Thoughts about the course: my Final Blog Post.

I would like to start off this blogpost by introducing my thoughts on an article that I have recently read. The article was analyzing why students in the Economic programs or Business programs in their undergraduate years are having a hard time finding jobs compared to the students in Engineering programs these days (sadly, it is true for South Korea at the moment. I believe it is slowly turning into a similar situation in US too). The writer's main claim was that even though the students who study in the Economics or Business programs aim for officer or manager positions, the things they learn in the university has nothing to do with their future jobs. Rather, the students were, and are learning theoretical things in their classes. "The things that they teach in Business schools are how to wrap the cover of a product in a beautiful way. They do not teach how to sell the product. It's sad, but I see this as the inevitable truth." (This is a direct translation from the article)

Reading this article, myriads of thoughts came into my head in and out. And in the center of those thoughts, I slowly pondered how my ECON 490: Economics of Organization class was done this semester. I had to, because this class actually was a new, fresh experience in regards of the way of learning Economics with my years in UIUC.

The main point I wanted to give credit to my professor and his class was that he was actually trying to tie up his experience as a CIO (and associate dean) for UIUC eLearning in the College of Business. Instead of reading the text book and memorizing the main concepts for the midterm and finals, we were to actually think about the real life example from the experiences that we went through while we were inside the organizations ourselves. While doing so, we went through the concepts we were to learn in the textbooks with some real life examples from the professor in class, which actually helped me to get a little bit more of grasp on the concepts we had to comprehend. Some people might say 'Hey, that's just something that can happen in class. What's so special about it?' Maybe they are true. But I also know that most of the professors in Econ department DO NOT try to use out of class materials to convey the fact that out of the class materials are actually important for the future. I'm not saying that in-class materials are not important, but I feel like the education towards the pragmatic things are now kicking in as more important point in today's job markets.

The excel work sheet for each concepts were actually a great source to learn the concepts that helped me to familiarize myself with the main topics of the class. Although the concepts were to be approached by using examples in real organization situations, getting a firm grasp on the theoretical part is nevertheless an important thing to do for understanding. There were quite frequent typos, which made me giggle while reading the excel sheet over and over again for understanding it thoroughly. But I think the excel homeworks were a really great way of learning things with explanations written by the professor himself, making me feel that he actually put in effort to give us the learning we need in a way that we could access whenever and wherever we wanted to see.

Blog posts were also an unique way to check our current status in the class. I really liked how the topics were related to our course, and we had to 'twist' our thoughts to give the insights that actually satisfied the professor. His feed backs were given out in the class after the blog post was written, and sadly, I often saw him not too much satisfied with the blog posts that were written. One thing that might help the students learn the additional thoughts that requires 'twist' in thoughts would be a little bit of more emphasis in the class while describing it. To be honest, the class was actually in a slightly fast pace. I know that the students didn't ask too much questions, and as a result the professor didn't have too much to elaborate on the concepts that would rather have been fun if explored (can't blame anyone on that!). However, even if the students do not ask, I believe that getting exposed to the concepts, which would be just passed away without even a notice, is a great difference to the students' knowledge. I know it sounds like one has to put the food in students' mouth and actually move the students' jaws up and down with hands to make them chew, but I feel it really makes a great difference by knowing the concept and dwelling on it once more to write the blog post.

Overall, I really enjoyed the class. The topics of the class were very interesting to me and the methods of teaching was fresh experience for me as a student. A thing that is etched inside my head is this: "You will not use these things when you are starting your career after 2~3 years. When you start your career, it is highly likely that you will not start your position as a manager." Of course, the specifics of the class are aimed for managerial positions. However, I think there are more to this class than just learning the textbook materials that helps you calculate the economic rent with the formula. I know I learned much more than what I had to learn in this class, and I know this class will be remembered when I am trying to communicate with my staffs 15 years later in my job place.

Yesterday was an umbrella, today the pencil case. What am I going to forget tomorrow? - Personal Reputations: the shameful development of carelessness and straying from it.

Please do not forget your umbrella today. Love, mom. : The unpleasant memory of carelessness.

When I was in my elementary school years, I was famous for losing things to my mom. It was very fortunate that I did not lose valuable things, but I often forgot to bring those trivial things such as umbrella, pencil case, and so on. My mom was somewhat worried about this clumsiness inside me, and made me go to private institutes for concentration, such as Kendo or meditation of Qi. As one can expect, nothing really worked. I guess it was partially because I was not old enough to realize why it was important to fix the carelessness, thus resulting in inefficient results of behaviors. 

This reputation that was only limited to my family began to develop on to my social standing when this continued on my middle school years. I was gradually fixing it by then, but it was not enough to show others that I lost things frequently. This undermined my image, making me shown to others as somewhat irresponsible and careless. The following limitations that came to me due to this degrading of my personal image were quite a lot. But the most serious thing was that I was losing the trust of people on those trivial matters. When the things were actually coming to my skin, I was already in a situation where I lost a large part of my trust, and I felt like I had to do something about it. 

