The Making of a Minority President Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

The Making of a Minority President - Essay Example John Edwards is the only Democratic white male that has a realistic opportunity of getting the nomination. The coming primary is a storm of historic proportions looming on the electoral landscape that could become a world-changing event. Democrats will have to decide whether to run for high ground, seek shelter, or weather the storm and face the adverse winds of political change. In many ways the events and polls leading up to the Democratic primaries have been a study in contradiction. In a Gallup Poll in the summer of 2007, Blacks selected Clinton as more favorable than Barak Obama. Hispanics favored Clinton ahead of the Latino Richardson. However, white voters see her as a liability and give her an unfavorable rating (Jones). While she leads in the national polling among all voters, nearly one-third of those polled said they would be less likely to vote for her because of her gender (Seelye and Sussman). Clinton's race and gender have been no friend to her in the polls and much of her support comes from Black and Hispanic males. Governor Bill Richardson is probably the most qualified candidate to deal with the benchmark issues of foreign policy, energy, and immigration ("The Man from New Mexico"). Yet, he is like an undiscovered treasure at a yard sale. He is unnoticed, unappreciated, and his low price tag offers no hint to the value contained within. Des pite the high profile positions that he has held with state and federal administrations, he is one of the least recognizable candidates. All these counter-intuitive poll numbers may add up to the possibility of a much stronger coalition when the candidate is selected, and a greater chance of a minority candidate winning the White House. However, the nominee will need to be careful to keep race, ethnicity, and gender out of the spotlight. The race will need to remain focused on the issues and the candidate's qualifications. Bringing attention to the minority status may uncover the prejudice and bias that lies beneath a thin veil of justice. America has had a dismal track record of minorities in presidential elections. While diversity is like a ray of hope on the landscape of equality, the light may also awaken old fears. These fears have the potential to tear holes in the coalition and leave the Democratic Party in disarray. The biases that bubble beneath America's ideal of equality can be seen in Richardson's candidacy. He is a centrist on immigration policy and favors tough border enforcement, fines for illegal entry, mandatory English, and a strict process to citizenship (Richardson). However, the opposition may spread panic among the electorate by negative ads that promote his ties to the Hispanic community and the myth of lost jobs and depressed wages for White and Black American workers. Richardson could find himself defending a policy that is unknown to most voters. The time and money spent defending himself against these racially based charges would detract from the more important issue of Iraq where Democrats have an advantage. It is likely that any minority candidate will be able to garner a majority of the traditional Democratic base. There are indications of much greater interest in the election among all the minority camps than in years past. Though Clinton currently is more favored than Richardson in the Hispanic comm

Economic Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words - 1

Economic - Assignment Example In the perfect competition case the focus of the discussion is break-even profits in the long run. In the perfect competition scenario the emphasis of the analysis is on product differentiation strategy. In our first case we have small firm operating in a very competitive environment. The type of environment this company is dealing with can be categorized in economic terms as a perfect competition market structure. Perfect competition is an economic market structure that has many sellers and buyers participating where the firms sell identical products which allows for customers to substitute goods or services with ease (Investopedia, 2009). In this market structure the barriers of entry as low. The low barriers of entry create easy access for suitors to participate in the marketplace. Due to the intense competition companies often leave the marketplace. The fact that products are similar in nature allows for many substitute products to appear. A good example of businesses that participate in perfect competition is the agricultural industry players. In perfect competition the formula to determine profits is price equals marginal costs equals marginal revenues (P=MC=MR). A qualitative interpretation of this formula is that there are cero economic profits achieved in the long run. Since the sellers realize the existence of the zero profit phenomenon merchants are not worried as much about unitary profits in the short run, they instead concentrate on accumulating profits over the long survival. Survival for companies operation under perfect competition is the sign of success. Appendix A shows a graphical illustration of profit behavior under perfect competition. Case b in the graph illustrates the zero profit long run scenario. Appendix B provides more details about the equilibrium that creates a break even profit. Understanding the true reasons why there is not profit in this market structure in the long run is not really that complicated. The profits and

British American Tobacco Company Products Essay

