Course Reflection

Going into my first round of 400 level economics classes, I wasn't sure what to expect. I had seen previous classes focus a lot on concepts and driving home the importance of understanding each of these concepts. When I put three 400 level classes on my schedule, I certainly believed that they would be the traditional, here's what you need to do type of classes. This economics class was definitely not like the others.

For starters, the topics in the class were much more interesting and practical than the ones in my other classes. For the other classes, concepts and memorizing definitions became the habit. I was flooded constantly with information to remember. In this organizations class, everything felt so applicable, which was evident in the blog posts with recent experiences. As a class, we began to see economics in things we never saw before.

As far as the class structure goes, it was clearly different than any other class. Class time itself certainly placed a focus on understanding and learning the material. Unlike every other lecture we experience, which consists of an hour or longer of boredom that leads to distractions, this class, combining a lecture time and time for discussion, helped the concepts and ideas sink in more, because we participated in them. It was stated at the beginning of the year that we are here to gain human capital, and discussion certainly helped my intrinsic motivation for the class.

Attendance and the soft deadlines are two of the more interesting parts of this class to look at. While bonus points for attendance did incentivize me to come to class a little bit, I often make it a priority to get to class every day. I didn't attend every single class, but the bonus point incentive wasn't a big deal by mid semester. I came because I enjoyed the class more. I am not sure how I feel about the soft deadline policy in this class. I understand the approach from a human error perspective, in that we all miss assignments sometimes, but I think for me, as someone who will procrastinate if given the opportunity, the soft deadlines sometimes hurt me. Since the blog posts weren't due at a specific time, I often put them off to a later time because I knew I could do so. If the deadline was a set time, I think I would have done them all on Friday.

While I struggled at times with the excel homework, I did enjoy that part of the class. There wasn't too much match involved that made it unbearable. Plus, the explanation after each problem was very helpful. The ability to understand the problem and the graphs theoretically was important to me, otherwise I was sometimes staring at equations that I didn't totally understand. When it came to time spent, it was usually an hour or two.

Despite my stating above that I procrastinated on the blog posts at times, they were the most interesting part of the class for me. I enjoyed thinking about the concepts we learned and applying them to work scenarios. I spent an hour or so preparing what I wanted to say, and then proceeded to form the posts as I structured them. I enjoyed talking about my time at the sports website I worked at, because that is something I am passionate about doing and it was cool to see the economic and organizational view points in those situations.

Overall, I did enjoy this class. I think there are things, because of the way they were presented, that I will remember and continue to see in my work and in organizations. I am sure there will be times where I send emails because something I remember from this class will appear to me.

Principal-Agent Triangle Model

The principal-agent model exists all over in the workplace. From insurance, which was discussed in class, to retail stores, that model is everywhere. However, not all principal-agent models are bilateral. Some models contain one agent and two principals, creating a triangle of association.

I haven't worked in too many jobs, as my recent posts show. Most of my work experience and interaction come from online interactions with people and communication over certain mediums. But, for an example of a principal-agent triangle model, I turn to my experience working in a factory, which I have also discussed before.

In my first year at the factory, I worked with a few people who went to my high school. We would all work in the same area, except for when one of us was on the machine. The machine in the factory made certain parts that went way faster than if any human put them together individually. When it comes to the machine, it had three different parts, each that required one person to manage it.

Our managers decided that even thought we were new, we should try to master one part of the machine so that more of the experienced workers could handle other tasks. So, one week, they decided to throw us on the machine. This created a conflict of expectations, which ties in to the principal-agent theory.

For this machine, a decent learning curve exists. Even though it is a very repetitive task, the speed of the machine makes it tough to keep up at first. The machine had six slots that would rotate around a circle, and three parts needed to be inserted in certain spots so the machine could pick them up and put them together. Our manager decided to rotate us through the second part, which consisted of us picking up two pieces and putting them in the right spot to get the machine to pick them up.

From the jump, I knew there would be a conflict of expectation. The other two workers assumed that we would be able to keep up enough to consistently churn out plenty of these parts and have the machine stop minimally. However, that was not the case. Early on, when we worked at that spot, the machine would stop constantly. It was evident that the other workers were frustrated with our work, while the managers understood it would take time.

After a couple weeks of continuing struggle to get a hang of the machine, one of the workers went to the managers and suggested that we move to a different part of the machine and move one of there more experienced workers back to the part we were working on. While the managers were hesitant at first, they eventually agreed and placed us on the easy part at times while also working in certain times where a couple of us would work the second station.

This compromise ties in with what we have talked about with team production, and with the paper my team analyzed. The idea is to get maximum efficiency out of your workers, and team production is the best way to gain that efficiency. Also, in the situation with the machine, every worker monitors one another and how efficient and productive they are during that time.