When I got into high school, it was a perfect chance for me to reset my reputation. It was a whole new environment with people not having prior knowledge of my carelessness. Also, I had tried enthusiastically during the middle school years to try to remember things more deliberately, doing things such as writing post it memos for the things I often forget and checking them often while having the memo in my pocket. I had some mistakes made in my high school years, but it was not something serious compared to my elementary and middle school years. My reputation was back on normal track, and I was not too much different from other 'normal' people while I was in my high school years.

However, while fixing this bad habit of mine, I had faced numerous situations where I had to 'cash it in' with my bad reputations. One of the things that I remember was in my middle school years, while I was in the broadcasting team for my school. Since people (including the teachers) knew I was forgetting things a lot, instead of giving me the control of the broadcasting system during the important events such as morning assembly (where the principle of the school came out and gave words to the students, very formal weekly event), I was to give out signs for the people who were actually controlling the machines about when to do what. I had a list of things written down just for that moment, so I guess it looked more safe to the teachers for me to do things instantly then preparing the equipment, which could have caused a lot of trouble if something was missing.

The government's principal-agent problem: turning a public good into a private good, 'Incheon National Airport'.

What is the government's intention: Asymmetrical information and the privatization of 'Incheon National Airport.'

In the year late 2009, South Korean citizens were shocked by government's announcement. The government announced that they would privatize a nation owned airport, Incheon National Airport.' They claimed that the public enterprise had to be further advanced in technology and management, and was planning to sell the 49% share of the airport to foreign enterprise. The background information about the Korea at that time was this: government lacked fund due to a nationwide project called 'Four major rivers project.' (I would not go deep into the project itself at this post. You can find it on wikipedia.org by typing four major rivers project.) Even though 49.9% of the citizens disagreed on implementing the project due to several reasons, such as environmental issues, the funding and the project time, and so on. However, the government proceeded anyways. The project cost around 22 trillion dollars (if the estimate of the Korean won was converted to US dollars) and the government had to make up some money in order to keep the country rolling. 

Majority of the Korean citizens weren't able to understand the government's decision when they claimed that the airport 'will learn the most advanced techniques' from the world's leading enterprise. Incheon national airport was #1 in rankings of Airport Service Quality inspected by Airport Council International. Besides, according to the Incheon airport customs, the airport was making around $9 billion profit in year 2009.

The decision of privatizing a public entity is usually made when that public entity is lacking in performance. Since the deficit of a public entity is filled up by the tax of the taxpayers, or citizens, privatizing a public entity who does not improve in performance would be a good choice for the company to survive in the jungle according to 'survival of the fittest.'

However, the Incheon airport was making a worthwhile profit, and the authority figures of other renowned airports were actually visiting the Incheon airport to learn the techniques and management methods. So the government funding issues were brought into attention by the people. However, our three-legged principle agent model starts here.

Who will take the airport if privatized? What's behind all this?: Suspicious acts of government and the Macquarie group.

**From this point and further, nothing is proved to be true. The facts are only up to an extent, and rest will be my assumptions based on my personal thoughts and viewpoints.**

Another shock came to the people of Korea when further details came into attention by the internet. Macquarie group, who were the closest to buying most of the shares released by the government, had some personal relationships with the president at that time.There were 3 close people who had personal relationships with the president in the Macquarie group Korea, including the nephew of the president who was CEO of the Macquarie IMM.

So the government here is the agent, and the citizens are the principle, who elects the president and the government officials to represent their thoughts to run the country. It is a little bit off the context, but we can see the people related to the president as the third leg, or the customer of the lawyer in the prompt.

The government officials who are elected by voting should serve the citizens who made them be in their spot. However, the u-bar of the agents, or the government officials, are much too big to just sniff and back away. As this information was released on the web, (the newspapers were controlled by the government, thus was unable to report these information. actually, the web was not a sufficient place for gathering information related to this either; most of the information related to Macquarie group at that time on the web was deleted after 5 minutes they were uploaded on the web) people were furious about the not-even-verified fact that the president was using his power and the asymmetrical information that the people gave him to use it for the management of the country.

The situation, however, is not similar to those of ordinary bilateral, or three-legged principal agent situations. People are a part of the country, which the president runs. This means that people does not really have too much authority over the agent that they have hired. The only way to stop the president from running wild is to impeach the president, which is not really an ideal method. Plus, not all people are too interested in the politics. There are a portion of people who are negligent of what is going on with the governmental policies. In other words, compared to our normal principal-agent model, the principal has too less methods to control the agent.

Of course, the situation doesn't see eye to eye between the principle and the agent. The principle does not really care as long as the performance of the agent is in the right path. However, the agent's u-bar, which is the alternative choice that he could take instead of keeping the oath that he made when elected is just too big. If he had done the privatization, and one of the 'hidden action' underlying was due to that u-bar, he would have lost all the trust that he had achieved during his life. And in this case, the principle and the customer of the agent would not want to meet eye to eye. The method that the citizen can use to control the agent would be an mindset of 'we are the owner of the country.' (I hate to say this, but fact is fact; to be honest, Korean's mindset of citizenship is not too high, compared to other countries who are in similar level of economic/social development and welfare.)

