Posts

Williamson-like critique

As a senior who is graduating this semester, this course was the most interesting course with unique approach of learning and rules. For our course, there were two rules: attendance was not required and deadlines were soft. These rules impacted my own behavior toward this course, further the class as a whole. In the beginning of the course, the professor specifically told us that the attendance is not required for this course, and the deadline for assignments are soft so that students who missed the first concept quiz that was due before the first class can still do it for credit. And, we have the soft deadline for blogging. Writing a blog was my very first time to do so, and I thought it is extremely interesting and new learning style for me. Those rules made me more relaxed toward the course. Compared to other courses that I am taking, there are required attendance and strict deadline to follow. I had to bring i-clicker to the class to get credit, and for some courses I don’t g
2 comments
Read more

Triangle Model

The standard principal-agent model is bilateral, yet it is usually a triangle in the reality, indicating that agent needs to deal with 2 different principals. In principal-agent model, the agent is contracted to manage the principal’s asset instead of the principal. There can be conflict between principal and agent since agent can have their own objectives instead of principal’s, agents can get benefit from asymmetrical information, and agent can avoid their responsibility and work less than one’s capacity or ability. So, there is agency cost to resolve or prevent the conflict between them. From my experiences, I have not yet encountered in triangle like arrangement. However, I have seen my sister dealt with two different principals. She works as administrative officer/accountant in private international school in China. At the school, there are several international departments such as Korean department where my sister works, English department, and US department. Each departmen
2 comments
Read more

Interpersonal and Group Dynamics

In workplace, there are always interactions between workers and conflicts among workers. People all think differently and express their thoughts and feelings in various ways, which may cause conflict with each other. And, it is important for manager to be able to keep good relationship among workers and resolve conflicts smoothly if it happens since “individual and organizational effectiveness depend heavily on the quality of interpersonal relationships and team dynamics” according to B&D chapter 8. Here is one example of conflict that I have experienced in RSO. In the RSO, there were 5 different teams. Our team had to hold an annual event on Champaign public library as usual. It was our team’s event where we introduce Korean cultures to children and their parents. For example, we would have various activities that children can participate; Korean traditional game called Tu-ho (pitch-pot), wearing Korean traditional clothes, and making key chain with Korean traditional patter
2 comments
Read more

Punishment and Rehabilitation

Last week, team production and gift exchange were discussed. In the team production, we talked about the past performance and how the current reward should be divided. This week, we are looking at the team production in the other way; How can we improve the performances of each worker to have the better team production? There are various ways to improve the performance of the worker. The boss can encourage under-performed employees to make them be productive again, or the boss can discipline under-performed employee. How hard does the boss or manager should discipline their workers to rehabilitate the relationship? I believe that moderate discipline and the following encouragement like compliments can rehabilitate the relationship and increase their productivity. I have worked as an assistant teacher during summer for three years. When I worked as assistant teacher at summer camp in China in 2018, I was able to see several disciplinary moments. The summer camp was held for fou
2 comments
Read more

Team Production and Gift Exchange

  After reading three articles regarding sharing the marbles, fairness, and altruism, I found it really interesting to learn about children's different behaviors towards others based on the situation and how their behaviors are related to our society and my experiences in team production and gift exchange. In the article about sharing the marbles, there was one experiment where children needs to pull the ropes to get marbles. If both children pull the ropes at the same time, one will get one marble where the other will get three marbles. However, the one who gets three marbles will share one marble to the other since they both have done works together, meaning "share-the-spoils" button is pressed. Two children collaborated to produce gain from the action, so "rich" kid is willing to share the gain as gift exchange. Regarding the gift exchange in the team production, it is the social behavior where teammate voluntary deliver good or service.  In this example, it
2 comments
Read more

Managing income risk

Life is a full of choices and you need to face the results of the choice that you have made whether it was a wise decision or not. Each choice has a risk, and we will learn to manage our future risk as we continue to have experiences in decision making. To be honest, I don’t yet know where I will choose to work, how much I will earn after my graduation this semester. And, those conditions would impact my consumption spending when I decide to work in certain places. Before I have decided to come to U of I, I was a student of Missouri Academy of Mathematics, Science, and Computer Science (MASMC). MASMC is the STEM (Science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) school where students are mainly taught STEM courses and some humanity and English courses. MASMC is an early-college program where high school juniors and seniors can take classes at Northwest Missouri State University and earn around 60 college credits and high school diploma upon graduation. The tuition for MASMC wa
2 comments
Read more

Connecting the dots

Reading through my prior posts, I have written blog posts about transaction costs, opportunism, successful team, and transfer pricing. Blogging helps me to understand the concept much better than other classes that I am just listening to the lectures and taking tests on the concepts that I was taught. Blogging helps us to think about real-world situation and our own experiences regarding the concept and elaborate how that experiences are connected to the concept/theme of the blog and further in our course. And, I believe that applying concept to the real-world is the most important in the learning process, since it is actual purpose of the learning. I realized that I can connect the dots among the blog posts, and also the concepts that we have learned in the class. In general way of connecting dots among blog posts, transaction costs occur when one tries to make the organization better. And, in order to have the better performing organization, one would need to have a successful
4 comments
Read more