DOC721R / Residency

Hello all!  Well, I had a very interesting and and educational residency.  This one was much less stressful than last year's residency thankfully.  So I'll provide a little experience, advice, and fun facts about what I learned from this endeavor.

Hotel & Air

This year's residency was held in Nashville, TN.

Hotel: Embassy Suites Nashville - Airport

Rate Information:

Rate Code:       SASUNIVOFPHOENIX Rate per  night:          99.00  USD Total for Stay per Room:       Rate         396.00 USD        Taxes         70.39 USD        Total         466.39 USD  Total for Stay:   466.39 USD

Pros
A decent price for the size of the room.  Each room has a separate bedroom and living room so even two people can share the suite without many issues.  The rooms all include a microwave and mini fridge as well.  Also, if you forget something, like a razor or toothpaste, they provide that to you for free when you ask.  It is also right accross the school but take the shuttle as it is too dangerous to walk.  The shuttle runs often and will even take people anywhere within a 3 mile radius.

Cons
The downside to the hotel is that there were several reports from my classmates about the cleanliness and service of the hotel.  Although I did not experience many of the things they did, I did have my own experiences, such as not receiving my free wifi access card, the front desk does not know anything about promo/discount codes when I called them, and their room service forgot my food so when I called to remind them about it, it was cold.  According to some of my classmates, they also have little understanding of the emergency services.  I mention the emergency services because one of my classmate nearly got a concussion from the oddly positioned soap holder in the shower.  For myself, this was not an issue as I am short, but for my peer, it was directly at his eye level and he is the average height for a grown man.

Note:  Food at the school was awful this year and there were some perks at the hotel I did not initially know about.

Seven tips to take advantage of at this hotel: 

1. Wake up early and eat breakfast at the restaurant in the hotel.  It's free and made to order.  Bring tip money for the cook.
2. If you want to order food at the hotel, go directly to the restaurant, bar, or call and pick it up yourself.  On my first night I called them, they didn't deliver my food until an hour after I called to remind them about it, and it came cold.
3. Renting a car is not necessary as the shuttle will take you around the area.
4. Consider buying some food/microwavable entrees if you want to save some money at Walgreens/Kmart which the shuttle can drive you to.
5. Alternatively eat at a restaurant within the 3 mile radius that the shuttle is willing to drive you to.  There are no sidewalks.  Also keep in mind that you need to schedule the trip and there are few options.  Ask the driver or hotel staff for suggestions or a tour of the area.
6. Free Happy Hour occurs every night from 5pm to 7pm.  They have a limited selection but it is free.
7. If you know anyone from your prior residency, try to room with them, if you are comfortable.  Since the suites are two rooms, it will save some money.

Here are some pictures of the hotel, some of the food from the hotel and school, internet speeds (haha, I'm such a geek), and some pictures of the airport.

Hotel:

(Calamari would have been good hot.  Luckily there is a microwave in every room.)

Chicken with avocado and cheese (good), side of chips (yuck)

Grilled Salmon Salad (very good)

Food from the school:

Airport:

Airline: From EWR to BNA, and back

FARE INFORMATION

Fare Breakdown Airfare: 288.37 USD U.S. Federal Transportation Tax: 21.63 U.S. Flight Segment Tax: 7.60 September 11th Security Fee: 5.00 U.S. Passenger Facility Charge: 7.50 Per Person Total: 330.10 USD eTicket Total: 330.10 USD		Form of Payment: VISA Last Four Digits 9919
The airfare you paid on this itinerary totals: 288.37 USD
The taxes, fees, and surcharges paid total: 41.73 USD

DOC/721R DOCTORAL SEMINAR I

Start Date: 02/01/2013
End Date:  02/03/2013

Print

COURSE DESCRIPTION

This 3-day residency course begins the formal development of the learner’s dissertation. This development will be ongoing throughout the curriculum and result in the dissertation’s submission at the end of the program. Topics in the course include problem statements, research questions, hypotheses and testing, samples and populations, the intended impact of the study on the profession and society. The outcome of this course is a concept paper that articulates a specific goal and plan that will evolve into the learner’s dissertation. This course will incorporate learners from various doctoral programs/disciplines.

