Final Post

I learn a great deal of things in this course. The way how approach to economics of organizations was very special because it induce students to actively participate in the course flow. In addition to this, the approach makes the material a lot easier by learning many concepts step by step through excel homework and lectures. Also, blog post assignment is like digesting newly learned knowledge, which is connecting important concepts of economics to my real lives so it is not easily perished in my brain. While the course does not require tons of work, it fully teaches many valuable concepts in economics of organization.

There were two rules in this course; (1) that attendance was not required and (2) that deadlines were soft. First, if attendance is not required, it naturally drops the attendance rate during the semester. It might discourage a professor to teach in class if too few students participate in the class. On the other hand, it also increases the quality of lecture. Because students that attend the class only for attendance is not likely to focus on the lecture. By second nature, the students who are left for curiosity are more likely to participate in the course, which makes the quality of the class higher. In addition to this, if attendance is not required, it gives impression to students that they are respected as being responsible individual. It motivates students rather more responsible and professional.

For second rule, if deadlines of assignments were soft, it naturally drops the rate of assignment submission in time. Of course, it can discourage an instructor because some students are not following the flow of learning as the course materials were designed. However, it can give motivation for some students to do the assignment as they are given some freedom to control the deadlines. In addition to this, some people, who have very limited time during semester, can be more flexible to find right time to do the tase so it is better for them to speculate on meaning of assignments. Better learning experience is possible if student takes the responsibility seriously.

For my experience in this semester, I have to admit that I was irresponsible to follow the flow as the course is designed. I tried to attend every single class and do the homework up to date in the beginning of the semester. The progress and my promise were kept until thanksgiving weeks, however it was not easy to be responsible once I am out of track. To the end of semester, workload is getting heavier and heavier, which makes me to forget the most softer or understandable deadlines. This result can discourage myself and an instructor as well. However, I was very satisfied with the course policy until then. Because those two rules in this course made myself more professional and active to the course. I felt like I was treated as responsible man, which increase the productivity and interest about the course as well. I like to have enough time to think about something. In addition to this, if the deadlines are soft, students are not giving up at the end. For example, CS374:Computation and Algorithm class that I took has strict deadlines and require tons of work each week. In consequence, students are severely stressed out and many of them ended up with giving up taking the course.

If I were to recommend changes in the approach, I would keep the soft deadline rule but I would change the attendance required. Even though trust between an instructor and students is important, there are a great deal of student who takes advantage of it. I would still respect the individual schedule about the assignment deadline. However, required attendance may force students to come to the class and make them sit in the class room, but it will give better feedback for both an instructor and students.

In this semester, I really appreciate this course because it makes me learn invaluable concepts not only from the course materials, but also participating in the class as organization. While communicating with a professor through online and offline, for example the class direction decision moments and all the policies about the course, I learned about economics of organization as live.

Principal Agent Model

There are a great deal of principal agent problems as we have relationship with another people and problems. The principal agent problems can be found in our daily lives and professional field that deals with law, insurance, or more serious problems. I want to start off with my family story first, and then insurance story will be dealt.

Since I was born, my parent live with my father's parent. Grandfather and grandmother live with my parent, my brother, and me. It is mostly peaceful and happy but sometimes there are conflicts between my parent and grandparent. Especially, my mother and grandmother were sometimes having arguments. The arguments are usually from the difference between age groups. My grandmother used to live in the period when woman is ought to take care of all housework, which includes all meals, cleaning, child care, and all other housework are thought to be job for only wife or woman. And husband or man is ought to work for their family, which means making money is their job. However, my mother is a fashion designer. She likes to work globally, reading books to learn new things, and travel to see another world. She loves her job rather than taking care of housework. They live in the opposite world. My grandmother wanted her to come home early as soon as she finishes her work to prepare dinner for family, but my mother wanted to take peaceful rest and read a book after exhausting work days.

 Between them, my father is the one who tried to understand both sides of opinions to resolve the tension. My father was wise. He was entirely supporting mother's work life. He respected her opinion and life as herself to do whatever she has dreamed. He did not want her to give up her job because of him, or any other obstacles. In addition to this, he also respected grandmother's opinion. He truly understood the situation and thoughts of her and tried to persuade her to fade away from old customs. As he put an effort to removing the gap between old and new life customs, the conflicts between my mother and grandmother have been relieved and they respect each other even though they are still subtle things that cannot be agreed on.

