Individual practice with peer evaluation

1. Ana Sofia Cerda Kipper
Individual practice with peer evaluation
This is your first year as leader of your neighborhood board; lately,
you have thought about not continuing with this job because some of
the residents have been calling you constantly to complain about the
cleanliness of the common areas, the lack of security, and the poor
lighting in the neighborhood.
You have been very patient and you are always willing to listen to your
community, and as such you have even received calls at dawn from
complaining neighbors. As much as you have tried to help and pay
attention to them in a cordial way, you question whether continuing
with this commitment is worthwhile since you feel worn down.
You have always been aware of the responsibility that comes with
living in a community and, being a new neighborhood, it needs people
who want to participate and be open-minded like you.
Case study
According to the authors of the book entitled “Learning with cases” (Mauffette-Leenders
et al., 1997) in order to tackle a case study and to approach decision making, ​it is
important to restate the key factors in a case study. They also reviewed a set of
questions that allows a deeper analysis of the case being studied.
1. Who is the decision maker in this case, and what is their position and
responsibilities?
a. the leader of the neighborhood board, responsible for the wellbeing of the
community and its environment.
2. What appears to be the issue (of concern, problem, challenge, or opportunity)
and its significance for the organization?
a. The community is unhappy and constantly complaining about:
i. the cleanliness of the common areas
ii. the lack of security
iii. the poor lighting in the neighborhood
1. significance for the organization will be discussed furtherly.
3. Why has the issue arisen and why is the decision maker involved now?
a. Constant discomfort of the community involved the leader of the board.
As we review the problematic, there are issues or opportunities in the case which the
leader must address: the immediate (specific ethical decision), and the basic (larger and
more generic). By quoting an old adage: “stating the right problem takes more than
halfway towards the right solution”, we can imply that by dealing with the correct
problem will be able to help to solve it. Another statement as the leader of the
neighborhood board is that the immediate issues are: the lack of cleanliness and
security, and the poor lighting; factors that could be the combined effect of a bigger
problem. A general analysis of the basic issue could be the lack of infrastructure to
address the concerns of the community - budget to improve the common areas and to
increase lightning in the neighborhood, which by improving the neighborhood conditions,

2. an improvement of its security will be more likely. However, a deeper analysis of the
immediate issues is needed to understand the complexity of each challenge for the
community and to understand and develop strategies to address them.
One of the concerns of the neighborhood is the cleanliness of the common areas, which
affects the population health. UNICEF executive director Anthony Lake believes in the
management of safe sanitation practices, in which he mentioned that “effective
sanitation and hygiene are critical to the health of every child and every community –
and thus are essential to building stronger, healthier and more equitable societies”,
consequently, a more safe community.
Advocates of community-oriented policing contend that it has great potential to reduce
crime, and fear because it strengthens community social organization and cohesion
(Kerley & Benson, 2000). Communities working hand-in-hand with law enforcement
departments has accepted this philosophy. Furthermore, Raco (2000) emphasizes with
the responsibilization of neighbourhood communities and the police by becoming more
'citizen-focused', evolving into more sustainable community. On this case, the lack of the
neighborhood security has created fear and discomfort within its population. When
exploring the relationship between community involvement and the level of residents’
fear of crime, the authors Riger, LeBailly, and Gordon (1981) identified four factors for
the involvement of an individual of the community: feelings of bondeness, extent or
residential roots, use of local facilities, and degree of social interaction with neighbors.
And that the first two were related and inversely significant to the residents’ fear of
crime, while the others reflects on its behavior not feelings.
Implying that is a new neighborhood, and that it is a homogeneous community, it
suggests that there can be a higher level of social interactions, which leads to more
social capital, according to Alesina and La Ferrara (2000). When we understand this
connections we can expect that this type of interactions (community-oriented policing)
will diminish the insecurity greatly, and as La Ferrara mentioned, a higher level of social
interactions does improve the quality of the lifestyle of the neighborhood. Furthermore,
in order to a community to develop, participation of its residents are needed, those in
the neighborhood that are concern for the community challenges must participate and be
involved in the decision-making process, and it is the responsibility of the leader to
enable this social-interactions for the correct livelihood of the residents of the
community.
The authors Ammeter and Dukerich (2002), found in their investigation that leader
behaviors were significant predictors of cost growth performance, and that the leader
behavior factor had the dual benefit of being a significant predictor of measures of
perception of performance. This suggests that leader behavior had a powerful and
pervasive role in determining the feeling of success and actual success of project teams.
In other words, how the leader acts, will affect greatly the community, thus, a strategic
plan to successfully encounter the challenges that arises to the community. The leader
must know how empathize with the public - what moves them?, what role does the
individual plays on society? -, understand the problem, and determine a correct plan of
action.
Returning to the first concern, the authors Beking, Carrigan and Szmigin (2007),
mention that lifestyle wastes together with an inconsistency of local government
disposable strategies, can generate a considerable amount of waste. Recycling behaviour
is subject to affective influences. As the leader of the board, educating the community on

