John Roberts Econ 490 fall 2014

The conflict between Anne and Harry is really an interesting example for group dynamics. It seems impossible to avoid conflict within any organizations because people have different personalities, communication skills, working abilities and perspectives. When working together, someone like Harry, acting somewhat arrogant and condescending, is going to create unpleasant experience. Even he has great experience and strong working skills, it seems he is tend to over control the marketing plans and is exclusive to other opinions. Actually from my own experience, I haven't experienced serious conflict within organizations. But recently, in my RSO Intercultural Community Development Initiative (ICDI), I've experienced some conflict ideas. Since I'm the assistant treasurer, I'm working with group members and fundraising chair to get prepare for our first fundraising event on the quad. In our proposal we planned to sell cookies, tea eggs (which is a traditional Chinese snacks...

Gifts Exchanges in Team Production I actually really enjoy reading this article, especially the description about the experiment with children and the discussion about the implication. The result is actually not surprising. When the resources are already there, people naturally act self-interest because there seems no reason for sharing. But when people pull the rope at the same time, the efforts suddenly bound them together and make them have this tendency to sharing the rewards. I believe this is because of the feeling of group production. When the rewards take some effort and people have to cooperate, the group production leads to the gift exchange. This reminds me the experience of working with other students in calculus discussion section. During the discussion we'll be randomly assigned to group of three or four and to finish the worksheet together. Then TA would give everyone the same score based on one person's worksheet. That means in order to get good grades,...

Managing Future Income Risk Since now I'm a sophomore, I don't really have a specific idea about what kind of company I would work in and how much salary I would earn. But I know that I'm interested in working in companies and I enjoy working with different people. With a strong sense of responsibility, I found myself do well both in academy and organizations I've involved in.  The first thing I think is related the most to my income is the major. Currently I am double majored in Economics and Psychology. The reason I choose Econ is that I believe it can helps me to think critically and learn how to use limited resources to maximize the outcome. Though a lot of topics are related to the markets, firms, financial problems, I think it can provide me well both in econ topics and other knowledge that I need if I want to work in big companies related to international trade, etc. And also, it is closely related to daily life choices which lead us to efficiency. Actuall...

Illinibucks It is interesting to imagine that students could use illinibucks as some sort of "money" to exchange for some privilege, such as registering for classes and housing, going to office hours, a spot for popular sports games or shows on campus.  So in the first place, the illinibucks should allocated to every students in the same quantity every month or every semester. No matter the student is a freshman or a senior, he or she should have the same right to get access to illinibucks. The illinibucks might expire just like credits in the i-card if students don't use it during certain period. Because if students could accumulate illinibucks over semesters, it would probably give incentive to students to overuse illinibucks after accumulating for a long time, which might give other students inconvenience if the student always use illinibucks to get the priority in office hour. Thus in this way, students would try to use illinibucks properly during every perio...