This matter, I personally think, is a little bit away from the prompt. However, government officials-laypeople relationship has been one of the most emphasized principle-agent relationships, and the thing just came up into my mind while I was thinking about the prompt. In order to make the input, which is the vote, into output, people would have to have more interest in the politics and have a better mindset as a citizen of a country.

Follow me, and you will win the game - competitive gaming group experience and conflicts inside it.

Being a competitive game player, and working as a team for a competition.

Back in 2010, I was absorbed in to playing a game called 'Defense of the Ancient (DOTA)'. If I were to describe how much I was into it, I was a member of a group consisted of 5 people, who one the second place for the competition, which made me able to have an experience to play in the WCG 2010, which took place in Singapore, as one of the two teams representing my home country. One might think like 'it's just a game, you just play and you get the result, what's so hard about it?' Well, the fact is that competing with players of top tiers around the world and trying to win over them is not that easy. As a matter of fact, it's really hard, and I would like to describe it as 'making the plays into art.' Our team, although we did not have any sponsors like other famous teams, gathered and practiced the game plays for around 8~9 hours every day for around 9 months. Even the practicing was really intense, and since our mindsets were not too much different from the professional game players while we practiced, I would consider this as a work experience.

To explain a little bit more about DOTA, it is a 'multiplayer online battle arena mod' type of game, which simply means you choose a hero for yourself inside the game and destroy everything that is not your ally. By earning more resources through killing the enemies, one gets an advantage over the enemy team. Thus, making the gear difference through earning more gold is the most important task for the game. there are 5 players for each team, and the sub-objective to win the game is to cooperate and overwhelm the opponents with better tactics. Although individual performance helps, cooperation is the main focus of the game, just like a basketball game.The team with the better cooperation and tactics will win the game, and to perform such a thing, the 5 players are expected to experience games together as a team for a long time.

Team cooperation 101: follow the leader's order.

We ranked 3rd place in the tournament, and we earned $1000 as a result. It might not seem too efficient and cost-worthy if one looks at the prize amount, but the main point was to challenge ourselves in a competitive environment, which was a great experience that I would never get again in my life. So, as mentioned earlier, the main point of the game was to be familiar with how the teammates are going to act in a certain type of situation, making less errors which would minimize the loss for the team and win the game by gaining more gold and gear advantage from the gold. This sounds easy, but the team fight phase ends in about 8~12 seconds, and each player has to 'calculate' which skill should be used of the four skills he has in about 2 seconds. The decision of which skill is to be used should be based on the composition of the team's heroes, the location of where the team is fighting, and which enemy hero should be prioritized. So again, it requires a lot of teamwork and practice. 

When we practice in a game, each of my team members were one of the finest players in my home country for DOTA. Individual skills were the highest tier, and everyone had the general idea of what to do in the game. However, each member had their own unique personal characteristics, and mediating the differences were especially hard for us during the practice. For example, people had their own thoughts for how to act in a certain type of situation, and sometimes ended up losing the team fight because of failing to complying with the other team members. Although our team had a leader, we struggled a lot because members thought they should do what they think is right for the situation. We kept on doing this for the first three months of our practice. Our team won a lot during the practice, but also lost a lot. It was really hard for us to tolerate the losses, even from the public games which we were not expected to lose. 

We had to come up with a solution for this matter. Our team gathered up, and discussed this crucial problem that we had. Team members were quite direct about their opinion; they didn't think that the order coming from the leader was not the best decision for the situation. We agreed that it made sense, but thought had better ideas that could resolve the team fight phase much better. However, this difference of opinions induced dispersion of the coordination which was the most crucial thing, and resulting in losses that was not necessary, even if we won the team fight. The solution to the problem was rather simple. We decided to just follow the lead's order without any personal thought. This was not easy at all; the habit of analyzing the situation was a part of ourselves, and this took around another 4 months to get used to it. However, after we finally got used to it, our end-game statistics were significantly improved compared to the games when we were not following orders so directly. Thinking about it now, we wouldn't have achieved 3rd place in Asian WCG if we didn't actually make that decision to mindlessly follow the lead's order.

It was really hard for us to overcome our habits. Although every one of us had a seemingly better plan, we were not able to explain the details of the plan in 2~3 seconds while the team fight was going on. It would have been much more efficient that if we realized that following under a single order would enhance the cooperation for the team as a whole, which meant almost everything in the game. In the end, we did fix the problem and saw what could happen if we had better coordination. Even though we still saw better, more ideal solutions for each team fight, we learned to keep silent and get the most out of coordination under a single lead.

I'm selfish, and I know it - The concept of equity, what matter?

You never want less, you always want more: we never change even if we grow up!

It is normal for people to want more for something that they have put effort into. One just knows that the result should be about this amount for his or her effort, but it never hurts to get more. If the work was done individually, there would not be too much of a problem about the result though. You do the job, you get the result. However, many of the problems occur when there is a collaboration of work between or among people, and there is not a fair distribution for the result process. The article '

How to Get the Rich to Share the Marbles' by Jonathan Haidt introduces an interesting result about  the equity concept, or in other words, who gets which part of the pie. 