British American Tobacco Company Products - Essay Example BAT Company is listed in the London Stock Exchange and is a constituent of the FTSE 100 Index. The company reports that as of December 2011, it had market a capitalization of ?59.2 billion. Then, it was ranked sixth largest company listed in London Stock Exchange. The company is not only listed in London Stock Exchange but also in the Johannesburg Stock Exchange (South Africa) and the Nairobi Sock Exchange in Kenya (Britannica Educational Publishing and Rogers 2011 p.177-198). The purpose of this paper is to analyze the demand and supply factors that affect the sales of BAT products. It will also explore what the company needs to do to be able top operate profitably in this market. The essay will also discuss the impacts of the macroeconomic factors: economic growth, unemployment, inflation, the balance of payment and business cycle on the products. Demand and Supply Demand and supply are the most fundamental concepts of economics and the backbone of a market economy. This is due to the fact that they determine how a particular product or service is sold in the market. Demand by definition refers to the quantity of a service or product desired in a market by buyers. The quantity demanded on the other hand refers to the amount of product that buyers are willing to purchase at a given price. Price and quantity demanded exhibits a relationship known as demand relationship. Supply refers to the quantity that the market can offer. In this regard, the quantity supplied means the amount of a given products suppliers are willing to supply at a certain price. The relationship between price and quantity supplied in the market is referred to as the supply relationship. Based on this definitions, it is evident that price is a reflection of demand and supply. Microeconomic Factors Price Price is one of the main factors that affect the demand and supply of a product, which in turn determine the quantity of a product that is sold (Carbaugh 2010 p. 28-42). With regard to deman d, the price charged determines to a great extent the quantity of a product that consumers will buy. This is due to fact that that quantity demanded and the price have an inverse relationship. This implies that the higher the price, the less will be the quantity demanded of the product. This is one factor that has affected the sales of BAT tobacco products. The company management argues that as the cost of product used in the manufacture of tobacco products increases due to drought, they have been forced to adjust their process upwards (Cox 2000 p. 16-39). However, this increase in price did not go well with regard to turnover as many customers reduced the quantity they could purchase. This is probably due to a shift to other cheap close substitutes. The company managers are, however, quick to assert that they are projecting a decrease in price which would enable customers to purchase more, thus increasing their sales. On the other hand, an increase in supply of the company’s product usually lead to a reduction in price, resulting in an increase in sales as consumers are now able to afford the products. Substitutes The price and availability of close substitutes also affects demand for a product. When a product has a close substitute, it is a matter of fact that consumers will be willing to shift in case of an increase in price (Carbaugh 2010 p. 28-42). This is what has affected sales of BAT’s tobacco products. The company managers argue that many people nowadays prefer other forms of depressants

Economic Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words - 1

Economic - Assignment Example In the perfect competition case the focus of the discussion is break-even profits in the long run. In the perfect competition scenario the emphasis of the analysis is on product differentiation strategy. In our first case we have small firm operating in a very competitive environment. The type of environment this company is dealing with can be categorized in economic terms as a perfect competition market structure. Perfect competition is an economic market structure that has many sellers and buyers participating where the firms sell identical products which allows for customers to substitute goods or services with ease (Investopedia, 2009). In this market structure the barriers of entry as low. The low barriers of entry create easy access for suitors to participate in the marketplace. Due to the intense competition companies often leave the marketplace. The fact that products are similar in nature allows for many substitute products to appear. A good example of businesses that participate in perfect competition is the agricultural industry players. In perfect competition the formula to determine profits is price equals marginal costs equals marginal revenues (P=MC=MR). A qualitative interpretation of this formula is that there are cero economic profits achieved in the long run. Since the sellers realize the existence of the zero profit phenomenon merchants are not worried as much about unitary profits in the short run, they instead concentrate on accumulating profits over the long survival. Survival for companies operation under perfect competition is the sign of success. Appendix A shows a graphical illustration of profit behavior under perfect competition. Case b in the graph illustrates the zero profit long run scenario. Appendix B provides more details about the equilibrium that creates a break even profit. Understanding the true reasons why there is not profit in this market structure in the long run is not really that complicated. The profits and

#1 Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

