Assignment Prompt & Instructions
see attached
**files (3)**
– ## DiscussionCaseStudyAssignmentInstructions2.docx
– ## LiteratureAssessmentdraft.docx
– readfischerpages71to87.pdf
**## DiscussionCaseStudyAssignmentInstructions2.docx**
PADM 700
**Discussion: Case Study Assignment Instructions**
Students will take part in 4 Discussions in which you will conduct a case study of an observed study in a public administration context. The analysis will be based upon the concepts you learned and discussed in the previous module’s essay assignment, writing 450-500 words in the initial thread. For the case study, students are welcome to cite a scholarly source, but if they do, it must not be merely a theoretical/philosophical discussion. Instead, whatever source is used for the actual case study must focus on
_a real-world public administration situation that is being discussed and analyzed in the chosen articl_ e. Students will in turn apply concepts discussed in the previous Module: Week’s essay to analyze the situation, in addition to the required reading and presentations from the current Module: Week. Remember: it will be important to do both!
Then, students will post replies of 200–250 words each to 2 classmates’ threads. Each reply must be unique and must integrate ideas (and citations) from the required reading. Reply comments must engage the case study observations made by classmates and must bring to light concepts from the required reading from the current Module: Week as well as additional reading. Thus, merely posting the same reply in 3 places is not sufficient and may be treated as a form of academic misconduct. The original thread must incorporate ideas and citations from all the required readings and presentations for that Module: Week in addition research from two scholarly sources. The reply posts must also integrate ideas and citations from the required readings and presentations for the Module: Week, as appropriate, and at least two scholarly sources.
**General:**
· File attachments are prohibited because they may slow readings. See the grading rubric for specific guidelines and grading procedures.
· Post your thread by 11:59 p.m. (ET) on Thursday of the assigned Module: Week. Post your replies by 11:59 p.m. (ET) on Sunday of the same Module: Week.
·
**Thread:**
· 450-500 words
· Ideas and citations from
**_all_** the required reading and presentations from the Module: Week
· Ideas and citations from two scholarly sources
· Case Study of a real public administration situation related to the concepts discussed in the prior week.
**Replies:**
· 2 replies
· 200-250 words per reply
· Ideas and citations from required reading and presentations from the Module: Week, as appropriate
· Ideas and citations from two scholarly sources per reply
In this course, Discussions play an exceptionally important role. Consider these threads and replies to be formal communications on the same level as those you would conduct with employers, clients, or colleagues in the professional, political, or academic world. As such, they must be free of grammatical errors, must be properly formatted in current APA style, and must consist of well-reasoned, contemplative, and substantive posts and replies, rather than mere ipse dixit. These threads and replies must be adequately supported by citations of the sources or support for your ideas as well as any quoted materials.
Open, courteous discussion will yield the greatest opportunities for growth in this class. Both responding to other students and responding to the instructor will count as 1 reply post. Remember that the art of communication is in many ways the lifeblood of effective political leadership. Everything you write—every paper, post, and email—creates or reinforces an impression of you. Begin to cultivate the communication skills of the statesman and stateswoman—the ability to speak the truth logically and persuasively with compassion and respect. Each response post must include new research and analysis and must build upon the ideas communicated in the original post. Thus, they must go beyond merely restating and affirming what a classmate has said and instead bring in more depth, research, and analysis. Accordingly, each response post must include citations from the required reading and presentations.
Responding to a classmate’s thread requires both the addition of new ideas and analysis. A particular point made by the classmate must be addressed and built upon by your analysis in order
**to move the conversation forward**. Thus, the reply is a rigorous assignment that requires you to build upon the thread to develop deeper and more thorough discussion of the ideas introduced. As such, replies that merely affirm, restate, or unprofessionally quarrel with the previous thread(s) and fail to make a valuable, substantive contribution to the discussion will receive appropriate point deductions.
Page 1 of 2
**## LiteratureAssessmentdraft.docx**
6
**A Biblical-Covenantal Perspective on Organizational Behavior and Leadership:**
**A Literature Assessment**
The biblical theology/organizational behavior intersection is a developing and abundant field of research. With organizations facing the complicated ethical, relationship, and structural dilemmas, scholars and practitioners have been increasingly referring to theological paradigms, and specifically to the biblical concept of covenant, to offer the normative principles of leadership and workplace behavior. The literature reviewed in this assessment portrays this intersection and relies on the materials covering biblical theology, leadership theory, human resource management, business ethics, cross-cultural management, and political philosophy.