In addition, my wife was involved in a car accident during her travel in Jeju island. It was crazy because driver under influence crushed her car even though she was on the right lane to drive. Her car was literally crushed and the car was not usable anymore. It was a serious and urgent situation. There were no family or friends to help her physically right away because she was on a trip and she was far from home.  Therefore, she called an agent to talk about how to deal with this matter. Even though, the post-accident situation is quite systemized, her agent was trying to satisfy her about compensation and any care she wanted. She did not have to talk about the accident details and compensation directly to the person who also involved in an accident. The agent she hired was dealing with all the cost and insurance problems instead of her to resolve the situation as clean as possible. It was also possible because the accident occurred because of the other car, not her.

From daily basis to a car accident situation, principal agent models can be found in our lives frequently. To resolve the problems, the agent should be knowledgeable about someone or situation because he or she is the person who understand the both side of opinions. It needs some professional knowledge, genuine mindset, and logic to resolve the tension.

Conflict

I have participated in many kinds of organizations and also I have experience a plenty of conflicts. For this blog, I want to share my experience in tennis club. There are a great deal of small or huge conflicts in the tennis club. 

My tennis club consists of more than sixty people and regular practice meetings are held on Saturday. We use six courts for four hours. Each member is able to vote for which session during those four hours to participate to play double matches. We play double matches so someone needs to create the game set for twenty four sets' double match based on the player's proficiency and preference. A lot of conflicts are made from making the sets of the games. Because every member tends to think that each own proficiency is higher than other whose proficiency is similar to him or her. In other words, people tend to believe that they are playing better than they really are. It spawns a lot of problems in making matches. In addition to this, relationship between each people also matter when making the games. Some people have a bad relationship with certain people. If the game maker does not know about this relationship situation, then it can also triggers the problems. Therefore, it has a lot of things to consider when creating the game sets for each week. 

In this sense, Jason claimed the complaints about the game sets. His main argument was that he always played with people who are playing worse than him. Also, he thought that he is playing fewer than he voted for. However, the game maker, Tom, who has intimate relationship with Jason, thought that he is actually not playing better as much as Jason thought and Tom thought it was fair to play. The proficiency of tennis is very difficult to measure. A great deal of things can have influence on the result of game such wind, luck, condition, sense, and so on. Especially, tennis is one of the very sensitive sports, which means that it is difficult to decide who is playing better or worse objectively. It is even more when those two comparable players have about same proficiency. Jason was mad at Tom's game making, so he just did not show up for games even though he was designated to play. This was very disrespectful way to express his feeling and thoughts because his pair and opponents were also not able to play for those session and they were judged by him that they play worse than him in a bad way. 

Tom and Jason were ready to fight again each other. They started to avoid the situation to meet with each other. However, one day, Tom who is older than Jason tried to grab a beer and talk about this situation. Tom explained him how he felt about Jason's behavior. Tom suggested him to apologize for tennis club members for the behavior and making loud problems. Tom and Jason was quite in a good mood and the situation seems to be about to end. 

However, after that day, Jason started to avoid him. Jason never talks to him and did not greet to him. Jason just ignored him. He might be such a person who has too strong pride. He just did not like someone advised him and made suggestion for him. After that day, Jason never even looked at Tom. Tom's reaction was disappointment. He was disappointed of him very much because the reason he invited him to drink some beer and talked about the situation is that he has at least some affectionate to him. However, his had was perfectly ignored and Tom also started to avoid him as well.  They were now strangers each other.

This relationship started to be apparent in other members. People are not trying to show their opinion but they are somewhat dividing into two groups. It was very bad for tennis club atmosphere. If Jason acted with more polite and consideration with complaining, it did not happen. Jason was too aggressive about the gam sets. The purpose of the tennis club is to leisurely play tennis with each other and help each other to play well. At least Tom tried to resolve the solution by having some heart to heart conversation at the end, however, Jason reacted negatively. If Tom understood that his pride was too high to accept advise, maybe he could find another way to resolve it as well. 

Discipline and Punishment

I have encountered a great deal of situation that also contains some discipline and punishment. As a son in my family, as a student in my classroom, as a member in military, I have seen or involved in the situation of disciple and punishment. Especially, I want to talk about my experience at military about punishment.

In military, there are specific and strict rules to follow, which applies to all soldiers in the organization. If the rules are not obeyed, the people who are against the rules, will be punished according to the accredited rules guideline. It is like a law in the society. For example, if a soldier is convicted as a driver under influence, he or she cannot be promoted, decrease monthly salary, statement submission, and so on. The specific amount is followed by the rules and details can be decided by highest rank of that squadron or organization. In addition to this, if it is related to violating law, then it is connected to the department which takes care of laws related issues.