#1 - Essay Example On the other hand labor relations is the dealings between management and the workers with respect to the employment conditions. â€Å"Most commonly, however, labor relations refer to dealings between management and a workforce that is already unionized, or has the potential to become unionized. Labor relations is thus crucial to industries like autos and airlines with heavily unionized workforces† (Labor Relations, 2009) In most of the times the interests of the organizations and that of the labors would be opposite in direction. The management always keen in maximizing their profit and for that purpose they will compromise the interests of the workers. On the other hand labor unions are always working for the wellbeing of the workers and they are not much concerned about the profit of the organization. For workers what they are getting is more important than what the organization is achieving. Both these interests contradict at times which will end up in strained labor relationships and trade union strikes. In a changing world, especially under globalization and liberalization, a well maintained labor relationship is important for an organization in order to compete in the market. Customers will trust an organization if their product or service supply doesn’t interrupt. Poor labor relationship always results in labor union strikes which will interrupt the production of goods or service. A temporary suspension of service or supply of goods in the market will force the customers to search for other options. Once the customers move away from the organization, it is difficult for the organization to bring them back. Labor problems destroy the image of the organization in the society in which it operates. The public will often take the side of the labors even if the justice is on the other side because of the false assumption that the management always trying to exploit the workers. This public

Nursing and Care Essay Example for Free

Nursing and Care Essay The concept of Synergy can be applied to the practice of nursing by means of education and service. To obtain Synergy in nursing the nurse’s knowledge and skills are able to meet the individual needs of the patient population that is presented. Currently in Western Pennsylvania, there is a rising number maternal substance abuse during pregnancy. This epidemic in turn creates a different type of population in infants than other areas of the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU), with specific healthcare needs. One area that is lacking synergy is the care of this rising patient population of infants suffering from Neonatal Abstinence Syndrome (NAS). This creates a gap between nursing education and clinical application. Due to the rise in NAS infants it is important for nurses to be educated in proper care for an infant presenting with this diagnosis, symptom management, communication skills, and the fundamental knowledge Neonatal Abstinence Syndrome. Poor patient outcomes can be caused by a lack of understanding addiction. The Vermont Oxford Network states, â€Å"Fear of stigmatization, discrimination, child removal, poor treatment, and criminal prosecution has deterred women from seeking care. However, the research suggests that providing substance dependent women with comprehensive healthcare, drug and alcohol abuse treatment, and social support improves pregnancy, birth, and child development outcomes. † (Horbar, Soll Buus-Frank, 2013) When the infant is admitted into the acute care setting, the care needs of these patients should focus less on the immediate outcome, and more on what will create the greatest good for each patient as an individual. There is an essential need for the development of collaborative solutions for care and education in the healthcare setting for the care of this rising population. Often this would be to provide care with a realistic goal of maintaining optimal levels of comfort with minimal side effects of withdraw. â€Å"About 40% of infants who exhibit withdrawal symptoms can be treated without medication. † (White, 2013) Nurses who take time to ensure a level of comfort will help to alleviate symptoms of NAS withdraw and also help support the family in their infant’s care. In addition to providing comfort will help decrease the need to be medicated for withdraw and ultimately will lead to a shorter hospitalization. The manager of a Neonatal Intensive Care Unit will need to address this issue and implement change in order to improve patient outcomes. The competencies that make up the Synergy model are clinical judgment, advocacy and moral agency, caring practices, facilitation of learning, collaboration, systems thinking, response to diversity, and clinical inquiry. For the NAS population advocacy, clinical judgment, caring practices and facilitation of learning are most important. Advocacy proposes the nurse to serve as a moral agent to work on the infant’s behalf in order to provide the greatest good to help resolve concerns that are both clinical and ethical. Clinical judgment is the ability for the nurse to take on the leadership role to care for their patient. Infants are unable to make healthcare decisions; the nurse must consider the parent’s wishes and what the result the nurses’ actions will yield for this infant. These actions must positively contribute to their plan of care overall. Caring practices creates a compassionate and therapeutic environment for each the patients, recognizing the unique needs of each infant. The nurse acts as a facilitator of learning when he/she incorporates the understanding of the infant’s family into the care. The Synergy mode includes patient characteristics, which are, resiliency, vulnerability, stability, complexity, resource availability, participation in care and decision-making and predictability. For the NAS population the patient characteristics would immediately associate complexity, vulnerability, and participation in care and decision-making. Complexity as referred to as to the multitude of symptoms that are to be considered for proper care of