Course Competencies

• Develop a concept paper reflecting a feasible, meaningful, and aligned dissertation study that addresses a gap in the literature and would be important to leaders in your specific field of study.
• Evaluate human subjects’ requirements and ethical issues in conducting research with human subjects as it relates to your proposed study.
• Demonstrate an understanding of the proposal submission, review, and approval process.
• Demonstrate an understanding of the criteria and process of choosing a mentor and dissertation committee.
• Develop an action plan for expanding the concept paper to a dissertation proposal.

Experiences

Experiences from this course was very good.  Unfortunately I can't say the same for others.  If you have the option, I highly recommend Professor Moreland because he makes the lessons clear and fun as well as he has a lot of patience in what could be a stressful environment.

Residency Support

Orion.Perez@phoenix.edu

Tech Support

877-832-4867

Pre-Homework

DOC721R/Day One Residency Notes

Agenda & Advice

• Breakfast, lunch, dinner at the school is in rm. 103
• Class is in 250
• Instructor: JEREMY MORELAND
  Professor gives intro...
• Support and another faculty speech
• Similar traits from students intro: do I want to go on with getting my doctorate? Is my topic too broad?
• Understanding who your stakeholders are
• Growth
• Idea: provide clarity for others so that it is replicable
• Critical analysis is a two-way street
• Check in with community college

Ask Questions

Our Dissertation

• Selection of topic
• how to narrow down a broad topic/addressing gap
• selecting population
• using social media when obtaining a population sample
• Innovation of topic/stale/new
• retaining information
• is there a gap in all research
• How to get into the research project
• title formulation
• methodology
• sampling

Our Chair/CMTE

• feel that my study will suffer w/o a mentor
• what's the criteria for choosing a mentor/chair
• mentor/chair qualifications
• is there a chair list?
• who is the expert in phoenix on my topic?  Can I consult him/her to help develop my topic?
• Will we be able to meet prospective members before selection.

Our Program

• Please clarify remaining classes, what to expect, what we will learn
• are there opportunities to accelerate the process?
• Several classes have same number or variation of, do we have to take all of them for completion?

Misc. 

• When is the new research or is there ever such a thing new?
• How does one take on a study that does not have a lot of findings?

Lecture Area

From the Professor

Misc. Notes

• Experts in the field go to research conferences
• APA second section about clarity and content
• "really, really important"
• reference specific events
• be careful of anamorphisms
• be careful of words or terms with multiple meanings
• consider readers with multiple/different languages
• deconstruction/critical analysis
• don't limit yourself to one resource
• using edited literature is okay
• Sampling: exceptionally representative, quantitative
• Case study: exceptionally special, qualitative
• Convenience sample: available data/people
• After third residency, we can submit our dissertation proposal
• Ethics, permissions, confidentiality, 
• Be careful about exclusions of names/companies/organizations and confidentiality
• Try to get samples without bias/the researcher's perceptions/expectations are not completely revealed

The M.E.A.T. Method

M - methodological

• Creswell and Newman
• SAGE research methods

E - exploratory, narrative, observation, empirical, extending research

• SPSS - quantitative data analysis software
• nvivo - qualitative data analysis software

A - applied contribution, application, applied learning and experience

T - modest contribution, theory, theoretical relevance, "all good theories die"

SAS Website

• Faculty approved for SAS
• Area of expertise
• Ask a question on Phoenix Connect based on your dissertation proposal to find a chair/mentor
• Search for a mentor (https://ecampus.phoenix.edu/SASWeb/LearnerFolders/LearnerUIPages/MentorSearch.aspx)

Other

Library Resources

     Misc. Notes

• A folder on the library per user
• Overview of search engine used for Phoenix library with the use of Boolean flags

     Evaluating Search Results

• Scope: do you need an overview of your topic or do you need specific information on your topic?
• Currency: How current is the information? Does it cover the time period that you are researching?
• Authority: Who if the author and what are their credentials?
• Audience: Who is your audience (how much detailed information do you need)?

