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My thoughts about what I would be doing in the Economics of Organizations when I had initially registered for this course ended up being much different than my experience in the class. The format of this class was something I had never been exposed to before at the University of Illinois. The course material in itself I found to be very interesting however, I often struggled with the organization of the course itself. I often found myself confused on where to access course information when it came to the homework, projects, and especially the blog posts. I am not sure if it was caused by my unfamiliarity with blog based websites but the organizational aspect of the course was something I was not a fan of. Usually, my classes and the information needed are all available on the one-course website which makes it easier for me to keep up with the class. I often found myself missing information which then made me fall behind in the class. In regard to the blog posts, this was somet...
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Triangle Situation

The standard principal-agent model often takes on a triangle shape when one member must answer to both a superior as well as a client.  This can produce a series of issues and challenges. It can be difficult to please everyone involved in a triangle relationship due to differing in opinions, to conflicting viewpoints.  My experience working in a member service job showed me firsthand the struggles of a triangle principal-agent model.  In high school, I worked at a Tennis Club for my town. It was a member only tennis club and I worked as a member services representative. My main responsibilities included working retail in our pro-shop as well as helping schedule tennis lessons with the members and tennis pros. The tennis club had many different levels of tennis professionals to take lessons with as well as different types of lessons. The club offered different types of lessons like a group, private, one-on-one, team and more. The lessons were taught by different ...
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Conflict in Workplace

Blog Post Econ 490 I am happy to say that I have never been involved in a conflict in the workplace. I do remember an incident that took place while in high school at a restaurant where some of my friends worked. The restaurant was a new hamburger joint in town and most of the employees were high school students besides upper management. I had several friends that worked at the establishment and I remember them telling me a story of conflict in the workplace. Since this is a real situation I will be adjusting the story to keep the privacy of the employees involved. The issue was between two male employees. It was the fall of my senior year and one of the employees, let's call him Brad, had been dating his girlfriend for a few years. He was planning on going to the homecoming dance that was a few weeks out with her. Out of the blue, Brad was dumped by his girlfriend. Brad was shocked by his breakup and then found out that his girlfriend had been going out with one of the cowo...
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Fairness & Gift Exchange

I found the three New York Times articles to be interesting. Each article focused on different things however there was an overlapping theme of humans being good and fair people.  The article titled, The Power of Altruism , focused on the problem that western society has created the assumption that people are naturally selfish. The article talked about how expecting people to be selfish effects their inclination to be good. They talked about examples of implementing fines for parents that are late picking their children up from school and limiting vacation days of firefighters and the negative impact it had created in that community or organization. Creating situations to become more economic and less focused on altruism has caused, “utilitarian thinking has become the normal way we do social analysis and see the world. We’ve wound up with a society that is less cooperative, less trusting, less effective and less lovely.” The article titled , When a Child Thinks Life is Un...
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Decisions

When I was applying to colleges as a senior in High School, I applied with the intent to major in engineering. I was accepted into the engineering programs at nine of the ten schools that I applied to, the one school that had not accepted my application was my top school, the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign. I was extremely disappointed when I found out, however, the University of Illinois had admitted me into the Division of General studies program. I was still able to attend my dream school however I needed to go through the application process once I completed all the prerequisites to transfer into the school of engineering after I completed my freshman year. This meant I needed to go through another year of applications before I could be in the major. I decided that going to my dream school and having to sacrifice another year without being in a major was something I was willing to do. I committed to the University of Illinois and began my college career. When I met...
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Personal Experience with Opportunism

ECON 490 Blog Post 9/22 Opportunism is an interesting topic especially when it is related to economics. Opportunities are available for people to take advantage of more often than not. It is a personal character that guides the decision-making process of being a good citizen or not. There are many stories I can think of about people not maintaining good character and not being a good citizen. I think one of the most notorious cases of opportunism is the Bernie Madoff investment scandal. He took advantage of thousands of people including high-profile celebrity clients to average Americans. He created a $50-$65 billion dollar loss for investors and stole about $20 million for himself. I believe that acting opportunistically always relates to the theory of "karma" or "what goes around comes around." Bernie Madoff may have been very rich at one point in his life, however, he was caught by the authorities and now only makes $40 a month in his 150-year prison senten...
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Post 9/15

After arriving at the University of Illinois as a freshman, I decided that I wanted to become involved with the Greek Community on campus. I had heard many positive things by the older kids I knew that had attended the University. I went through the formal sorority recruitment process and found a chapter that was the best fit for me. During this recruitment process, I was completely unaware that I was joining an organization that would greatly impact and enhance my collegiate experience as a whole. I immediately started getting involved in the different aspects of the chapter. I was a part of philanthropic, recruitment, social, operations, and other committees during my first year involved in Greek life. As a freshman, everything was brand new to me and I just decided to do the duties I was assigned no questions asked. As time passed, my friends and I started to realize that there were some flaws within the organization we were involved in. We found certain areas of the chapter ...
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