the patient. These infants are unable communicate pain, symptoms needs, and what their desire’s are. For example, these infant’s cry and are inconsolable until the nurse goes through a trial and error until he/she figures out the needs of the child. They do not understand what is happening to them. Vulnerability includes the stressors that these patients will be exposed to that may affect outcomes. The infants depend on the decisions their families and healthcare professionals. Increased length of hospital stay can lead to problems that may decline in their already compromised condition, for example, infection. Lastly, the NAS patients are vulnerable due to the fact that they are unable to make their own healthcare decisions and have to depend on parents and healthcare providers to be speak on their behalf. The parents participate in care as they receive information and help assist in the care for their child. Analyze the Case Nursing education places emphasis on clinical presentation, physical stressors and conditions that affect the patient and their associated treatments. Increased education is needed for nurses on the postpartum and NICU units about the treatment for this specific patient population. With the increase in drug dependent mothers there seems to be little nursing education provided on postpartum and NICU nursing units about the care for these infants, and this issue needs to be addressed. â€Å"Infants with NAS have higher rates of neonatal complications, prolonged lengths of stay and consume substantial NICU and hospital resources. Further, they impose a growing burden on already strained healthcare resources because state Medicaid expenditures are disproportionately impacted. † (Horbar, Soll Buus-Frank, 2013) The administration and education team needs to identify this problem and incorporate teaching and updated research on these units. One competency that lacks synergy in the nursing care of the NAS population is collaboration. â€Å"Collaboration enhances the capacity of a group and increases the potential for success. † (Hardin Kaplow, p. 75, 2005) It is not uncommon when different discipline areas such as the nurse, doctor, social worker etc. identify different goals for the patient. Poor communication causes the team to not work in unison to collaborate and work towards a common goal. â€Å"A key to collaboration is the communication that must exist between the patient, family, and health care team members as well as among members of the health care team. Another synergy lacking competency would be caring practices, which is the unique nursing care provided to the patient and families. Within the NAS population nurses have to recognize the differences and incorporated them into the infants care. Having compassion and creating a calming environment help provide comfort in a therapeutic environment. Often times the NAS population is considered as level II care, this allows for the nurses to take on a multiple patient assignment of three to five infants at a time. The NAS population is unique; they require much coddling and almost constant attention from the nurse. Having greater than three patients causes a great disadvantage to these children due to the nurse having to spread herself thin to meet the basic needs of feeding, changing and medicating, the nurse does not have adequate time to rock and soothe the infants causing greater withdraw symptoms. The rational decision-making model will help identify and implement the appropriate changes that are essential in optimizing care for the NAS population. Improvement in the education of the healthcare staff will create better patient outcomes. This decision making process includes three steps to achieve this objective: identify possible outcomes, determine probability of each outcome, and take action with the highest probability to achieve a positive outcome. The considered actions are increased in-person training, mandatory review of printed materials, or an on-line training course. The greatest positive outcome would come from increased in-person training. Create a Change Proposal Part of the nursing orientation for staff will be to participate in a class specified for the training related to care of the NAS infant prior to working in the NICU. Written material as well as a presentation will be provided. The attending physician will make a statement about services provided to the NAS infant, medications and important facts that the physician would like in report. For the staff nurses’ senior nursing projects are assigned yearly and are presented to maintain their status on the unit. Assigning NAS care to a few nurses each year will keep the most up to date research on the unit. These nurses will participate in Internet presentations that focus on quality, safety and care for infants and families of and NAS infant. Finally, a staff member from the social work team will join and present his/her role in the case of a NAS infant. The unit will provide CEU’s for this training. This proposal will affect the unit internally by involving the management team and multiple staff disciplines. The management team will help aid in this proposal by providing a day that is designated this additional training and appoint the appropriate nursing, physician and social work staff to participate in running the program. Finally obtaining CEU’s approved by the state board of nurses to offer education credits for after the completion of training. The designated nurses assigned to NAS as a senior project must keep up to date with the training information prior to the class of new staff, doing so will ensure they are prepared for questions that may arise. With this proposal the staff has the potential to increase the patient stability, outcome and satisfaction. Also this