Equity, unlike efficiency, is more towards non-economical sciences such as psychology, sociology, or politics. It is more about reasoning than doing the calculations in my personal thoughts. Of course, some calculations are necessary, but the distinction to make the distribution is  based on the criteria created by human minds. The distribution process will be affected largely by the individual's characteristics if it is taking place in a partnership. If the size of the group that distribution is taking place gets larger, things will be more complicated and there has to be a set of pre-designated rules to avoid the conflict (which will be rigged anyways by some people who can use individual resources to make the game in their favor, according to the article). 

Problems even exist in the smallest form of group, partnership.

I once had an experience to enter a application development contest for cell phones in Korea with a junior in my high school. We were quite close as friends, and we planned it for this contest from quite some time before. We had the second prize as a result, and we were both happy about the achievement that we made. However, there was a problem in the distribution process; I was a senior and was not able to participate as much as my partner did for the app development since I had SATs to take and personal essays to write for the colleges, and the prize of $1000 had to be distributed into two pieces (certainly it was not to be equally distributed). However in this case, it was quite the opposite for the problem from the usual cases: I wanted the prize money to be unequally distributed, based on the amount of work that we did respectively, and my partner wanted to share the prize in equal half, which was $500, since we both participated in the contest as a team.

To tell you the result first, we divided the money in 3:7 ration, which I got the three part. It was not really hard to convince him to get the seven part, since nobody dislikes getting more. However, the reasoning part was quite thorough in my side. Although we both entered and won the prize in the contest as a team, I believed that there should be clear distinction of who gets what, regardless of anything else, including the age (yes, age matters in Korea. The older you are, the more superior you are.) More than having a fair distribution, my partner wanted to treat me as a older 'senpai' (a Japanese term for indicating a senior in the hierarchy, in this case, school) and understand my reasons for being unable to participate fully due to the college entrance preparation. But we had an agreement to divide the money into 3:7 ratio, since I convinced him that I did not want half of the prize, because would doing so would make me feel terrible in regards of the distribution being 'unfair'.

This is one of the experiences that make me thing the equity concept is closely related to human characteristics. Even if the group's size gets bigger, it is human beings who creates the laws and criteria for distribution. Of course, we saw too many bad examples of how the law is abused during distribution phase, but the bottom line is that if the group is consisted of people more willing to share, the distribution will be much more flexible and lenient. In the opposite case, it will be very similar to the third experiment that was introduced in the article by Mr. Haidt, which people will collaborate as a team, but distribution fails since people who have more resources to make the rules in favor for them will rig the game for personal profits. Sadly, our society shows the latter type of examples much more than the former one. The way to make people willing to share more will have to be on the matter of 'did you get the result in a fair way?', appealing on their good, moral side of the personality.

What would it be to take risks in terms of your future? - Managing risk for the incoming future.

Who would want a bad, unprepared future? Certainly not me...

As soon as you realize the fact that you can't really be dependent from one's parents for the rest of the life (the sadness of the puberty ending... yes...), one starts to think about the future in terms of what successful future is to him. It would specifically depend on one's idea of a successful future how he or she should be risk-taking or risk-aversive, but nevertheless one would not want the upcoming future to be a bottomless pit of agony. 

For me, things have changed over the years about how I think about a successful future. I would like to explain this in a little bit detailed manner as I go through this post, but I will start off with some general information in regards of how I prepare for my future.

The majors that I chose: Why?

I initially chose economics as my first major. Of course, like most of the other students, the reason for choosing economics was to have a firm background on how economy goes around in preparation of having a career related to business. I was personally thinking about consumer preferences which was, and still is a hot topic in the market. If I were not to think about the future and take the major I would have wanted, instead of writing this post, I would be practicing piano in the Smith hall at this moment. So economics was not the most favorable choice that I wanted to make. However, it was one of my interests to have a firm understanding of how decision making is done for a wide spectrum, from individuals as consumers to how government makes its decisions for a policy, besides playing the piano professionally. 

The second major that I have is computer engineering in the ECE. I added this major to prepare myself for one of my dream jobs, which was being a patent lawyer. When one wants to be a patent lawyer, it would be much beneficial for that person to have professional knowledge in technology, since he or she is to view lots of papers with new ideas of technology. Although my graduation is being delayed for a certain amount of time, it certainly helps me to understand the skill concepts related to computer systems. 

To be honest, I found out that going law school right away after my bachelor's degree is almost impossible. Dealing with the tuition is not really easy for me right after graduating my undergraduate degree, and I had to make the decision to work and accumulate some wealth before I do anything. Even though things go around like that differently from how I have planned, ECE in this university is certainly helpful, since I can choose my future job from a much wider spectrum, not only from the business sector, but also from engineering jobs too.

Summer works, and earning money.

I had to spend most of my summer time working to pay my tuition. For the work, I tutored English in Korea. I was able to make enough money to pay my tuition, and as a result, I do not have any debts regarding the student loans. However, in regard of my future job, tutoring is not really helpful in terms of experience. It did save me my tuition but when I apply for jobs and interview with the recruiters, it would not be as helpful as doing an internship on a related field.

