I have not been in an RSO that has merged with another RSO, but I have experienced being in an RSO that had become affiliates of the college of business. The RSO that I am a part of provides consulting services to start-up companies in virtually any industry, with the goal of providing solutions to business problems that bring results. The structure of the organization goes from the student leadership team, to partners who manage multiple projects, to project managers, to senior consultants, and finally consultants. When the RSO had become partners with the business school, the biggest difference was the availability of resources. The events had become higher quality, as well as budgets approved for team social events. The added benefit of higher quality events lead to better informed members, which meant higher quality of work and increased productivity when it came to deliverables. Social events also helped increase productivity since it helped out with positive relationships among the team, increasing communication. Transaction costs within the organization may include making sure that new members are performing their tasks correctly in order to ensure it fits the clients needs. The client’s transaction cost may be talking to past clients in order to ensure that the results of working with a student run consulting organization will heed positive impact. These had mattered in order to better the relationship between the team and clients, since both had to confirm that the product would be of high quality.
I have experienced participating in a successful team within an organization on campus when I had been part of a consulting team. I will try to give background information, however I may be limited in how specific I can be out of respect for the non-disclosure agreement I had signed for the project. The basis of the project was that the client had been a college in a large university and they wanted help on creating strategy in order to generate revenue for the college outside of tuition due to a low amount of revenue coming in from the usual expected sources. They also wanted to figure out strategy on how to heighten the quality as well as quantity of their application pool, since awareness of the college had been relatively low. I believe the effectiveness of the team had come from both how the hierarchy had been set up as well as how well members adhered to those roles. In terms of the team structure there had been about 8 people in total. When discussing the hierarchy in te...
This post is pretty meager. I did a word count on it and got 245 words. There is a 600 word minimum. For the next post, try to meet the requirement. Also try for multiple paragraphs with line spacing between them.
ReplyDeleteYou might have spent some time on why you joined this particular RSO. Did you think it would serve as a job credential? You might also talk about the ethical dimension of this consulting business. I gather that the students in the RSO don't get paid for the work they provide. Is that right? Think of it from the company's end of the equation. What do they get from having a student consulting project done rather than hiring paid consultants.
If this RSO is really providing an apprenticeship for those who join it, maybe it is right that you are not paid for the work. I'm not sure and can see arguments both ways. But then I wonder what sort of training new members of the RSO get so they can learn what consulting is really about. It would have been a better post if you had expanded on how you learned to do the work.
A related question is about the teacher for learning. In an apprenticeship there is a master from whom the apprentice learns. If the master was a more experienced student, I have to wonder whether there is sufficient expertise there to play the role. So that too could have been addressed in your post. You might to so in your response to this comment.