I agree with that this strictly ruled punishment has a great deal of influence on the organization itself. It surely maintains the organization from any unexpected problems that are harmful to the organization. However, I think that the more important thing is discipline than punishment. In my opinion, the definition of discipline is broader than punishment. Discipline can involve some punishment. But discipline also contains the whole process of educating, which can be extension of punishment.

As an example, there was an airman who newly coming to our flight group office. Even though he was trained in the training camp, there should be something that is still vague or unfamiliar to him. He made a security accident at the first week of his placement to our office. In the flight group office, for security reason, it is prohibited to insert any kind of USB cable to computer without permission. It was somewhat basic common sense in the military community. However, he inserted his MP3 player USB cable to the office computer to charge his device. This is a pretty scary moment. Right after he inserted it, the information security department called to our office and figured out what is going on. Then, he got punished as the following rules such as reducing vacation days. The crucial thing in this situation is to realize him to make sure he is not going do this kind of problem again. But the method was wrong, in my opinion, from this point (after punishment). Every member in the office started to label him as a problematic person. They treated him like the transparent, which means that they ignored him. They blamed all the problems including subtle things on him, which was almost bullying. It was obviously not a proper method to discipline him.

If I were the man who has the authority to discipline him, I would have conversation with him at first than shouting and ignoring his opinion. He was new to the organization, which means that he needs some time to adjust the circumstance. After  the ruled punishment, I would help him to adjust the circumstance as person to person. I would teach him about responsibility as getting punished, then make him understand what he has done.

He who was treated like the transparent or a problematic person, had very long time to adjust to the office due to wrong method of discipline. Therefore, it is very important to make moderate or adequate discipline and punishment in the organization for itself and each member in it as well.

Team production with gift exchange

There are a great deal of experiences that I participated in the team and work together to make accomplishments. For example, I have involved in the team projects for presentation about starting up the new store in Urbana and Champaign area, or making a new board game and so on. These team activities were interesting and productive.

However, the team that has the most diversity and variety of people is my military team. In military, there are a great deal of background of people because they are collected from all over the nation without requiring strict limitations such as education level. In addition to this, it is mandatory to take a military service in the age between twenty to thirty, which makes sense that literally random people over the nation are gathered in the military. The reason why I stated this is because I realized that people around me (or hangout with me) are at least partially similar to me. For example, if I met a person in the class, then the person and I have at least have same education level, which we both decided to go to university to learn something. On the other hand, people that I met in the military are very different in that wise. One guy was a professional marathon player, and another guys were a plumber, electrician, heating specialist, students from electrical engineering, computer science, English, French, business, and so on. In addition to this, each one's characteristics were very different. Some people are very active and outgoing. Another people are quiet and serious. We were so different. Therefore, I want to talk about this team production with gift exchange.

In our team, one of the important duty was to prepare for welcoming foreign guests at Seoul Airbase. To welcome them, we spread red carpet, warm up or cool down the temperature in indoor facility, trim the garden and flowers, check if anything wrong with lights or electrical related issues, interpret between foreign people and our team if needed, and so on. In this situation, our gift were beautifully exchanged to make a great job. People who had background of  driving trucks, manlifts, and other ground work vehicles helped with moving a heavy stuff such as red carpets. People who had back ground of maintaining facilities was in charge of indoor temperature, people from electrical engineering and electrician background checked all the electrical related conditions for the building and facilities. People from gardener background took care of the garden cleanness and beauty. And I helped with interpreting conversation between Immigration officers and flying crews or pilots.

In addition to the background, there were many different characteristics. Some people are gifted to lead the work. They have stern voice, understand the situation, and have many experiences. On the other hand, another people are good at listening to others, behave rapidly, and respect other opinions. If there were only type of people who like to lead another people, this team might be hard to be successful. Besides the background and speciality, a good combination of characteristic is very important as well. I can say that these characteristics are also the gifts and this is also the important gift exchanges.

In this situation, I realized that there are no such a thing that can be superior to other things. One gift cannot make the huge accomplishments. People from a variety of gifts can make the bigger accomplishments if it were successful. If the team consists of the similar gift, this job cannot be done. It was possible because each people have own gifts and collaborate them.

Managing Future Income Risk

Description:



A great deal of choices made in my life leads to shape the future of myself. From elementary school, I am very interested in my future job and what I am passionate about. I believed that studying is one of a way to prepare for my future. I really enjoyed studying. On the other hand, I personally love drawing. Art is one that I can really focus on and makes my mind calm. As I grew up to be a middle school student, I am still not confident about what I really enjoy. However, I wanted to study hard because knowing new knowledge makes me feel seeing wider perspective of the world. 