proposal will be aimed to help the nurses caring for NAS infants to promote patient care through evidenced based research. A change model that applies to this proposal would be the Lewin’s change model. This model is based on unfreezing, moving, and refreezing. First the unfreezing stage, the current beliefs and ideas will change with the desired outcome. The health care team will sufficiently identify the epidemic and need for changes in care for the NAS infant, inspiring the education and treatments needed to move the staff towards bettering practices. Lastly, refreezing, the nursing staff will have a new outlook or attitude towards NAS infants. Changes in the treatment process will be instituted based on the staff’s new outlook. Having the knowledge and resources for the care of the NAS infant will allow the care team to handle each unique case with evidenced based approach. Along with any type of change there will always be positive and negative outcomes on the environment. Positive outcomes will include an influx in nursing knowledge, better patient outcomes and an increased amount of resources for the staff. Negative outcomes may include not having the adequate amount of staff to run this program and the biases formed by individuals prior to participating in this class. A way to follow up with the care provided to these patients and their families would be an optional survey completed by the families allowing the unit to see their strengths and weaknesses. The survey will allow for improvement of care. â€Å"Nurses who have confidence in their ability to positively impact maternal parenting behaviors through education and skill building may impact patient care outcomes. It is imperative that the management and supervisors recognize the issues that nurse’s experience when caring for NAS infants. Educating staff will allow for a balance of practice and the nurses actions. Instituting this educational program will provide synergy to the NICU units and the epidemic of withdraw infants. The unit directors will be able to see that the changes to the unit and education instituted has worked when NAS infants have a shorter hospital stay, a decrease in the use of morphine and phenobarbital and finally patient/parental and nurse satisfaction. In conclusion, with the epidemic of substance abuse mothers on the rise it is imperative that neonatal nursing units properly educate their staff about the treatment and care of NAS infants. With the changes proposed in this case the care of this specific population will be enhanced. These infants are very fragile and require a lot of special attention. The proper care and education could make the world of a difference in a baby’s life.

Sustainable information security policy in an organization

Sustainable information security policy in an organization Introduction The purpose of this research paper is to investigate how organizations design sustainable information security policies. Designing a sustainable information security policy is one of the most important issues facing organizations today. It should not only be the first step in an organizations information security policy program but a continuing process to ensure the policy should be maintained of high quality, it is clear, comprehensive and appropriate to the organizations specific business objectives, strategic goals and culture needs. This is a particularly salient issue in organizations that operate in numerous political, cultural, legal, geographic and economic environments and, by necessity, sometimes must have an information security policy that employees can follow and actually use. Information security represents a growing concern for organizations. As organizations are relying and becoming more dependent on information systems for staying competitive, gain strategic advantag e and operations, the issue of effective information security policy also becomes important and the necessary foundation for organizational information security. In an organization, some unique challenges can arise in designing an information security policy, such as policy differences arising through the various threats, risk acceptance and tolerance levels among business units; internal and external requirements at a country, local and national level; human factors; and cultural differences. In some cases, an organization may require a region-specific information security policy that may be more restrictive than a global information security policy. However, the reason why an information security policy has to be enforced on an organization is because the information security policy requires an effort from them. The literature review and an experimental study will be used to investigate, explore and understand different factors such as ease of use, designer perceptions of user shortcomings, attitude toward usage, peer influence, perceived behavioral control usage, perceived ease of use, quality of working life, work attitude and intentions as to how to design a sustainable information security policy in an organization. The research problem and goal. The research problem of this study is to investigate how to design a sustainable information security policy in an organization. Surprisingly, not too much is known about how to design security policies that pay attention to unique organizational security features, employees and business needs (Siponen and Iivari, 2006). In business, an information security policy is a document that states in writing how an organization should plan to protect its information systems and technology assets, provides guidance based on standards, regulations and rules of what to and what not to do. However the information security policy quality, flexibility and usability are limited. Therefore employees do not pay