3. waste recycling behavior and implementing recycling strategies on common areas
(increasing green areas, and increasing waste recycling compartments) is crucial for the
cleanliness of this areas. A few studies have examined low-cost methods for increasing
recycling. In particular, placing recycling bins closer to the point of consumption greatly
change recycling behavior, the location of recycling receptacles is a critical factor in
affecting the level of recycling receptacle usage (​O'Connor et al., 2010). It’s crucial for
the community to cooperate in the common areas and the leader to set the example.
While there can be an investment in gardening and cleaning services, the community
must also help to keep the common areas as much as possible, necessary tools will be
given so that they can achieve it without problem.
The construction of more lightning in the neighborhood will cost money from it. Given
that the first two concerns are tackled, and that there is more social capital, there will be
enough infrastructure to build more light posts. Although, there is no clear evidence that
the lightning will dissuade crime, rather that it gives a sense of safety. A 2015 study in
the UK published in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health found that
streetlights don’t prevent accidents or crime, but do cost a lot of money. On the
contrary, a Chicago Alley Lighting Project showed a correlation between brightly lit
alleyways and increased crime.
In the long term, for the need of lightning in the neighborhood, we can apply the project
of the students of ​Universidad Veracruzana (UV) in 2015, in which they created
playgrounds that generate electricity. The work is based on the use of different
technologies for the creation of electric power to illuminate public spaces, with an
economic impact through the reduction of costs in the lighting of parks, increasing health
by encouraging the physical activity of people and decreasing the risk of diseases, and
promoting social interactions within the community. It consists of the installation of
recreational modules in the parks, which will take advantage of the energy that the
attendees generate when using them to produce electricity that would feed the lighting
of the fountains and the lights of the park. The first would be the installation of
stationary bicycles around a fountain, which has a lighting system. The bicycles would be
connected to a power generator and this, in turn, to a large capacity battery. When
used, the generator will convert the kinetic energy into electricity, which will charge the
battery. That battery would serve to feed the illumination of the source. It is important
to mention that channeling the energy to the battery and not directly to the lighting
system, will allow constant illumination of the source and not only when the bicycles are
used. The second part of the project consists of a manual carousel which, when being
driven by its occupants, will generate mechanical energy that would be used to
illuminate the game and its surroundings through a lighting system based on LEDs. This
device will also have a battery that will store the electrical energy, which will feed the
lighting system. This project will cost around 20-30 thousand pesos.
In conclusion, each concern of the community can be tackled individually but one must
always find the connection within each one to have a more defined action plan for the
different challenges. Interaction with the population is highly important, as the “manager
of the community”, working hand-in-hand and understanding the concerns and emotions
that drive the community are important to understand the root of the different problems
that may appear, and develop contingency plans in order to confront them. As a leader
of the community, one must understand the value of each problem and to assess them
correctly. It is important to know which are the urgents issues and the important ones.
By the research done, one can imply that the result of the improvements done to the
community will help solve the crime problem, have greener areas and lightning, and

4. better interactions within the community and law enforcements departments. A leader
can listen all the complains from its community, but must be smart enough to
understand the reality and the cost from it. Differentiating the immediate issues with the
basic ones, and if it is urgent or important, and to establishing short and long strategies
to develop and growth, for this case, of the neighborhood.
References:
Ammeter, A. P., & Dukerich, J. M. (2002). Leadership, team building, and team member
characteristics in high performance project teams. ​Engineering Management Journal​,
14​(4), 3-10.
Alesina, A., & La Ferrara, E. (2000). Participation in heterogeneous communities. ​The
quarterly journal of economics​, ​115​(3), 847-904.
Bekin, C., Carrigan, M., & Szmigin, I. (2007). Beyond recycling:‘commons-friendly’waste
reduction at new consumption communities. ​Journal of Consumer Behaviour: An
International Research Review​, ​6​(5), 271-286.
Kerley, K. R., & Benson, M. L. (2000). Does community-oriented policing help build
stronger communities?. ​Police Quarterly​, ​3​(1), 46-69.
Mauffette-Leenders, L. A., Erskine, J. A., Leenders, M. R., & University of Western
Ontario. Richard Ivey School of Business (London, Ont.). (1997). ​Learning with cases​.
Ontario: Ivey.
McMillan, D. W., & Chavis, D. M. (1986). Sense of community: A definition and theory.
Journal of community psychology​, ​14​(1), 6-23.
O'Connor, R. T., Lerman, D. C., Fritz, J. N., & Hodde, H. B. (2010). Effects of number
and location of bins on plastic recycling at a university. ​Journal of applied behavior
analysis​, ​43​(4), 711-715.
Raco, M. (2007). Securing sustainable communities: citizenship, safety and sustainability
in the new urban planning. ​European Urban and Regional Studies​, ​14​(4), 305-320.