Self-protection and Self-insurance, what means most to me when it comes to my future?

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 I learned in class the concept of Self-protection and Self-insurance. To be honest, I think my self-protection and self-insurance decreased as my concept of successful life changed over time. This thing is quite personal, and I will have to compare my current thoughts with those of my high school year’s thoughts. Back then, I was passionate for the so-called ‘worldly successes’. Making lots of cash wouldn’t hurt me at all when I thought about it, and I saw no reason not to have a great job and consume myself with tight work schedules. However, as I was thinking about what would be truly important for me as time went by, it was not the all-fancy jobs that really mattered in my life. Of course, as I said above, it wouldn’t really hurt me, but it was not the thing that I wanted to focus in my life. My current view of a successful life is to have a ‘responsible’ job that could support my future family, instead of getting the best job that I can get.

Since there was a change inside my thoughts, the aspect of self-protection and self-insurance went through some changes within me also. When I applied for college, the self-protection part was to focus most of my time on studying, which had relationships with my self-insurance, which was getting the most out of the grades that I can get. For now, I don’t really spend my time on studying as much as before. As I have become less enthusiastic in getting a good job, I do not spend most of my time studying. I do the things that I like more, and try to rather focus on trying to know what people around me are like in depth. The self-insurance part did not change, but the reason towards having a good grade is not because I want a great job in the future, but to fulfill my duties as a student.

As one can see, I had some changes over time, and due to it, my concept of the 'future' significantly changes from the past and the present. I am not as ambitious as I used to be, and I am easily satisfied with my future conditions. It does not mean that I would be okay living out in the street, but as long as I have sufficient income that I could be responsible for maintaining my future family, I wouldn't really argue about my future. Because of these changes, I think managing my risks for the future lies in somewhere between the past and the present concept of how much I think about my future and how far I am willing to take risks.

Your ticket to the front of the line: Illinibucks!

To everyone, with love from the school: Illinibucks and your shortcut.

Although very likely unrealistic, Illinibucks is an interesting idea to think about transfer pricing. Nobody in this world would like to wait in a line with 35 person in front of him; it tests one's patience while creating immense inefficiency time-wise. That's good if you can actually get the job done. If you have to wait for registering a class because you are a sophomore, the chances that you would get into the class you prefer is significantly low unless you ask a senior to actually hold a spot for you on a certain course. Due to vague assumptions, it was not really easy to think too deeply on the consequences of the Illinibucks, but here are my thoughts on this subject:

Each student gets Illinibucks

: Every student is receiving this particular service! Since there are no specifications, I would assume that everyone gets the same amount on the same time if I were to consider the characteristics of the university, which should be fair to all students instead of giving privileges to a certain student or a particular group.

So, this ground-breaking concept of 'making the cut in line legal' is introduced. I would not prospect it to have good results, but never mind my thoughts for now. Then follows the question: Use of the Illinibucks would occur at a pre-specified price set by the campus. What sort of thing would be a candidate for this?

If I were to handle the pricing problems of where the Illinibucks would be used, the first thing that comes into my mind would be 'the importance' of that certain activity. Since this particular service is to give students 'a cut in line pass' to the services that the university provides, thoughtful students will tend to use this in their preference, or in other words, what is important to them. In that reason, I think measuring the weight of the importance of the activity that it is spent in is a valid method to price the activities. 

So for example, if the Illinibucks is spent in registering for classes, which is a major problem for students to apply their preference in the form of class (which is a big deal) and furthermore, to meet their graduation requirement, a lot of demand will gather around the class registration process, thus making the price of this particular activity high proportionate to the demand.

Okay. So there are prices now, and people would start spending. I'll be one of the consumers of Illinibucks, and of course, I will use it for my own benefits too. Like most of the other students, I would certainly use it for the most prior things that are related to my duty, which is studying. It would be a bad idea to not use it for registering for classes, since certain classes have severe competition to get into. However, I wouldn’t use up everything for the registration. I would save some for health care issues such as going through the line in McKinley center when I am of in desperate need for medical services. Also, I would save some for my personal pleasures, such as cutting in line for the lunch meal in the basement of the Illini union building since there are too many people using at that time.

 

Price failures: Too High or Too Low !

The prompt wants me to assume how things would be when the prices that the authority gave out for spending Illinibucks was too low or too high. This is the part where I thought it would be much more interesting if there were hypothetical details for this topic. Well, back to the topic, what issues would arise if the administered price was too low?

In my opinion, if the price was too low, everyone would have enough credits to satisfy themselves more, causing the depreciation and ultimately, the inflation of the Illinibucks. Further problems would be identified if there were specific information about the rules of using Illinibucks, but since no rules are revealed, I guess this is the general concept of what would happen. If the situation gets out of control, Illinibucks will lose credibility to the people and the authority would have to shut down Illinibucks.