In a second year of high school in Korea, students have to make decision about what kind of field to pursue for future. For example, the options might be among university-STEM area (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math), university-others area that includes liberal arts, business, media, and so on. Music, arts, sports are also the options. Therefore, If I wanted to study engineering in university, I had to make a decision in the 2nd year of high school. Since I am not very good at math, I chose to study liberal arts of science. After graduated from high school, I chose to move to the United States to study new area; computer science.

At first, I studied at Oakton Community College to transfer to 4-years institution like UIUC. The  thought of studying hard stays until I transferred to University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign. I managed to get 3.9/4.0 GPA and successfully transferred to UIUC as computer science and economics major. Studying is one type of reliever (Insurance) to me, which might reduce income risk. In addition to this, pursuing computer science is also a safe choice for me because it is very popular in the industry and well known for the job that will never make you hungry in the future. I am fluctuating between finding my passion versus reducing risk for future. If I looked back the path that I stepped, I preferred to reduce any risk for my life. I preferred to make the safest decision among the choices.

Last summer, I worked at department of Computer Science UIUC as a research assistant. My research area was network and information centric area, which were appealing to me at first but I might not continue to do it because I found that I am not super excited about researching. I am still browsing to find what I am really passionate about, but the fields are narrowed down to somewhere between computer science and arts. Therefore I am applying internship for next semester because I want to make sure which area fits for me. My next goal is to get internship during next semester for data analytics or software engineer. All these experiences will be stacked up to be an eye toward the future.

My brother managed most of situation and decision well and now works as a HR manager at Korean corporate, SINSEGAE. He also thought that studying hard is one type of preparation for his future even though he did not know what to do for future when he was young. He graduated as a business major at a well known university, Seong Kyun Kwan university and experienced internships at a company in the United States and SK Telecom in Korea as a business marketer. He decided to have many business related experience before full time job and successfully got a full time job. He managed situations safer ways but just interest fields are different from mine.

Connecting the Dots

Connecting the Dots (Questionnaire format)
(1) Are the themes from one post that tie into other posts? if so, what are those connections?

There are connecting dots among the themes of blog posts. My first blog was to write about my alias economics John Bates Clark and connect his job to our class work. Then, I wrote about the transaction cost, opportunism, team structure and "illinibucks". All the themes are tied as an economics of organization. Transaction cost introduces any type of cost that occurs for the transaction. I was supposed to write about my experience in organization and transaction cost related to my experience. Opportunism is discussed in the class that it is like a car sneaks in at the end of merging lanes instead of waiting in the right lane. For team structure, I wrote about the most successful organization in my life based on the text book's explanation. Lastly, I wrote about "iilinibucks", which is the way of thinking how to line up in the huge organization like a college.

For the better organization, the member should understand the concept of transaction cost and opportunism and take advantage of them. Also, "illinibucks" gave me time to think about how to efficiently manage the priority in the organization. Therefore, each theme has its own small concept but they are tied into one big concept of the organization.

(2) Aside from addressing the prompt are there ways to connect what you wrote about to course themes? Were there connections that are more obvious to you now than at the time you wrote the post? if so, can you elaborate on that?

At first, it was difficult to connect one theme to another themes. Because I focused on each week's blog post and sometimes I could not understand the theme as well. I was more like rather concentrating on each blog post than connecting the dots. In addition to this, it was vague to connect each theme with few posts. However, I can see the connection between each concepts of blog posts by reviewing them now.

(3) Has your process for writing these posts evolved? Please explain how that has come about.

When I started to write blog posts, it was even hard for me to follow blog post rules. For example, I tend to be slightly off the topic and I did not satisfy minimum counts of words. However, after reviewing and responding to professor's comments and seeing other student's blogs, my writing has been evolved.(At least, trying to focus on the theme and following the basic rules). In addition to this, I could discuss about blog posts in the class time, which is helpful to understand more about the post's theme. Plus, as I learned about organizations of economics, some knowledge learned through the courses helps to understand next's concepts.

(4) Now put yourself in the position of writing the prompt (this one or other prompts for future posts). What would you like to see? Can you give some reasons for that.

If I put myself in the position of writing the prompt, I would see the connection to the course. I feel like writing blog posts is digesting raw knowledge. Therefore, if the writer can connect the concept and apply the concept to another in writings, this is a good sign of learning the stuff. Next, I would also consider examples as important values. It is ideal to learn the course context in real lives, which means that invaluable information in textbook is converted or melted in each one's life. Therefore, I would see connectivity and experience in writings.