**Common Themes, Assumptions, and Approaches**
**The Covenant as a Normative Organizational Framework**
The most widespread commonality of the reviewed literature is, perhaps, the employment of covenant, either directly theological or indirectly relational, as a normative system of conceptualizing the behavior in organizations. Fischer (2010) explores this theme to the greatest extent, advocating that the biblical concept of covenant, described as the Hebrew concept of hesed (loving fulfillment of obligation), mutual accountability, and federalism, is a unifying framework of organizational behavior at the individual, group, and organizational levels.
**Servant Leadership and Relational Ethics**
The second significant theme that connects the literature is the significance of servant leadership and relational ethics as an indispensable part of proper organizational management. The article by Irving (2025) offers a cross-cultural analysis of the concept of servant leadership and illustrates that its main qualities, such as humility, empowerment of others, stewardship, and care, are universal and cut across cultures, whether in the collectivist East Asian or individualist Western environments.
**Human Resource Management as Ethical Stewardship**
The third theme that has been observed in the literature is the conceptualization of human resource management (HRM) as an area of ethical stewardship and not administrative compliance. According to Gunawan and Mikhail (2025), strategic and sustainable HRM, which is marked by investments in the development of the employees, equal reward system, and alignment of the purpose of the individual and that of the organization are the competitive advantage based on truly human-centered values. This view is very strong in the covenantal approach of the HR practices as proposed by Fischer (2010), where the view of selection, training, performance evaluation, and labor relations is not viewed as a requirement of the bureaucracy but seen as an act of hesed towards the employees.
**Cross-Cultural and Global Dimensions of Ethical Leadership**
Fourth is a common theme in regard to cross cultural applicability of values and principles discussed in the literature. Ermasova (2021) presents an in-depth overview of the cross-cultural problems in business ethics and says that ethical principles in various countries and cultures are quite distinct, but still, some of the basic values, such as fairness, person-respect, and relational accountability, seem to be universally present across different cultures. This observation has importance to the covenantal model in that it indicates that the relational and moral values that are central to the biblical covenant could have cross-cultural application that is not necessarily limited to their particular Judeo-Christian context
**Common Weaknesses and Limitations**
A lot of the literature, such as the one by Fischer (2010), is based predominantly on normative argumentation and theological contemplation, but not on empirical evidence. Although Fischer (2010) appeals to the research of organizational behavior to prove his points, the synthesis of theological arguments and objective facts is not so systematic but tends to be illustrative. Babalola et al. (2022) directly mention that there is a lack of evidence that prevents the studies of business ethics to be both theoretically enriched and empirically sound, and suggest an increase in the number of experimental, longitudinal, and mixed-method studies to evaluate the validity of values-based leadership models. Such empirical grounding would be very valuable in future research on covenantal organizational behavior.
**Implications for Future Research**
**Influential Sources and Foundational Works**
Some of the sources located during this evaluation seem very powerful in their areas of interest, and they should be given a lot of consideration in future dissertation study. The covenantal model was most directly and thoroughly covered by Fischer (2010), and as such, must be the main theoretical foundation of any dissertation in this field. Babalola et al. (2022) and Obregon et al. (2022) are valuable orienting documents, as they are important state-of-the-field evaluations, that can use in developing the dissertation by identifying research gaps and directions of future research in the business ethics literature.
**Common Conclusions About Future Research**
Generally argued that the empirically rigorous and mixed-method research is needed, which would test the practical organizational implications of the values-based, spiritually informed leadership frameworks (Babalola et al., 2022; Obregon et al., 2022; Hu et al., 2024). Researchers insist on more cross-cultural and cross-sectoral studies that can examine the applicability of relational and ethical leadership models outside of their Western, profit-driven backgrounds (Ermasova, 2021; Irving, 2025). Thirdly, it is becoming increasingly clear that the role of technological change, globalization, and labor diversification on the ethical culture in organizations has to be studied in a more systematized way (D'Cruz et al., 2022; Gunawan and Mikhail, 2025).
**Common Errors or Oversights Requiring Correction**
There are a few gaps in the literature that need to be rectified in subsequent studies. As it has been mentioned above the inability to critically approach the possibly exclusionary aspects of covenantal organizational culture – and the circumstances in which covenant may accentuate control as opposed to liberation – is a major deficiency. In addition, the bulk of the organizational behavior literature on covenantal leadership addresses the leader-follower dyad nearly exclusively, which fails to consider the systemic and structural aspects of organizational life on which Ferry and Midgley (2022) base their analysis of institutional accountability. The proposed dissertation in the field should be sensitive to both the interpersonal and the structural aspects of the covenantal organizational behavior.