     Resources

• Google Scholar is now accessible within Phoenix's library (http://tinyurl.com/go2googlescholar)

     EBSCOhost & ProQuest Accounts

• You can try and go to the official website to find the document and see if it's there.

     Idea: Keep a spreadsheet on databases

• Journal Name, Full-test coverage (year to year), Database found

Assignments

• Reflection journal template
• Things you want to make sure you want to get done tomorrow
• Any questions, to do list, etc.

Future Agenda

• Committee collection
• Micro presentation
• 1 on 1

Day 1 Homework
Reflexive template

DOC721R/Day Two Residency Notes

Project: Problem Statement Presentation

• Post problem statement from your concept paper
• Student: sites in front of the class in the "hot seat" and says nothing while classmates analyze the problem statement and guess what the paper will be about.
• Classmates: is this problem statement an observation, survey, case study, etc.? Where is this problem statement going? How will it be examined?

Alex (me) focus points to improve on:

• problem with clarity
• what is the problem specifically
• need to discuss the technology
• he/she pronouns
• sentence structure
• condense structure
• borrow a method

Anne

• Information is lacking
• problem statement appears to be an ethics issue but unclear
• survey-based?
• not sure where the information is going

John

• problem statement clear
• needs elaboration with adoption of technology
• borrow a method
• be careful with the word "will"

Art

• problem: project performance?
• too broad
• topic is actually about whether funds should go into projects 

Heddie

• general area identified
• specific evidence on why the pharmaceutical and who
• correlation and sampling
• avoid long sentences
• clarity with "incivility"

Chris

• specific problem:  clear and will explore why african american obesity occurs more than in their white counterparts
• comparative study, ethnography, behavioral
• choice of words
• specify time

Lonnie

• unclear general problem statement
• no citations, resources, supportive data to the specific problem
• sounds like there is a lot going on, "busy"
• run on sentences, fragments

Telicia

• geographical information
• disparity of why african americans are being targeted for lending market
• descriptive study, qualitative study
• write out numbers if over double digits, some grammatical errors

Nadine

• statement and variables needs clarity
• who is doing the reporting and why the concern
• qualitative study
• what are the possibilities

Juan

• the assumption is "how it is being spread?" but it's not explicitly mentioned
• want to know transmission, but is not explicit
• what preventative measure
• what paths should be used, borrow a method
• what are researchers doing to study health changes in the population
• supportive data
• run-on sentences

Remi

• geographic information
• website information: benefits/negative affects
• unsure about method, borrow a method, what are others doing?

Claudetth

• general problem: Racial and ethnic disparities in the quality of health care
• clarity with specific area
• what racial and ethnic groups are affected
• borrow a method

Michelet

• spread of the HIV infection in South Africa
• why is it spreading?
• ethnographic survey

Lecture Notes

• expert faculty, hard to discuss the basics
• general problem, specific problem (what is missing?), method, style

Lecture

Method

Quantitative: correlational (comparative between variables), archival (collection of measurements), content or text analysis (goal is to study text and identify themes, detect latent content), ethnography (study of culture), and phenomenology (notes from others for insight), data saturation.

For each method, there should be a research question for it.

Saturday Plan

• method and analysis
• research questions
• dissertation review planning
• check-ins start
• timelines and committees
• pursuing a chair and what will happen
• committee will give advice on what to change.
• concept paper revision
• reflective journaling

Team Project

• published dissertation review (team of 3-4)
• dissertations we like
• using quality criteria for concept paper
• 5-10 minutes
• what is strong, what is less strong

Sunday Plan

• Dissertation Review (group)
• Dissertation Plan (turn in)
• Individual micro-presentations
• updates
• research questions
• 12:30-1PM: APA

Homework due

• revised concept paper
• reflection

DOC721R/Day Three Residency Notes

• gain insight from other sources
• critical thinking from other dissertations (dissertation review)
• relevant, important, interesting
• am I reaching my audience?
• what can I change about my dissertation?