attention, understand, follow abide and break the information security policy. An information security policy that is viewed as design product and that is normative lists actions that the employees should follow or should not perform. The design of an information security policy does not necessarily make it possible to address all situations reasonably. However, to guide the design of the information security policy, the product and an application principle should state how it needs to be applied, and a design method should state how it needs to be crafted (Siponen and Iivari, 2006). Product design and development is a complex and lengthy process for organizations since it involves multiple participants from several organizational departments who are required to make decisions outside their area of expertise. To address the problem organizations often purchase ready made information security policies from various sources such as ISO, text books or adopt information security policies from government and other online sources. This leads to incomplete activities a nd flaws which lead to difficult to follow information security policy. Sound information security policy should protect the information and systems, as well as the individual employees and the organization as a whole from a wide variety of threats (Veiga, Martins and Eloff, 2007). It also should serve as a prominent statement to the outside world about the organizations commitment to information security. An information security policy is often considered to be a living document, meaning that the document is never finished but is continuously updated as technology, regulations and business requirements change. The information from systematic monitoring should serve as a critical input to evaluation, formulation, implementation and design of the information security policy. The information security policy should be seen not only as an artifact document of the organization to enforce best information security practices but also should identify details of what is acceptable or unacceptable and what is reasonable behavior from the employees in order to ensu re sound security of information. Information security policy should be sustainable. Information security covers people and process issues as well as technology. The design of information security policy in an organization should be integrated into a process that involves employee usability testing and input from various regions, regulations, industry standards and business units. An information security policy is the necessary foundation for a sound organizational information security. Information security policy should be able to enhance business operations by reducing risk, ensuring protection of organizational critical information assets and decreasing information systems security management costs as well as to improve information systems operations while also supporting the demands of internal and external compliance. Since many of these policies require human involvement, for example employee and customer actions, the goals should be measured and checked if they are met only if such human activities can be influenced and monitored and if positive outcomes have incentives while negative actions are sanctioned. The goal of this research study is to investigate how to design, create and maintain a sustainable information security policy using experimental methods and control focus groups in an organization. An effective information security policy should be based on a usability standard that can be achieved during the design techniques appropriate to implement sustainable information security policy. Importance of research problem The successful design of information security policy is critical in todays environment of rapid change and challenges in addressing information security policy compliance and effectiveness in organizations. The information security policy is the foundation on which a sound information security is built. As with any foundation, it must be well designed, and well constructed; it can then be trusted to support the organizations business objectives and goals effectively. It is essential that effective information security policy practices be in place in organizations to ensure the success of information security policy. Effective information security policy requires that users understand and follow the information security mission as described in the organizations information security policy. Flexibility and usability are essential elements of an information security policy life cycle, particularly of the design process of information security policy formulation and implementation. An information security policy needs to be sustainable and not rigid. While the importance of the information security policy in ensuring the security of information is acknowledged widely, to date, there has been little empirical analysis of its design, impact or effectiveness in this role. Designing sustainable information security policy is critical to protecting the organizations information systems and assets. The consequences of violating such as information security policy might be extensive and expensive. The organizations information security policy should be written with a clear understanding of the expected outcome and the need to be flexible and usable. The information security policy should incorporate clear definitions and user responsibilities (Gaunt 1998). It should also aim to influence behavior and turn employees into participants in the organizations efforts to secure its information assets. Information security policy plays an important role in preventing, detecting and responding to security threats and breaches. Organizations should have security controls to protect their information. One