Too high? This would cause Illinibucks to have more weight than the authority would have anticipated. To be exact, it will give more power to the person who has more Illinibucks. But we assumed that each student was allocated Illinibucks, where we can say that nobody got additional amount of this particular service compared to others. So If we start on the same basis, and if more Illinibucks means privilege on certain aspects that can influence one’s situation and duty of a student, one does not have to be a genius to figure out that people will try to get additional Illinibucks by trading with other goods. We did not assume if the trading of Illinibucks is available, and if there is a way to trade it if it was legal. If there was absolutely no way to trade the Illinibucks, inefficiency will be created, and the authority that handed out this service will have to either lower the price to make it more efficient in terms of its usage, or shut the service down due to its uselessness. If there were some way to trade Illinibucks, whether it was legal or illegal, there will be a bartering market for the Illinibucks. The perks that it gives out is simply too great, and for those who think Illinibucks is valuable (freshman or people who don’t have James Scholar in terms of class registration), they will try to gain more Illinibucks at a reasonable trade with other goods. On the other hand, for those who does not value this service worthy enough for them (seniors or people with James Scholar in terms of class registration) will try to get other types of goods, such as money, since they would not benefit from it too much. 

The information provided is simply too abstract, and it would be going too far to assume certain situations, but these are the results that I think would happen in each situations.

How an ideal organization is structured: an example through the movie 'Ocean's Eleven'.

The master plan: Ocean's Eleven, and the analysis of organizational structure behind it.

The jazzy tone of Elvis Presley's 'A little less conversation', with a plot that would be one of the least possible things that could happen in this real-life world, the movie 'Ocean's Eleven' had enough capacity to absorb me into it's fascinating scenes. The first time I saw this movie was in March 2002, in the movie theater of my home country with subtitles at the bottom of the screen in my own language. Even though it is consisted of fictional stories that would rarely happen, and moreover, a plot with criminal activities that is strongly discouraged, I believe that I can learn some of the senses of how a strongly cohesive team, or an organization, would work as a model. I mean, that is how we learn economy, with simplified models and limited conditions, just like the supply and demand curve at the 100-level econ course, right?

Before I say anything, I have to admit that this form of organization is purely IDEAL; if anyone would want to be in an organization, they would prefer this ideally formed organization. Due to the characteristics of a movie plot, which has the goal to attract people as much as possible, a group this cohesive and successful are rarely seen throughout our lives. That's why I like this movie.

First of all, we have to define what type of task is this group (it is a type of a small organization gathered up for a single goal, but for convenience, I will from now on name it as a 'group'.) undertaking. The organizational structure, according to Lee G. Bolman and Terrence E. Deal's text, 'Reframing Organizations', depends on the type of the task that the group is going through. Well, here is the bottom line: they want to rob a casino with state-of-the-art security system. No one has ever succeeded before, and it is highly risk taking. However, they do take the risk since the profit they achieve is proportional to the risk they are taking. So no mistakes are allowed, and they have only once chance to do it right; sounds much like a situation where an army is going into a mission.

We can divide this successful group of Daniel Ocean (starring George Clooney) into 2 phases: 
1. the gathering and the planning, and 2. the process of the plan. While Mr. Ocean and his close friend, Rusty Ryan (starring Brad Pitt) recruits the so-called 'experts' of each field, such as explosives, surveilance, acting, etc., those two plan everything for even the tiniest factor that would actually affect the job. One thing that should be noticed is that these con artists all worked together, and is familiar to each other. This makes everything so much more easier for them in the aspect of transition costs via coordination, which rarely happens in this world. After the recruitment, they become the center of the planning for each step, while consulting to each of the team members for the highest efficiency and the most accurate result. The one boss model from the B&D textbook seems most relevant to this type of group, although it has much more flexibility then the usual one-boss modeled organizations that we see around us. Also, the employees, or the other team members who are not in charge of planning the scheme follows the planned order without question. Of course, they were part of the planning itself, and that should have helped the members to follow the orders much more easily without doubts. 

After the planning and the practice of the plan is done, there seems to be a change in the structure within the group. It is not included in the fundamental team configuration models that are presented in the textbook. However, the book introduces us the concept of 'self-managing'. When the plan starts out, each member is assigned to play a certain role in order to achieve the big picture. While doing so, they manage themselves as much as possible so that they could not make any possible mistakes. Also, they take action to remedy problems, since the con scheme has no precedent, and is highly volatile in process. When unexpected situation happens in one's expertise, the member has enough skill to actually find a re-route for the plan to keep on proceeding. This is possible because of the plot that describes them as fully skilled and highly loyal to individual's goal, and thus the plan itself.




Idealistic team, and the team structure & top performance analysis by Katzenbach and Smith

Well, obviously, they succeeded in robbing the world's most hardest structure to rob: an underground casino vault with state-of-the-art defense system. Going through the analysis by K&S, I saw a lot of categories that match with these coordinated con-artists. The team members accept the offer, shaping the purpose in response to an opportunity. Even though it is highly lucrative, it is the type of offer that laypeople would not be easy to just accept with confidence due to its risks and kickbacks. Also, the common purpose of Daniel Ocean's 'I will take back what is mine' is transferred into specific, measurable performance goals. They are of manageable size, consisted of 11 members, and they are in the right mix of expertise. Actually in this aspect, I think there cannot be more perfect group or organizations for this certain type of job, thanks to the plot. Basically, every analysis fits in to this successful group, making me even wonder that the plot writers took a glimpse of this text book. 