APA Lecture

• General APA styles (headings, word usage and comprehension, etc.)
• Flexibility (Limit footnotes)
• Software (River point and end note)
• Discourse community (talk in code)
• Appropriate, persuasive, interesting
• Method: Sampling procedure, Sample size, power, precision, measure and covariates, research design, experimental manipulations, interventions
• Almost significant means its not significant
• Results
• Discussion
• Grammar software: grammarly, whitesmoke
• Describe at appropriate level of specificity
• Be sensitive to labels
• Avoid masculine and pronouns
• Plagiarism

Conflicting modification on February 3, 2013, 2:13:57 PM:

• gain insight from other sources
• critical thinking from other dissertations (dissertation review)
• relevant, important, interesting
• am I reaching my audience?
• what can I change about my dissertation?

APA Lecture

• General APA styles (headings, word usage and comprehension, etc.)
• Flexibility (Limit footnotes)
• Software (River point and end note)
• Discourse community (talk in code)
• Appropriate, persuasive, interesting
• Method: Sampling procedure, Sample size, power, precision, measure and covariates, research design, experimental manipulations, interventions
• Almost significant means its not significant
• Results
• Discussion
• Grammar software: grammarly, whitesmoke
• Describe at appropriate level of specificity
• Be sensitive to labels
• Avoid masculine and pronouns
• Plagiarism

To Do List

• borrow a method
• peer review as a model

Presentation Project

• how are they going to get the data?

Final Grade, Notes from Professor, and Links

Alex,

It was a pleasure having class with you. Some final thoughts on your core materials, as revised by course's end: 

You have done a good job in continuing to build and refine your overall problem formulation. Work to grow your familiarity with existing research in this environment to not only a deeper understanding of the empirical results as they pertain to your study, but also a strong understanding of the design and data collection procedures used by these colleagues such that you can design an appropriately similar effort. Then, as that design is refined, ensure that your research questions aren't in response to the general problem, but rather connect to the method you pursue (and, are informed directly by your data analysis). For example, a deeper understanding of the instrumentation engaged by researchers in this area regarding affirmative behaviors will inform how your state (and answer) your research questions.  

Other items: I would like to recommend the following articles (mostly from Educational Researcher) that I think you'll find relevant to your own work and for which I am sending url's to class members (simply copy and paste each into your browser's address bar).  

The first should be valuable as you evaluate your own literature review (in and after DOC/722): http://www.aera.net/uploadedFiles/Publications/Journals/Educational_Researcher/3406/Boote.pdf 

The second article serves as a response to the first, particularly, as a critique: http://www.aera.net/uploadedFiles/Publications/Journals/Educational_Researcher/3509/10324-05_Maxwell_p28-31.pdf 

And, this one serves as a response from the original authors: http://www.aera.net/uploadedFiles/Publications/Journals/Educational_Researcher/3509/10324-06_Boote_p32-35.pdf 

The following article treats the evaluation of dissertations more broadly, but should be useful as you explore literature of interest and as you work to self evaluate your own dissertation work:http://www.aaup.org/AAUP/pubsres/academe/2005/ND/Feat/lovi.htm 

Also, consider the following article as context for your RES/722 class: http://www.aera.net/uploadedFiles/Publications/Journals/Educational_Researcher/3509/10324-02_Yanchar_p3-12.pdf 

One more: be sure to review the "resources for authors" at the following link: http://www.aera.net/publications/?id=308 

Thank you for your contributions to our course. We had a very productive weekend! Please let me know if you have any questions! JM

Grading CriteriaPossible / Earned

Day One
Individual Assignment: Concept Paper Development	15	15
Individual Assignment: Updating C.P. Development	10	10
Day Two
Individual Assignment: Drafting the Concept Paper	10	10
Day Three
Learning Team Assignment: Dissertation Review	5	5
Individual Assignment: Final Concept Paper	40	37
Individual Assignment: Dissertation project plan	5	5
All Days
Participation and Reflective Journaling	15	15
Point Total	100	97

ORG/716 ORGANIZATIONAL THEORY AND DESIGN

Woot!  I passed with an A-.  Now to get ready for my residency in Nashville, TN... meh!