**Conclusion**
This review of the literature has looked at eleven academic materials that pertain to the biblical-covenantal approach to organizational behavior and leadership. Four key themes with significant degree of coherence are apparent across these sources: the covenant as normative organizational structure, servant leadership and relational ethics, human resource management as ethical stewardship and the cross-cultural and global aspect of ethical leadership.
**References**
Babalola, M. T., Bal, M., Cho, C. H., Garcia-Lorenzo, L., Guedhami, O., Liang, H., … & van Gils, S. (2022). Bringing excitement to empirical business ethics research: Thoughts on the future of business ethics. Journal of Business Ethics, 180(3), 903-916. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-022-05242-7
D’Cruz, P., Du, S., Noronha, E., Parboteeah, K. P., Trittin-Ulbrich, H., & Whelan, G. (2022). Technology, megatrends and work: Thoughts on the future of business ethics. Journal of business ethics, 180(3), 879-902. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-022-05240-9
Ermasova, N. (2021). Cross-cultural issues in business ethics: A review and research agenda. International Journal of Cross Cultural Management, 21(1), 95-121. https://doi.org/10.1177/1470595821999075
Fischer, K. (2010). A biblical-covenantal perspective on organizational behavior & leadership. Liberty University Faculty Publications and Presentations. https://digitalcommons.liberty.edu/gov_fac_pubs/523
Ferry, L., & Midgley, H. (2022). Democracy, accountability and audit: the creation of the UK NAO as a defence of liberty. Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal, 35(2), 413-438. https://doi.org/10.1108/AAAJ-10-2020-4985
Glaser, J. M., Berry, J. M., & Schildkraut, D. J. (2023). Ideology and Support for Federalism in Theory—and in Practice. Publius: The Journal of Federalism, 53(4), 511-535. https://doi.org/10.1093/publius/pjad003Gunawan, W. B., & Mikhail, L. (2025). Strategic and sustainable human resource management: Twin weapon for achieving competitive advantage in organization. Priviet Social Sciences Journal, 5(6), 45-58. https://doi.org/10.55942/pssj.v5i6.401
Irving, J. A. (2025). Cross-cultural perspectives on servant leadership. In Servant leadership: Developments in theory and research (pp. 175-199). Cham: Springer Nature Switzerland. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-69922-1_10
Hu, S., Välimäki, M., Liu, S., Li, X., Shumaila, B., Huang, W., … & Hu, J. (2024). Coaching to develop leadership of healthcare managers: a mixed-methods systematic review. BMC medical education, 24(1), 1083. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12909-024-06081-y
Obregon, S. L., Lopes, L. F. D., Kaczam, F., Da Veiga, C. P., & Da Silva, W. V. (2022). Religiosity, spirituality and work: A systematic literature review and research directions. Journal of Business Ethics, 179(2), 573-595. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-021-04856-7
Mudau, N., & Khosa-Nkatini, H. P. (2025). Theological analysis of women’s roles in black reformed churches of Soutpansberg. HTS Teologiese Studies/Theological Studies, 81(1), 10668. https://hdl.handle.net/10520/ejc-hervorm_v81_n1_a10668
**readfischerpages71to87.pdf**
This file is too large to display. [View in new window](https://www.sweetstudy.com/files/readfischerpages71to87-pdf-10529209)
**readfischerpages71to87.pdf**
This file is too large to display. [View in new window](https://www.sweetstudy.com/files/readfischerpages71to87-pdf-10529209)
**## DiscussionCaseStudyAssignmentInstructions2.docx**
PADM 700
**Discussion: Case Study Assignment Instructions**
Students will take part in 4 Discussions in which you will conduct a case study of an observed study in a public administration context. The analysis will be based upon the concepts you learned and discussed in the previous module’s essay assignment, writing 450-500 words in the initial thread. For the case study, students are welcome to cite a scholarly source, but if they do, it must not be merely a theoretical/philosophical discussion. Instead, whatever source is used for the actual case study must focus on
_a real-world public administration situation that is being discussed and analyzed in the chosen articl_ e. Students will in turn apply concepts discussed in the previous Module: Week’s essay to analyze the situation, in addition to the required reading and presentations from the current Module: Week. Remember: it will be important to do both!
Then, students will post replies of 200–250 words each to 2 classmates’ threads. Each reply must be unique and must integrate ideas (and citations) from the required reading. Reply comments must engage the case study observations made by classmates and must bring to light concepts from the required reading from the current Module: Week as well as additional reading. Thus, merely posting the same reply in 3 places is not sufficient and may be treated as a form of academic misconduct. The original thread must incorporate ideas and citations from all the required readings and presentations for that Module: Week in addition research from two scholarly sources. The reply posts must also integrate ideas and citations from the required readings and presentations for the Module: Week, as appropriate, and at least two scholarly sources.
