Going back through the blogs I wrote and the blog prompts I do see connection that tie them to each other. The main things that tie a lot of them together is that they most draw from personal experience with organizations and why they worked of the structure they used. I think this helps make it so the prompts are more interesting since I’m able to apply it to things that happened in my own life and think about those things in a different way. For example with the blog on opportunism I had never looked back and asked what was the reason for doing those things and if I was not being the best person while trying to get an advantage over others. Also I never thought about how organization structure happened and why they were the way they were. I just took for granted they were just something that existed and never thought why they were that certain way.
There are many connections that I didn’t make at the time that I can make now. One of those has to do with the opportunism blog post. A connection I didn’t see was how opportunism has a relation with collegiality and how sometimes people would have to pick one or the other depending on the situation. Another connection I didn’t see is why organizations that are successful have the structure they do and what factors into why they use that structure. And also how it can help make them successful, and how just because a successful organization used that structure it won’t necessarily work out the same way for a different organization.
My process for writing these prompts have evolved. In the beginning I would just sit down and write them and I didn’t think of what I would say beforehand. I just wrote whatever I thought and then just edited it and moved stuff around where I felt like it made sense at the time. Also I didn’t try to think about what it had to do with the class before I just looked at the blogs at their own separate things. Now I write a simple outline of what I plan to say before hand and it helps my thoughts stay more organized. Also it helps me see if there is a major theme I'm connecting to and if that connects to what is currently going on in class Also it allows for like major edits that I would do as I went along. Also before I would type it into a Microsoft Word Document before and then copy and paste it into my blog when I was done as opposed to now when I just type directly into the post box which I think helps me get into a mindset of blogging as opposed to writing a paper.
Prompts I would like to see would be prompts that somehow tie current events into them just because I would find that to be interesting to do and I would be able to see what other people think and why. Since we all have an idea of what everyone’s background with organizations are it would be interesting to see if they play into people’s opinion and if they do how they play into it.
I liked that comment about current events. It is something I haven't heard from students before. If I can find some things (not about the election) I will definitely try to do that.
ReplyDeleteOne question I have for you about your blogging is what determined your process at the beginning of the course. Did you have some prior model of how to do assignments that influenced what you did at the beginning? Other students seem to say similar things about the writing. So there must be a reason for the early approach. It would be good to know what that is.
Opportunism as the flip side of collegiality is a good way to think of things. But opportunism also requires a certain dependency to be exploited. In a world without trust entirely, one becomes entirely self-sufficient. On the one hand, this solves the problem of being exposed to the potential opportunism of others. On the other hand, it leaves many possible gains from trade from ever occurring. A collegial environment lowers the risk of being exploited by others, so helps to promote trade. But collegiality itself doesn't create dependencies that an opportunist can exploit. Those dependencies emerge from the nature of the transaction.