ORG/716 ORGANIZATIONAL THEORY AND DESIGN
Start Date: 10/09/2012

COURSE DESCRIPTION
Upon completion of this course, learners will be prepared to analyze and select appropriate paradigms to guide organizational research. Additionally, learners will have the ability to systematically apply organizational theories to enrich existing models or develop new models to increase performance and effectiveness.

Course Competencies

• Analyze organizational strategies and needs to determine optimal methods for organizational design.
• Evaluate various guiding principles of organizations by exploring historical and current trends in organizational theory.
• Analyze current organization development practices to guide organizational research.
• Apply paradigms of thinking to organizational challenges and research.
• Consider the role of ethics in organizational theory, design, and development.

Weeks 1 and 2 Reflections

In this reflection, I have learned many perspectives about what happened to many of these organizations and how they attempt to improve over the years as well as the reasons behind them.  I have also learned that these experiences led to the different theoretical structures, models, and systems to enhance or improve organizational standards and development.  The following is a list of what I have generally learned from these books.

Organization Development

This book discusses the following:

• Organizational development (OD) from different perspectives and through the years
• Understanding where OD comes from and the efforts that OD attempts to improve
• The goal is to understand and help both the organization gain a useful structure as well as helping the people involved with the organization gain a structure through the different experiences organizations perceive

Organizational theory, design, and change

This book discusses the following:

• Organizational designs: different types and structures, including life cycles, the development of an organizational model, and theory
• The types of changes that can occur in business and technology, and learning how to deal with them
• Different types of ethical perspectives the understanding of perspectives from the organization, stakeholders, and employees
• The consequences of organizational change from different perspectives and how to improve the decisions in an organization

Organizational theory: Challenges and perspectives

This book discusses the following:

• Introducing the different types of organizational theory with an in-depth analyses of each type
• An understanding of the uses and perspectives of each type of organizational theory
• A comparison of the theories

Images of organization

This book discusses the following:

• Exploring the past of different organizations and how the issues were handled
• Understanding organizational structure and the politics associated with it
• The evolution of organizations in modern day terms
• How technology affects organizations
• Sociological trends of organizations and the models that are developed

Organizations and organizing

This book discusses the following:

• Understanding what an organization is
• Organizations as a system and analyzing the different types of organizational systems: natural, rational, and open
• The different theories associated with these systems
• A sociological perspective on organizational systems theory

References

Gallos, J.V. (2006). Organization development. San Francisco, CA; Jossey-Bass.

Jones, G.R. (2010). Organizational theory, design, and change (6th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.

McAuley, J., Duberley, J. & Johnson, P. (2007).Organization theory: Challenges and perspectives. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.

Morgan, G. (2007). Images of organization. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publiscations

Scott, W.R., Davis, G.F. (2007). Organizations and organizing. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.

Week 3, DQ 1

Which organizational theory or theories can best be used to improve conditions regarding the issue of employee alienation?According to McAuley, Duberley, and Johnson (2007), the theory that can be used to improve the issues with employee alienation can begin with "McGregor’s theory Y" (McAuley,Duberley, & Johnson, 2007, p. 418).  This theory outlines how the organization should take responsibility over the strategies associated in the workplace and work on changing them to fix the possible issues with the hierarchy, processes, or employee involvement.

What are some examples of how employee alienation is being handled within your own experiences or in your organization? 
In my last organization, the organization would do very little to actually fix any of the processes, hierarchy issues, or employee involvement.  They felt that they could raise morale by occasionally hosting potlucks and parties.  However, this did not fix the issues.
How might you handle employee alienation?
There are a couple of ways I would pursue changing the workplace strategies.  The first way would be to retrieve feedback from the employees on a basis that the company and employees are comfortable with, for example on a quarterly basis.  This aspect toward fixing an issue is used to investigate and analyze the issue from another perspective from one's own.  Then the organization can consider making the adjustments where necessary instead of changing things around and possibly making the employees further angry or dissatisfied.  The second way would be to have regular employee reviews where they can discuss their issues and their work can be analyzed.  This period should be consistent with normal business perspectives on when a review should be held and it will allow the business to hear the thoughts from the employees and also see the employees quality of work.  This would then lead to the same adjustments as the first way and would also accommodate any necessary salary changes that the employees should be receiving.

