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Showing posts from September, 2017

Organizing Teams

If you've you've been part of a successful team please describe its structure by relating it to the various structures discussed in the chapter, starting on page 100 with one boss. Then also discuss your team in terms of Katzenbach and Smith's distinguishing features of high functions teams, which starts on page 107. If you've never been part of a successful team in all your experience you have two options. a) Write about a team that was only moderately successful or unsuccessful that you were on and address the same questions as above but, of course, some of this will be in the negative. b) Write about a team you are aware of from viewing it on TV, or seeing it in the movies, or some other way where you've become well acquainted with it. Then perform the above exercise on that team. In all of this please give enough background info so I can understand what is going on. Also note that in years past students have focused on team structure as the determinant of tea...

Organizational Structure

For several summers in high school, I worked at a country club as both a hostess and briefly as a waitress. This was one of the best places to work in town for people of my age. The country club had great connections to U of I faculty/staff, it was a safe and classy environment, and the people were great. As it is a college town, many of my coworkers were U of I students or alumni. Many of those who had been working there for several years were either looking for jobs or applying for graduate schools and taking a gap year. Since there were so many students graduating and coming in and out, the job was flexible with hours but also had a high turnover with so many students. Those who were alumni typically had been working there for a few years since after they graduated and were essentially an older sibling to those of us who were new employees. They taught us how different it was to work at a country club where members expected us to know their names and had been p...

Robert Giffen

Robert Giffen was an economist and statistician. He was born in Scotland in 1837 in the town of Strathaven and educated at a small village school. At a young age, he showed at interest in journalism and law. His experiences at the Stirling Journal led him to move to London and take a job at the Globe in 1862. Four years later he went on to take a job at the The Economist as an assistant. His writing was mainly focused on economic and financial subjects including economic growth, national product and more. [1] This experience as a journalist paved the path for his work involving the interpretation of economic statistics. His contributions led to his membership in the Royal Statistical Society serving as an editor and president and receiving awards. [2] Robert Giffen continued in later years to take a leading part in all public controversies connected with finance and taxation. Perhaps his greatest contribution is the concept of giffen goods. Giffen goods are named after h...