To be honest, I would have never had the chance to even think about this movie in an aspect of viewing the organizational structure of this movie. The group of Daniel Ocean is remarkably efficient according to the textbook, and I guess that is what makes the story so fascinating. 

The temptation and the opportunism.

Sweet love, and the agony of pondering...

Who would disagree that loving someone who gets along with you well does not feel good? I would definitely enjoy, and even appreciate the relationship with someone who is a great match to me. 

It was around 3 years ago from now, when I broke up with my ex-girlfriend. We had good times together, but she had to graduate, and I had to finish my bachelor's degree. She went back to her home country, which departed us from each other. I was heart-broken, thinking about all sorts of things that came into my mind. It was truly despairing, and over the summer vacation, I hardly made the choice to focus on my studying, and 'studying' only. 

Ironically, then I met this girl (to be honest, I sometimes still think about her!) in a class I took in the Fall semester.  I just wanted to make some new friends in the new class, and I came across with this girl. She wasn't special; actually, she was really banal. We studied together in the beginning. While taking breaks during our study, we talked about things, which led to sharing common interests. It turned out that we shared a lot in common regarding what we like, and as a consequence, we became very close, as if we have known each other for a long time. 

Around the 3rd midterm period, we were staying together for most of the day together, and anyone would have believed that we were in a relationship. I actually liked her quite much, and even though she didn't tell me so, I felt that she had interest in me too. It was this situation where things get stuck, and doesn't have any progress 'relationship-wise'. 

But there was this 'small' problem. She was already in a relationship. It was a long distance relationship, and her relationship with her boy friend was not going too well. It's a long distance relationship, and I easily expected those problems, since I was a victim of this tragic incident before myself. 

I knew she would accept if I asked her to start a new relationship with me. She would hesitate, of course, but I just had this confidence based on the past 2.5 months that I have spent with her. And now, my side of the story begins. 

'What are you hesitating for? She's one of the girls that you will never find so easily. You know how hard it is to find a girl who fits you so well regarding interests!'

This is what I said to myself repetitively. It was right there. Right in front of me.

....to tell the result first, I told her my deepest pondering. Although I really liked her, as a girl, I simply couldn't ask her to be in a relationship with me just because of the fact that she was already in this 'already fading' relationship. I knew these types of opportunities don't come often during my life time. I can feel that with all my active senses. However, I had things that I believed in also. One of the few things I believe in, and trying to keep it for my life is to 'not prey on people's weakness for my own benefit.' I would rather be in this mental suffering than to take advantage of her situation, making her feel guilty. At least that's what I thought back then, as far as I remember.

Reasons of the pondering, and the dilemma: Being ethical, or being opportunistic!

I believe many have heard the term, 'Carpe Diem!'. Seize the day, I believe it is meant to express the importance of how you think about your situation. Enjoying your moment is truly important, but it can't be achieved without the mindset of embracing one's current situation.

Enjoying is one of the most primal basic desire that a human being has. No one wants suffering. Except those ascetics who train for the 'inner peace', most people would prefer the enjoyment. 

Now here is the dilemma: Why do I have to be so loyal to my beliefs? Why can't I just enjoy the situation, and take advantage of her situation for my own good?

To be honest, I still don't know the reason. How I think about it is that I am a person like that. 

What I think about the reasons to decline the 'opportunistic chance', instead of taking it and enjoying it, is related to the deeper part of the human mind, which we people call Ethics. Although it can be divided into numerous reasons, I believe most of the reason is included in this big category called ethics. For example, my reason to tell her that I can't be in a relationship with her because of my stupid personal belief is included in this big category called 'being ethical'. 

One of the reasons that the professor gave as an example, "good things come out to those who wait." can be interpreted as a concept of compensation for a better good (which is not even clear if one will get a better good or not). However, I think it also has this underlying concept of being 'good' by keeping the virtue of waiting patiently. Doing the things that what people think is right makes the process look much more charming than what it actually is, regardless of the consequence. One might even get part of the satisfaction by thinking 'I did the right thing. I am proud of myself.' even thought the result is not as good as expected.

To be honest, I regret about telling her everything so frankly. I still think about 'what if I didn't tell her what I truly think, and what if I actually got into a relationship with her?' However, if a same situation comes to me again, I believe I will just hesitate and ponder again, just like before, and come up with the same, stupid decision again.

Transaction costs, efficiency, and reaching the consensus.

Age of 17*, 1st generation of the school, and student council....

Before I say anything about the student council that I was associated with, I have to explain about the situation of my school back then. I and my friends were the 1st generation of the school, and we had no seniors above us. Also, the school type was 'Foreign Language High school'. This type of school exists in South Korea only (if there are other countries which has this school type, please comment). It is meant to be a school specializing in educating foreign language to the students, but because of the uniqueness of the type and since the government does not do very well on restricting the school agenda to focus on the foreign language, the school is mainly treated as a prep school for universities which prestigious students from all over the country. Normally, an ordinary high school would be able to accept students in the region it is placed in.