**General:**
· File attachments are prohibited because they may slow readings. See the grading rubric for specific guidelines and grading procedures.
· Post your thread by 11:59 p.m. (ET) on Thursday of the assigned Module: Week. Post your replies by 11:59 p.m. (ET) on Sunday of the same Module: Week.
·
**Thread:**
· 450-500 words
· Ideas and citations from
**_all_** the required reading and presentations from the Module: Week
· Ideas and citations from two scholarly sources
· Case Study of a real public administration situation related to the concepts discussed in the prior week.
**Replies:**
· 2 replies
· 200-250 words per reply
· Ideas and citations from required reading and presentations from the Module: Week, as appropriate
· Ideas and citations from two scholarly sources per reply
In this course, Discussions play an exceptionally important role. Consider these threads and replies to be formal communications on the same level as those you would conduct with employers, clients, or colleagues in the professional, political, or academic world. As such, they must be free of grammatical errors, must be properly formatted in current APA style, and must consist of well-reasoned, contemplative, and substantive posts and replies, rather than mere ipse dixit. These threads and replies must be adequately supported by citations of the sources or support for your ideas as well as any quoted materials.
Open, courteous discussion will yield the greatest opportunities for growth in this class. Both responding to other students and responding to the instructor will count as 1 reply post. Remember that the art of communication is in many ways the lifeblood of effective political leadership. Everything you write—every paper, post, and email—creates or reinforces an impression of you. Begin to cultivate the communication skills of the statesman and stateswoman—the ability to speak the truth logically and persuasively with compassion and respect. Each response post must include new research and analysis and must build upon the ideas communicated in the original post. Thus, they must go beyond merely restating and affirming what a classmate has said and instead bring in more depth, research, and analysis. Accordingly, each response post must include citations from the required reading and presentations.
Responding to a classmate’s thread requires both the addition of new ideas and analysis. A particular point made by the classmate must be addressed and built upon by your analysis in order
**to move the conversation forward**. Thus, the reply is a rigorous assignment that requires you to build upon the thread to develop deeper and more thorough discussion of the ideas introduced. As such, replies that merely affirm, restate, or unprofessionally quarrel with the previous thread(s) and fail to make a valuable, substantive contribution to the discussion will receive appropriate point deductions.
Page 1 of 2
**## LiteratureAssessmentdraft.docx**
6
**A Biblical-Covenantal Perspective on Organizational Behavior and Leadership:**
**A Literature Assessment**
The biblical theology/organizational behavior intersection is a developing and abundant field of research. With organizations facing the complicated ethical, relationship, and structural dilemmas, scholars and practitioners have been increasingly referring to theological paradigms, and specifically to the biblical concept of covenant, to offer the normative principles of leadership and workplace behavior. The literature reviewed in this assessment portrays this intersection and relies on the materials covering biblical theology, leadership theory, human resource management, business ethics, cross-cultural management, and political philosophy.
**Common Themes, Assumptions, and Approaches**
**The Covenant as a Normative Organizational Framework**
The most widespread commonality of the reviewed literature is, perhaps, the employment of covenant, either directly theological or indirectly relational, as a normative system of conceptualizing the behavior in organizations. Fischer (2010) explores this theme to the greatest extent, advocating that the biblical concept of covenant, described as the Hebrew concept of hesed (loving fulfillment of obligation), mutual accountability, and federalism, is a unifying framework of organizational behavior at the individual, group, and organizational levels.
**Servant Leadership and Relational Ethics**
The second significant theme that connects the literature is the significance of servant leadership and relational ethics as an indispensable part of proper organizational management. The article by Irving (2025) offers a cross-cultural analysis of the concept of servant leadership and illustrates that its main qualities, such as humility, empowerment of others, stewardship, and care, are universal and cut across cultures, whether in the collectivist East Asian or individualist Western environments.
**Human Resource Management as Ethical Stewardship**
The third theme that has been observed in the literature is the conceptualization of human resource management (HRM) as an area of ethical stewardship and not administrative compliance. According to Gunawan and Mikhail (2025), strategic and sustainable HRM, which is marked by investments in the development of the employees, equal reward system, and alignment of the purpose of the individual and that of the organization are the competitive advantage based on truly human-centered values. This view is very strong in the covenantal approach of the HR practices as proposed by Fischer (2010), where the view of selection, training, performance evaluation, and labor relations is not viewed as a requirement of the bureaucracy but seen as an act of hesed towards the employees.
