subject or useful and workable instrumental, or you were not meant to exist, or you were meant to exist on certain frame of reference… or a product of natural selection (Charles Darwin)

JUSTIFICATIONS

1. Since it turns that all humans are the descended from

a small number of African ancestors in our recent

evolutionary past, believing in profound differences

between the human races is as ridiculous as believing

in a flat earth.

Social Construction of Race is a fallacy

JUSTIFICATIONS

2. We were not or we are not born with racist attitudes,

values, culture, or beliefs. It is an institutional and

interdisciplinary frame of instruction or cultural

conditioning dynamic. This Cultural Conditioning can

in time becomes a Social Construction of Reality

based on the theory of the Self-fulfilling Prophecy.

JUSTIFICATIONS

Even though we are born and we were born into

social, ethnic, cultural, and religious contexts, we

have not made enough efforts nor acquired enough

information about knowing ourselves and or knowing

one another. (As an African from Liberia)…

JUSTIFICATIONS

It is through the process of socialization, cultural

consciousness, and social interaction that we acquire

sets of attitudes, values, and beliefs that may

contribute to the way we see one another from an

ethno-cultural and racist perspective.

DISCUSSION

What does it mean to say that race is “socially constructed or it is a Social Construction of Reality?

What do we mean when we say that anything is socially constructed?

 

CONCLUSION

Ethnicity becomes a social construct when it divides people into smaller social groups based on a shared sense of group membership, values, behavioral patterns, language, political and economic interests, history, and geography. 

An understanding of the social construction of “race” in the US is essential for an understanding of the impact of events and change.

Thanks: Q&A

REFERENCES

Atran, Scott (1990), Cognitive Foundations of Natural History. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Banton, Michael (1970), “The Concept of Racism”, in Sami Zubaida (ed.), Race and Racialism. London: Tavistock, 17–34. Bettinger, Robert L. (1991), Hunter-Gatherers: Archaeological and Evolutionary Theory. New York: Plenum. Boyd, Robert, and Peter J. Richerson (1985), Culture and the Evolutionary Process. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Boyer, Pascal (2001), Religion Explained: The Evolutionary Origins of Religious Thought. New York: Basic Books. Brown, Ryan A., and George J. Armelagos (2001), “Apportionment of Racial Diversity: A Review”, Evolutionary Anthropology 10: 34–40. Wikipedia. (2010) Charles Dawin Retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles _Darwin#Publication_of_the_theory_of_natural_selection on February 24, 2010.