ReferenceMcAuley, J., Duberley, J. & Johnson, P. (2007).Organization theory: Challenges and perspectives. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.

Week 3, DQ 2

Using an example analysis of poor organizational design from your own experience, what are the most significant effects on the organization? What might be the best way to make an improvement to the organizational design? What positive result would you anticipate from such an improvement?

The structure of an organization is one the fundamentals of an organizational design (McAuley, Duberley, & Johnson, 2007). The structure of an organization can lead to either a very good organizational design or a very poor one.  From my own experience in the web technology realm, I have learned that the leaders in an organization should take a more proactive role in some of the dealings with how the employees interface with the clients and other employees.  Employee to leader involvement can lead to encouragement and better learning experiences.  This may not only improve the employee’s interactions but also help them to learn and understand different perspectives.

References

McAuley, J., Duberley, J. & Johnson, P. (2007).Organization theory: Challenges and perspectives. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.

Week 3, Reflections

In this week, I have learned about several different theories and perspectives from my classmates.  There are several beneficial modes of organization but the difficult objective is what is needed and how to figure out which methods to choose.  Some of the methods mentioned can be beneficial toward some organizations rather than others.  In all cases, I have learned several different things this week.

Individual Assignment

Week 4, DQ 1

What is organizational design, where did it come from, and why does it exist? What positive and negative influences has organizational design had on organizations with which you are familiar? Provide examples from your own or your organization’s experience to support your explanation

“Organizational design is the process by which managers select and manage aspects of structure and culture so an organization can control the activities necessary to achieve its goals” (Jones, 2010, p. 23)

Organizational design is an attempt to create structure that an organization can use with its employees to understand and regulate their processes, and organizes the jobs the employees are responsible for to improve the practices of the organization (Jones, 2010).  Managers and organizations that wish to improve on the system structure create an organizational design to improve their organization and employee workplace environment. 

Some of the positive influences that organizational design has had on the organizations I have been involved with are utilizing an open office environment.  This type of environment is meant to keep all forms of communication open.  The cubicles in the office were either glass or very low so everyone can see each other, instant messengers (IM) were allowed to be used, and offices could not be locked.  Some of the negative influences were that the design was changed too often.  For example, some of the employees became frustrated with having to adapt to newer systems without any training.  These new systems would be introduced too often and disrupted some of the current processes in place.

Reference

Jones, G.R. (2010). Organizational theory, design, and change (6th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.

Week 4, DQ 2

What systems thinking—rational, natural, or open—paradigm is your dominant way of thinking? How is that style of thinking an advantage in your life? How is that style a disadvantage in your life?

I believe that my dominant way of thinking is using the open system as it involves information theory and explores the possibilities of other existing theories (Scott & Davis, 2007).  Many of the organizations I have dealt with have complex systems in technology and so the open system provides an advantage in my life to explore new technologies and information related to it.  One of the disadvantages, though, indicates that there will be more criticism in the field because much of the investments will be in the technology area and the risk of adapting to a new technology without a lot of information is many times frowned upon.

Reference
Scott, W.R., Davis, G.F. (2007). Organizations and organizing. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.

Week 4: Reflections

In this week I have learned even more about the different types of systems and theories.  I have also learned that there are many different perspectives depending on the organization.  In learning about open system, I feel that I get a basic understanding of the types of theories that are available and what the objectives of each are.  I hope to learn and understand more about the different systems as it relates toward real world scenarios.