**Cross-Cultural and Global Dimensions of Ethical Leadership**
Fourth is a common theme in regard to cross cultural applicability of values and principles discussed in the literature. Ermasova (2021) presents an in-depth overview of the cross-cultural problems in business ethics and says that ethical principles in various countries and cultures are quite distinct, but still, some of the basic values, such as fairness, person-respect, and relational accountability, seem to be universally present across different cultures. This observation has importance to the covenantal model in that it indicates that the relational and moral values that are central to the biblical covenant could have cross-cultural application that is not necessarily limited to their particular Judeo-Christian context
**Common Weaknesses and Limitations**
A lot of the literature, such as the one by Fischer (2010), is based predominantly on normative argumentation and theological contemplation, but not on empirical evidence. Although Fischer (2010) appeals to the research of organizational behavior to prove his points, the synthesis of theological arguments and objective facts is not so systematic but tends to be illustrative. Babalola et al. (2022) directly mention that there is a lack of evidence that prevents the studies of business ethics to be both theoretically enriched and empirically sound, and suggest an increase in the number of experimental, longitudinal, and mixed-method studies to evaluate the validity of values-based leadership models. Such empirical grounding would be very valuable in future research on covenantal organizational behavior.
**Implications for Future Research**
**Influential Sources and Foundational Works**
Some of the sources located during this evaluation seem very powerful in their areas of interest, and they should be given a lot of consideration in future dissertation study. The covenantal model was most directly and thoroughly covered by Fischer (2010), and as such, must be the main theoretical foundation of any dissertation in this field. Babalola et al. (2022) and Obregon et al. (2022) are valuable orienting documents, as they are important state-of-the-field evaluations, that can use in developing the dissertation by identifying research gaps and directions of future research in the business ethics literature.
**Common Conclusions About Future Research**
Generally argued that the empirically rigorous and mixed-method research is needed, which would test the practical organizational implications of the values-based, spiritually informed leadership frameworks (Babalola et al., 2022; Obregon et al., 2022; Hu et al., 2024). Researchers insist on more cross-cultural and cross-sectoral studies that can examine the applicability of relational and ethical leadership models outside of their Western, profit-driven backgrounds (Ermasova, 2021; Irving, 2025). Thirdly, it is becoming increasingly clear that the role of technological change, globalization, and labor diversification on the ethical culture in organizations has to be studied in a more systematized way (D'Cruz et al., 2022; Gunawan and Mikhail, 2025).
**Common Errors or Oversights Requiring Correction**
There are a few gaps in the literature that need to be rectified in subsequent studies. As it has been mentioned above the inability to critically approach the possibly exclusionary aspects of covenantal organizational culture – and the circumstances in which covenant may accentuate control as opposed to liberation – is a major deficiency. In addition, the bulk of the organizational behavior literature on covenantal leadership addresses the leader-follower dyad nearly exclusively, which fails to consider the systemic and structural aspects of organizational life on which Ferry and Midgley (2022) base their analysis of institutional accountability. The proposed dissertation in the field should be sensitive to both the interpersonal and the structural aspects of the covenantal organizational behavior.
**Conclusion**
This review of the literature has looked at eleven academic materials that pertain to the biblical-covenantal approach to organizational behavior and leadership. Four key themes with significant degree of coherence are apparent across these sources: the covenant as normative organizational structure, servant leadership and relational ethics, human resource management as ethical stewardship and the cross-cultural and global aspect of ethical leadership.