of the most important controls, according to Hone and Eloff (2002), is the information security policy. The information security policy is likely to be ineffective if it is not written well, understood, followed and accepted by all employees. The results of this study will help practitioners understand how an organization can design sustainable information security policy to achieve effective information security. Research argument The information security of an organization might be left in a less effective state in situations where information security policy is not followed by employees. Employee perception, in some instances, is that following the rules in information security policy interferes and gets in the way of doing their day-to-day work and their ability to accomplish their job tasks. This is because they feel as though this approach is cumbersome and a waste of time. An employees failure to comply with the information security policy is a key concern of information security practitioners and organizations. According to Desman (2002) information security is not a technical issue, but rather a human issue, therefore the most significant threat to the security of information in an organization is its employees (Gaunt 1998). Information security policy should be fair, reasonable, understandable, flexible and usable. If an information security policy is not flexible and usable, employees will not follow it and it will break. According to Besnard and Arief (2004), the design of security products and information security policy should rely more on the rules of human-computer interaction. The employees, independent of their knowledge and intellect, should be able to read an organizations information security policy understand, follow, comply and adhere to it. One of the ways to implement good information security practices in an organization is to ensure that a detailed information security policy is in place. The content of the information security policy is particularly significant, as it should be monitored for any changes after it is adopted to attain relevance and an understanding of whether there were changes due to the policy or program. According to Gaunt (2000) user participation in the development of an organization information security is necessary if it is to achieve wide acceptance. Problem Relevance According to Hone and Eloff (2002) one of the most important information security controls in an organization is the information security policy. However, this important document it is not always easy to put together and develop. Some organizations derive their information policy from business goals, service level agreements, industry best practices, and International Standard Organization standards such as ISO 27000, or copy paste from other ready made policy templates found or procured from textbooks or online resources. Content in information security policies differ according to the type of organization: for example, corporations, academic institutions, government, and within departments such as information technology, human resources, legal, and finance to name a few. The degree of guidance varies from very specific references of what to do or not to do and sanctions of not following the rules. Sanctions affect employees actual compliance with information security policy. According to Bia and Kalika (2007), the decision to formulate an information security policy, for example, a policy of acceptable use, occurs when the organization has experienced problems, conflict, damage, or business loss because of improper use of information security rules. The application of a security policy is considered essential for managing the security of information systems. Implementing a successful information security policy in an organization, however, is not a straightforward task and depends on many factors (Karyda, Kiountouzis and Kokolakis, 2004). Sometimes, employees view the information security policy as an obstacle and a barrier to progress and, in an effort, to do their job more efficiently, employees might not follow the rules set in the information security policy document. Despite the fact that organizations have information security policy in place, more often than not, the application of information security policy fails to attain its goals. To ensure that information security policy is effective, information security professionals must first understand the social elements, including cultural and generational variances that affect employee behavior and perceptions about information security policy (Cisco, 2008). According to Baskerville and Siponen (2002), strict access controls imposed during fast growing organizational changes can become an obstacle by limiting access to information thereby threatening the organizations survival. This problem is one of limiting organizational emergence because of limited information access and presents conflicting and stringent demands for security policy making. Unexpected business opportunities may require actions that conflict with their information security policy. Some of the problems facing organizations are of employees not following the information security policy, which reflects the social nature of human beings. According to Kabay (2002), an information security policy challenges employees to change the way they think about their own responsibility for protecting the organizations valuable information. Attempting to impose information security policy on unwilling employees results in resistance both because stricter information security procedures make jobs more difficult and because people do not like to be told what to do. The process of design and development of information security policy plays an important role in the life cycle of an