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Final Blog Post, Traditional Prompt

Before coming into the course, I had not realized that many of the relationships within organizations, as well as between organizations have been studied so heavily within the economic sphere. I had thought that before coming into the course it would’ve been similar to other 400 level courses where it is a singular professor teaching from their own studies as well as studies they had deemed relevant and related to a niche economic field they invested themselves in. I had been surprised by the idea that there were fundamental economic ideas tied into theories and models relevant to both the past as well as present with entire textbooks with references to a wide range of studies. In terms of knowledge about organizations that I had not learned before coming into the course, every phenomena in relationships between organizations that had been later turned into something that could be understood by quantifying it and applying mathematical principles was new. When we had learned about rela...
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Blog post due 11/22

If my understanding is correct, then I have participated in triangle-like arrangements at least four times due to the consulting organizations that I have had the opportunity to participate in throughout my college career. Being that I have written about these organizations for almost every post, I am sure that I have somewhat exhausted them but I will still try to apply my personal experiences as related to this specific post. The four triangle arrangements I have experienced have been the 4 consulting projects that I have been able to participate in over the past 3 semesters including the current one. Each of these projects is it’s own triangle arrangement because there is a team (which changes with every project) that is the agent of the consulting firm/organization as well as the client for the project. Throughout the semesters I have been allowed the opportunity to work with start-up companies as well as organizations that are more established, and the triangle set up has remaine...
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Blog post due 11/15

In terms of conflicts that arise surrounding the context of group dynamics as depicted in chapter 8 of Bolman and Deal, it seems that the situations I have seen and experienced are not necessarily unique but repeated and identified phenomena within organizations. In the first project I had experienced in an RSO that provides consulting services, there was no singular conflict that had arisen but the project manager’s conduct and disposition had taken a toll on the performance of the team as a whole throughout the semester-long project. I believe that through the use of the reading for this post it will be much easier to state clearly.  The main issue that had bogged down the entire team during the entirety of the project had been that the project manager had been overbearing, over-controlling, as well as seemed to really enjoy micromanaging. In the book, a model from Argyris and Sch ön that describes theories for action describes one of the possible core values to be “Define and...
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Blog Post Due 11/8

Within my experience with RSO’s there had been multiple people that had ended up leaving or were forced to leave the team that I was a part of. In terms of what had happened with the first person had been that they had never really communicated with the team, would miss meetings, and would not accomplish their assignment. What the project manager did at first was an attempt to talk with the member to try and understand their circumstances. The member had said that they had been busy recently but their schedule had cleared up some, and wanted to continue to work so the situation had seemed alright going forward. The member had continued miss meetings and assignments without any communication, so the project manager had asked whether or not the member wanted to be part of the team anymore. The member had reported that they wanted to continue to be on the team, but later on opted to leave the team along with unfinished assignments for a client. I had discussed with the project manager on...
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As I was going through the articles, I had tried using private browsing mode but was still not allowed to access the last article that was titled “The Power Of Altruism”. I will try to include how the readings I was able to access may relate to my example. Inside my example of team production with gift exchange, I will base it off of a successful team structure I have participated in. Inside the successful team structure I had participated in, the biggest contributing factor had been the fact that all members had motivation to achieve a common goal together.  In this example of team production, as I had already said having a common goal is the key differentiating factor. However, I believe the hierarchy as well as the motives within the hierarchy were also important. To reiterate for the context of this post, in one of my previous posts I discussed the hierarchy of a successful team that I had participated in. In this team there had been a senior manager, project manager, senior c...
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In order to address and manage future income risk post graduation, most of my decisions regarding my education, extra-curriculars, and activities during the summer over the past 2 or 3 years have been geared towards mitigating income risk in the future. I had chosen economics as my major partly because I was not allowed to apply for the school of business after being enrolled in UIUC full time for two semesters as well as I felt that it would lead to opportunity for a wide range of entry level non-technical positions. In all honesty, I had little to no interest in economics but felt it was the strongest major I had the opportunity to join (not allowed to apply to business, credentials not strong enough for engineering as well as both schools having higher tuition) so the decision was wholly based on the idea that I believed that it would open up job opportunities and help mitigate income risk. I am going to be paying all of my student loans on my own, this idea helped push me to make ...
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Yes I believe there are themes from the different posts throughout the semester that tie in together with each other. Aside from the introductory blog post, it seems that the ideas from blog posts are very different however they also build upon each other and intertwine. The themes of the blog posts had been transaction costs, opportunism, successful team structures, and transfer pricing. Within the transaction costs post I had discussed the transaction costs of relationships within work and why they had mattered. The next post discussing opportunism had been a different concept, however I had still been able to write about relationships within work.  In terms of successful team structures, the hierarchy of teams and delegation of work had been discussed but that was also a post that mainly surrounded relationships within an organization. When discussing transfer pricing, I had mostly discussed how “Illinibucks” could be used to affect course registration. This had not discussed t...
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