**References**
Babalola, M. T., Bal, M., Cho, C. H., Garcia-Lorenzo, L., Guedhami, O., Liang, H., … & van Gils, S. (2022). Bringing excitement to empirical business ethics research: Thoughts on the future of business ethics. Journal of Business Ethics, 180(3), 903-916. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-022-05242-7
D’Cruz, P., Du, S., Noronha, E., Parboteeah, K. P., Trittin-Ulbrich, H., & Whelan, G. (2022). Technology, megatrends and work: Thoughts on the future of business ethics. Journal of business ethics, 180(3), 879-902. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-022-05240-9
Ermasova, N. (2021). Cross-cultural issues in business ethics: A review and research agenda. International Journal of Cross Cultural Management, 21(1), 95-121. https://doi.org/10.1177/1470595821999075
Fischer, K. (2010). A biblical-covenantal perspective on organizational behavior & leadership. Liberty University Faculty Publications and Presentations. https://digitalcommons.liberty.edu/gov_fac_pubs/523
Ferry, L., & Midgley, H. (2022). Democracy, accountability and audit: the creation of the UK NAO as a defence of liberty. Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal, 35(2), 413-438. https://doi.org/10.1108/AAAJ-10-2020-4985
Glaser, J. M., Berry, J. M., & Schildkraut, D. J. (2023). Ideology and Support for Federalism in Theory—and in Practice. Publius: The Journal of Federalism, 53(4), 511-535. https://doi.org/10.1093/publius/pjad003Gunawan, W. B., & Mikhail, L. (2025). Strategic and sustainable human resource management: Twin weapon for achieving competitive advantage in organization. Priviet Social Sciences Journal, 5(6), 45-58. https://doi.org/10.55942/pssj.v5i6.401
Irving, J. A. (2025). Cross-cultural perspectives on servant leadership. In Servant leadership: Developments in theory and research (pp. 175-199). Cham: Springer Nature Switzerland. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-69922-1_10
Hu, S., Välimäki, M., Liu, S., Li, X., Shumaila, B., Huang, W., … & Hu, J. (2024). Coaching to develop leadership of healthcare managers: a mixed-methods systematic review. BMC medical education, 24(1), 1083. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12909-024-06081-y
Obregon, S. L., Lopes, L. F. D., Kaczam, F., Da Veiga, C. P., & Da Silva, W. V. (2022). Religiosity, spirituality and work: A systematic literature review and research directions. Journal of Business Ethics, 179(2), 573-595. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-021-04856-7
Mudau, N., & Khosa-Nkatini, H. P. (2025). Theological analysis of women’s roles in black reformed churches of Soutpansberg. HTS Teologiese Studies/Theological Studies, 81(1), 10668. https://hdl.handle.net/10520/ejc-hervorm_v81_n1_a10668
**readfischerpages71to87.pdf**
This file is too large to display. [View in new window](https://www.sweetstudy.com/files/readfischerpages71to87-pdf-10529209)
**## DiscussionCaseStudyAssignmentInstructions2.docx**
PADM 700
**Discussion: Case Study Assignment Instructions**
Students will take part in 4 Discussions in which you will conduct a case study of an observed study in a public administration context. The analysis will be based upon the concepts you learned and discussed in the previous module’s essay assignment, writing 450-500 words in the initial thread. For the case study, students are welcome to cite a scholarly source, but if they do, it must not be merely a theoretical/philosophical discussion. Instead, whatever source is used for the actual case study must focus on
_a real-world public administration situation that is being discussed and analyzed in the chosen articl_ e. Students will in turn apply concepts discussed in the previous Module: Week’s essay to analyze the situation, in addition to the required reading and presentations from the current Module: Week. Remember: it will be important to do both!
Then, students will post replies of 200–250 words each to 2 classmates’ threads. Each reply must be unique and must integrate ideas (and citations) from the required reading. Reply comments must engage the case study observations made by classmates and must bring to light concepts from the required reading from the current Module: Week as well as additional reading. Thus, merely posting the same reply in 3 places is not sufficient and may be treated as a form of academic misconduct. The original thread must incorporate ideas and citations from all the required readings and presentations for that Module: Week in addition research from two scholarly sources. The reply posts must also integrate ideas and citations from the required readings and presentations for the Module: Week, as appropriate, and at least two scholarly sources.
**General:**
· File attachments are prohibited because they may slow readings. See the grading rubric for specific guidelines and grading procedures.
· Post your thread by 11:59 p.m. (ET) on Thursday of the assigned Module: Week. Post your replies by 11:59 p.m. (ET) on Sunday of the same Module: Week.
·
**Thread:**
· 450-500 words
· Ideas and citations from
**_all_** the required reading and presentations from the Module: Week
· Ideas and citations from two scholarly sources
· Case Study of a real public administration situation related to the concepts discussed in the prior week.
**Replies:**
· 2 replies
· 200-250 words per reply
· Ideas and citations from required reading and presentations from the Module: Week, as appropriate
· Ideas and citations from two scholarly sources per reply
In this course, Discussions play an exceptionally important role. Consider these threads and replies to be formal communications on the same level as those you would conduct with employers, clients, or colleagues in the professional, political, or academic world. As such, they must be free of grammatical errors, must be properly formatted in current APA style, and must consist of well-reasoned, contemplative, and substantive posts and replies, rather than mere ipse dixit. These threads and replies must be adequately supported by citations of the sources or support for your ideas as well as any quoted materials.