information security policy and affects how people feel about the information security policy and whether they see rules as a needless imposition of power or an expression of their own values. Unfortunately, an information security policy conflicts with most peoples view of reality: for example, an empl oyee showing sensitive information to someone who does not have the appropriate level of authorization to view such information because they both work on the same project team. However, if users fail to comply with the rules, an information security policy can help deter abuse (Straub and Nance 1990). Although having an information security policy in an organization is essential, it is not enough to ensure an employees compliance with it. Therefore, the aim of this paper is to understand what factors should be considered in the design of a sustainable information security policy in order to motivate employees to comply with the information security policy and understand how important it is. Definitions of Terms For the purposes of this paper: Information security policy: by definition, an information security policy refers to a clear, understandable comprehensive and well-defined plan, rules, and practices that regulate access to an organizations system and the information included in it. It is defined as the security policy in a document that states in writing how an organization plans to protect the companys physical and information technology assets. Information policy: is defined as the combination of laws, regulations, rules, and guidelines that steer the creation, management, and use of information that greatly shapes the roles of information in society. Information policy includes a range of issues related to freedom of information, privacy, secrecy, security, intellectual property, and information and communication technologies among other policy areas. Information system security: is defined as the state of being free from unacceptable risk. Thus, information security focuses on reducing the risk of computing and communication systems, especially in regard to the misuse, destruction, modification or inappropriate disclosure of information either by intent or accident. Product design and development: in this paper refers primarily to the design and development of new information security policy. Research questions and Hypothesis. The main research question for this study is formulated as: How to design sustainable information security policy in an organization? Hypothesis: H1: Is there a significant difference between flexibility and usability? H2: Is there a significant relationship between flexibility and usability? H3: If an information security policy is usable then is there a need for sanctions? H4: If an information security policy is flexible then is there a need for rewards? Reference Agarwal, R and Sambamurthy, V. (2002). Principles and models for organizing the IT function. MIS Quarterly Executive, 1(1), 1-16. Baskerville, R., and Siponen, M. (2002). An information security meta-policy for emergent organizations. Logistics Information Management, 15(5/6), 337-346. Besnard, D. and Arief, B. (2004). Computer security impaired by legal users. Computers Security, 23(3), 253-26. Bia, M., and Kalika, M. (2007). Adopting an ICT code of conduct: An empirical study of organizational factors. Journal of Enterprise Information Management, 20(4), 432-446. CISCO. Data leakage worldwide: The effectiveness of security policies, 2008, Retrieved March 29 2010 http://www.cisco.com/en/US/solutions/collateral/ns170/ns896/ns895/white_paper_c11-503131.pdf Da Veiga, A., Martins, N., and Eloff, JHP. (2007). Information security culture validation of an assessment instrument. Southern African Business Review, 11(1), 147-166. Desman, M.B. (2002). Building an information security awareness program. Boca Raton, FL, Auerbach Publications. Doherty, NF., and Fulford, H. (2006). Aligning the information security policy with the strategic information systems plan. Computers Security, 25(1), 55-63. Eloff, JHP., Labuschagne L, and Badenhorst KP. (1993) A comparative framework for risk analysis methods. Computers and Security, 12(6), 597-603. Gaunt, N. (1998). Installing an appropriate IS security policy in hospitals. International Journal of Medical Informatics, 49(1), 131-134. Gaunt N. (2000). Practical approaches to creating a security culture. International Journal of Medical Informatics, 60(2), 151-157. Hone, K., and Eloff, JHP. (2002). Information security policy what do international security standards say? Computers and Security, 21(5), 402-9. Kabay, M. (1994). Psychological factors in the implementation of information security policy. EDPACS, The EDP Audit, Control, and Security Newsletter, 11(10), 1-10. Karyda, M., Kiountouzis, E., Kokolakis, S. (2005). Information systems security policies: a contextual perspective, Computers and Security, 24(3), 246-260. Lapke M., and Dhillon, G. (2008). Power relationships in information systems security policy formulation and implementation. European Conference on Information Systems, 16, 1358-1369. Siponen, M., and Iivari, J. (2006). Six design theories for IS security policies and guidelines. Journal of the Association for Information System,s 7(7), 445-472. Thomson, K. L., von Solms, R., and Louw, L. (2006). Cultivating an organizational information security culture. Computer Fraud and Security, 10, 7-11. Straub, D.W., and Nance, W.D. (1990). Discovering and disciplining computer abuse in organizations: A field study. MIS Quarterly, 14(1), 45-60. Warman, AR. (1992). Organizational computer security policy: the reality. European Journal of Information Systems, 1(5), 305-10. Zhang, Y., Liu, X., and Wang, W. (2005). Policy lifecycle model for systems management. IT Professional, 7(2), 50-54.