Back in 2007, I was a member of my high school's student council. Everything seemed so fresh. The fact that I was the first generation of the school which has brand new buildings made me quite happy compared to the getting enrolled in a ordinary school with seniors above me. I was eager not only to compete with all the prestigious peers in the school, but also to contribute to the newly formed school to make it into a better place. Luckily, I found some fellow students who had similar idea with me, and joined them to run for the school council.

I served as vice president back then, and the student body was consisted of total 9 members, including president, vice president, manager, clerk, accountant, and the leader of the 4 departments we divided. The school president election only covered the President and the Vice president. Manager, clerk, accountant were chosen by the President, and the head of the 4 departments were elected separately inside the department.

Our main role was to plan and organize school events, plan funding estimation for each departments, and communicate with the students and the teachers reciprocally. The special thing about the student council where I took part of was that I was the first generation of the students to be admitted into the school, and we were the first to create a body of council that served the school, as mentioned above. Although we tried laboriously, the beginning of the council was a total chaos; we lacked methods to communicate efficiently, and we were quite disorganized from each other.One of the main problem occurred during the distribution of the school fund to each departments. Everyone was brilliant in creating reasons for there department to get more funding, and we were perplexed to give which department how much fund. After little more than 3 months, most of the students who were participating eagerly in the department were divided into each faction, and didn't really even try to talk to each other.

The main cause to this problem was obviously lack of coordination with the other members in the council, since we were not really trying to work as a team at the beginning. Overcoming this gap was really arduous. Since we didn't really have the grasp of how to solve the problem 'professionally' (which here I mean as managing the coordination problem as an expert), all we could think of was to spend time more together as a team, and try to understand each other.

We managed to get it fixed by trying several things as time went by. We often went to our own workshops for strengthening our cooperation, and had more meetings not just for our works, but for our personal intimacies. Although we sacrificed a lot for the sake of cooperation, including our private times and putting our work back, we made a certain progress, not perfect though, in our cooperation. At the end of my duty as vice president, I personally felt that communication and cooperation were the key to a fluently working organization.

The perplexing theme: reaching the consensus

One of the transaction costs that I care about the most in an organization is definitely the cost to reach the 'consensus.' Organization is a group of people organized for an end or work. Although people are gathered and organized for the same interest, one cannot deny the importance of how people think so differently. Due to such differences among individuals, reaching the consensus, or the single goal of that organization, is painstaking but essential.

In my experience, the most wanted consensus in the beginning of the student council was to reach a reasonable conclusion that most of the people could agree to the distribution of the school fund. If the reasons to achieve the fund was not reasonable or of less importance, it would have been relevantly easy to make a decision where most of the people can at least understand. However, they all had their points in the statement, and even though the president tried to make a decision, there were always oppositions towards the final decision that was made. Since everyone moved toward their interest, everything got in everyone's way.

Thinking about it now, I guess this method of spending 'time' and building up 'understandings' worked in this situation because it was a particular situation called 'school council'. Although each departments were to gather up all the benefits they can get, we were tied up as 'a student in the school who gathered for mutual benefit for the school's well-being'. If it was a real-life politics, I am pretty sure these things wouldn't work at all.

The concept of 'whip', which was discussed inside the class, wasn't as efficient as it would normally had been. The manager of the council and I were doing the whip, but we were students before being a council member, and it was really hard to moderate the perplexing problems while doing our individual studying. I agreed strongly to the comment, "Whip has to invest a lot of personal time to moderate things between individuals or groups of different interests." Back then, the manager and I was too inexperienced and busy to efficiently moderate things.

The idiom 'Too many cooks spoil the broth.' comes into my mind as I reminisce of the young days as a moderator in the student council. Back then, I was too young and ignorant to such economic concepts. As of pondering it now with a better vision and wider knowledge, the transaction cost of consensus still looks perplexing and complex. Yet, it will be present in any organizations with prominent minds who wishes the well-being of the organization, and the solution will be the homework to many managers and moderators of the organizations.


*We Koreans begin our high school at the age of 17, and spend 3 years instead of 4. When I first entered high school, I was 17, just like all my peers.

Biography of Sir Christopher Pissarides.

Sir Christopher Antoniou Pissarides.

-> Born in Feb 20th, 1948 in the village of Agros, Greece, he is one of the leading minds in the field of labor market. He had the honor to be awarded for the Nobel prize in 2010 for his influential theory of search and matching theory of interactions between the labor market and the macro economy. 

    He received his B.A. in Economics in 1970 and M.A. in Economics in 1971 at the University of Essex. He then had his PhD in Economics in 1973 in the London School of Economics. He has been Regius Professor of Economics in London School of Economics ever since 1976.

    I never knew him before I got my alias. However, due to the chaotic unemployment problems soaring all over the world, he gives me a spark for the unemployment problems worldwide.

Citation/Sources:

Sir Christopher Pissarides Website
:http://christopherpissarides.com/

Wikipedia: Christopher A. Pissarides
:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_A._Pissarides

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