Open, courteous discussion will yield the greatest opportunities for growth in this class. Both responding to other students and responding to the instructor will count as 1 reply post. Remember that the art of communication is in many ways the lifeblood of effective political leadership. Everything you write—every paper, post, and email—creates or reinforces an impression of you. Begin to cultivate the communication skills of the statesman and stateswoman—the ability to speak the truth logically and persuasively with compassion and respect. Each response post must include new research and analysis and must build upon the ideas communicated in the original post. Thus, they must go beyond merely restating and affirming what a classmate has said and instead bring in more depth, research, and analysis. Accordingly, each response post must include citations from the required reading and presentations.
Responding to a classmate’s thread requires both the addition of new ideas and analysis. A particular point made by the classmate must be addressed and built upon by your analysis in order
**to move the conversation forward**. Thus, the reply is a rigorous assignment that requires you to build upon the thread to develop deeper and more thorough discussion of the ideas introduced. As such, replies that merely affirm, restate, or unprofessionally quarrel with the previous thread(s) and fail to make a valuable, substantive contribution to the discussion will receive appropriate point deductions.
Page 1 of 2
**## LiteratureAssessmentdraft.docx**
6
**A Biblical-Covenantal Perspective on Organizational Behavior and Leadership:**
**A Literature Assessment**
The biblical theology/organizational behavior intersection is a developing and abundant field of research. With organizations facing the complicated ethical, relationship, and structural dilemmas, scholars and practitioners have been increasingly referring to theological paradigms, and specifically to the biblical concept of covenant, to offer the normative principles of leadership and workplace behavior. The literature reviewed in this assessment portrays this intersection and relies on the materials covering biblical theology, leadership theory, human resource management, business ethics, cross-cultural management, and political philosophy.
**Common Themes, Assumptions, and Approaches**
**The Covenant as a Normative Organizational Framework**
The most widespread commonality of the reviewed literature is, perhaps, the employment of covenant, either directly theological or indirectly relational, as a normative system of conceptualizing the behavior in organizations. Fischer (2010) explores this theme to the greatest extent, advocating that the biblical concept of covenant, described as the Hebrew concept of hesed (loving fulfillment of obligation), mutual accountability, and federalism, is a unifying framework of organizational behavior at the individual, group, and organizational levels.
**Servant Leadership and Relational Ethics**
The second significant theme that connects the literature is the significance of servant leadership and relational ethics as an indispensable part of proper organizational management. The article by Irving (2025) offers a cross-cultural analysis of the concept of servant leadership and illustrates that its main qualities, such as humility, empowerment of others, stewardship, and care, are universal and cut across cultures, whether in the collectivist East Asian or individualist Western environments.
**Human Resource Management as Ethical Stewardship**
The third theme that has been observed in the literature is the conceptualization of human resource management (HRM) as an area of ethical stewardship and not administrative compliance. According to Gunawan and Mikhail (2025), strategic and sustainable HRM, which is marked by investments in the development of the employees, equal reward system, and alignment of the purpose of the individual and that of the organization are the competitive advantage based on truly human-centered values. This view is very strong in the covenantal approach of the HR practices as proposed by Fischer (2010), where the view of selection, training, performance evaluation, and labor relations is not viewed as a requirement of the bureaucracy but seen as an act of hesed towards the employees.
**Cross-Cultural and Global Dimensions of Ethical Leadership**
Fourth is a common theme in regard to cross cultural applicability of values and principles discussed in the literature. Ermasova (2021) presents an in-depth overview of the cross-cultural problems in business ethics and says that ethical principles in various countries and cultures are quite distinct, but still, some of the basic values, such as fairness, person-respect, and relational accountability, seem to be universally present across different cultures. This observation has importance to the covenantal model in that it indicates that the relational and moral values that are central to the biblical covenant could have cross-cultural application that is not necessarily limited to their particular Judeo-Christian context
**Common Weaknesses and Limitations**
A lot of the literature, such as the one by Fischer (2010), is based predominantly on normative argumentation and theological contemplation, but not on empirical evidence. Although Fischer (2010) appeals to the research of organizational behavior to prove his points, the synthesis of theological arguments and objective facts is not so systematic but tends to be illustrative. Babalola et al. (2022) directly mention that there is a lack of evidence that prevents the studies of business ethics to be both theoretically enriched and empirically sound, and suggest an increase in the number of experimental, longitudinal, and mixed-method studies to evaluate the validity of values-based leadership models. Such empirical grounding would be very valuable in future research on covenantal organizational behavior.
**Implications for Future Research**
**Influential Sources and Foundational Works**
Some of the sources located during this evaluation seem very powerful in their areas of interest, and they should be given a lot of consideration in future dissertation study. The covenantal model was most directly and thoroughly covered by Fischer (2010), and as such, must be the main theoretical foundation of any dissertation in this field. Babalola et al. (2022) and Obregon et al. (2022) are valuable orienting documents, as they are important state-of-the-field evaluations, that can use in developing the dissertation by identifying research gaps and directions of future research in the business ethics literature.
