FrancineBlauEcon490Fall2019

This past summer I had the opportunity to work on a small team of seven. This team was a small group within a company that had many groups. The structure of the groups was determined by function and the company split the functions of the teams based on skills and mission. I was a part of the Business Solutions team, which was a consulting team that worked with both internal and external groups. Other teams within the company included Sales, Marketing, Professional Services, Product Management, Finance, Customer Collections, and various other groups. The management structure of the Business Solutions group, that I was a part of this summer, was most similar to the organizational structure described as “dual authority” from the Chapter 5 reading of the organization of teams.  The Business Solutions Group at the company I worked for this summer, Accuity, had 5 full-time employees who sat as members of the team, one intern, myself, and one rotational position. It is common for com...

On campus I am apart of two student organizations, Tamid and Student Advocacy Coalition, due to the different functions of these organizations they have slightly varried organizational structures comparatively. The Student Advocacy Coalition is a slightly unique as a student organization, because the club works directly with University Alumni Association employees. At the top of the hierarchal organizational structure would be the Alumni Association faculty members who are the sponsors of the organization, and help link our organization with the Alumni Association. Directly below the Alumni Association, in the hierarchal origination structure, would be the executive board members of the organization. The Student Advocacy Coalition usually has between 5-7 executive members depending on the year. There are various positions on the executive board, and at the top of the hierarchal organization of the just the executive board of this organization, would be the president who works most clo...

Francine Blau is an economist who studied at Cornell and Harvard, and I did not know who this economist was prior to this assignment. Francine’s field of economic expertise in labor relations, and this area of concentration would be relevant to this course. When understanding different organzations there are often members of the organization who are the “workers” performing the “labor” that occurs within a particular organization. It will be important to understand the relationships different actors have with each other within a given organization, and Francine's work will help to understand the labor relations.