**Common Conclusions About Future Research**
Generally argued that the empirically rigorous and mixed-method research is needed, which would test the practical organizational implications of the values-based, spiritually informed leadership frameworks (Babalola et al., 2022; Obregon et al., 2022; Hu et al., 2024). Researchers insist on more cross-cultural and cross-sectoral studies that can examine the applicability of relational and ethical leadership models outside of their Western, profit-driven backgrounds (Ermasova, 2021; Irving, 2025). Thirdly, it is becoming increasingly clear that the role of technological change, globalization, and labor diversification on the ethical culture in organizations has to be studied in a more systematized way (D'Cruz et al., 2022; Gunawan and Mikhail, 2025).
**Common Errors or Oversights Requiring Correction**
There are a few gaps in the literature that need to be rectified in subsequent studies. As it has been mentioned above the inability to critically approach the possibly exclusionary aspects of covenantal organizational culture – and the circumstances in which covenant may accentuate control as opposed to liberation – is a major deficiency. In addition, the bulk of the organizational behavior literature on covenantal leadership addresses the leader-follower dyad nearly exclusively, which fails to consider the systemic and structural aspects of organizational life on which Ferry and Midgley (2022) base their analysis of institutional accountability. The proposed dissertation in the field should be sensitive to both the interpersonal and the structural aspects of the covenantal organizational behavior.
**Conclusion**
This review of the literature has looked at eleven academic materials that pertain to the biblical-covenantal approach to organizational behavior and leadership. Four key themes with significant degree of coherence are apparent across these sources: the covenant as normative organizational structure, servant leadership and relational ethics, human resource management as ethical stewardship and the cross-cultural and global aspect of ethical leadership.
**References**
Babalola, M. T., Bal, M., Cho, C. H., Garcia-Lorenzo, L., Guedhami, O., Liang, H., … & van Gils, S. (2022). Bringing excitement to empirical business ethics research: Thoughts on the future of business ethics. Journal of Business Ethics, 180(3), 903-916. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-022-05242-7
D’Cruz, P., Du, S., Noronha, E., Parboteeah, K. P., Trittin-Ulbrich, H., & Whelan, G. (2022). Technology, megatrends and work: Thoughts on the future of business ethics. Journal of business ethics, 180(3), 879-902. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-022-05240-9
Ermasova, N. (2021). Cross-cultural issues in business ethics: A review and research agenda. International Journal of Cross Cultural Management, 21(1), 95-121. https://doi.org/10.1177/1470595821999075
Fischer, K. (2010). A biblical-covenantal perspective on organizational behavior & leadership. Liberty University Faculty Publications and Presentations. https://digitalcommons.liberty.edu/gov_fac_pubs/523
Ferry, L., & Midgley, H. (2022). Democracy, accountability and audit: the creation of the UK NAO as a defence of liberty. Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal, 35(2), 413-438. https://doi.org/10.1108/AAAJ-10-2020-4985
Glaser, J. M., Berry, J. M., & Schildkraut, D. J. (2023). Ideology and Support for Federalism in Theory—and in Practice. Publius: The Journal of Federalism, 53(4), 511-535. https://doi.org/10.1093/publius/pjad003Gunawan, W. B., & Mikhail, L. (2025). Strategic and sustainable human resource management: Twin weapon for achieving competitive advantage in organization. Priviet Social Sciences Journal, 5(6), 45-58. https://doi.org/10.55942/pssj.v5i6.401
Irving, J. A. (2025). Cross-cultural perspectives on servant leadership. In Servant leadership: Developments in theory and research (pp. 175-199). Cham: Springer Nature Switzerland. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-69922-1_10
Hu, S., Välimäki, M., Liu, S., Li, X., Shumaila, B., Huang, W., … & Hu, J. (2024). Coaching to develop leadership of healthcare managers: a mixed-methods systematic review. BMC medical education, 24(1), 1083. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12909-024-06081-y
Obregon, S. L., Lopes, L. F. D., Kaczam, F., Da Veiga, C. P., & Da Silva, W. V. (2022). Religiosity, spirituality and work: A systematic literature review and research directions. Journal of Business Ethics, 179(2), 573-595. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-021-04856-7
Mudau, N., & Khosa-Nkatini, H. P. (2025). Theological analysis of women’s roles in black reformed churches of Soutpansberg. HTS Teologiese Studies/Theological Studies, 81(1), 10668. https://hdl.handle.net/10520/ejc-hervorm_v81_n1_a10668
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