Individual Assignment

Week 5, DQ 1

Why do so many managers seem ineffective?
An ineffective manager may have too much freedom in some organizations.  They may believe that they can do whatever they like in an organization.  According to Jones (2010), in a case study with the Texana Petroleum Corporation, the organization gave too much power to some of their managers.  The organization expected a higher level of successful turnarounds even though the outcome from the managers was favorable for their market (Jones, 2010).  It’s possible that if the stakeholders of the organization spent more time monitoring the managers, their expected outcome may have become a reality.

Why might ineffective leaders get promoted?
There are several reasons that an ineffective leader may get promoted.  Typically the ethics of the organization or promoting manager is questioned.  Favoritism can play a role in the promotion.  In the case with Microsoft (Jones, 2010), the evaluation process tainted the results of the evaluations because of the favoritism in the organization.

What organizational design characteristics are at work in these situations, and how might they be improved?
The organizational design characteristics that are at work are related to the structure and culture of the organization (Jones, 2010).  Often times, upper management does not pay attention to the problems that occur until it’s too late or an issue occurs (Jones, 2010).  If they paid more attention, or became sincerely involved with their employees, they may be able to improve these scenarios.

Provide examples from your own or your organization’s experience to support your explanationIn my new organization, the heads of the organization often come to the employees to say hello and see how they are doing.  This gives both the employee and chief officers the opportunity to communicate and openly get feedback from each other. In my last organization, the communication between the CTO and the employees was the worst experience I have ever encountered. The CTO openly insults people as well as not acknowledge some of the employees. The CEO and founder of the company allows the CTO to do whatever he wanted to do. The organization consistently looses employees and the relationships of the clients because of this poor behavior.

Reference

Jones, G.R. (2010). Organizational theory, design, and change (6th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.

Week 5, DQ 2

What role does corporate culture have in improving organizations?  Provide examples from your own or your organization’s experience to support your explanation.

In a corporate environment, one of the ideas toward improving the culture in an organization is to pay attention to the organizational design (Jones, 2010).  Good ethical behaviors also play a role in improving the culture and design as well so that the organization can provide structure to both the employees and the organizational goals.  In my last organization, the culture could have been better.  The employees are talented and the work was straightforward.  I firmly believe that the organization can do much better than it currently is if they considered the organization’s culture and fixed their design.  As I mentioned in DQ 1 of this week, the CTO of my last organization was a really awful person.  For example, I remember when I was sitting in my cube, doing my work, and he walked by to tell me, “Hey Alex, you’re still working here?”  It was not the first time I have heard him say that to someone either.  He allowed and distributed an abundant amount of favoritism in the office as well as insults.  If he was an ethical person and didn’t allow certain employees to get away with some of the things they should not have, many good people would still be working in that company.  Using myself as a prime example of how this company is falling apart, when they lost me, they also lost their top clients because of his behavior that I was managing.  I also managed a team of developers, data processors, and system operations to maintain their client’s websites, and when I left, everything began to fall apart.
Reference

Jones, G.R. (2010). Organizational theory, design, and change (6th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.

Week 5: Reflections

In this week, I have learned there are several complexities involved with management and the ideas behind it.  Many of the decisions made in an organization are based on the organization's culture and design.  Ethics and culture play a valuable role in the decisions that are made in an organization as well.  Much of the comments in the forums gave me a lot to think about as well.  Taking the steps to recognize the issues and move forward appropriately to an efficient organizational design are some of the lessons I will take with me in this week.

Individual Assignment

Week 6, DQ 1

What are the basic challenges of organization design you experience as most troubling within your organization?
One of the challenges of organization design is that of organizational design change.  My prior organization, a web technology company, seemed to take every initiative to make sure they remain obsolete.  I believe that they did not want to move their technology forward to the next level.  In some technology organizations, keeping the same technology is a benefit but in the web technology industry, it continuously evolves.  The managers and employees who work in the company should be well informed of the latest technology so that they can meet the standards or beat the competition (Jones, 2010).

What would you do differently if you were in charge?

I think I would promote business and technology newsletters, research time slots to see what works in technology and businesses, new technology training sessions to those who are applicable, and a suggestion box or similar to be continuously informed and competitive in the industry.

Reference

Jones, G.R. (2010). Organizational theory, design, and change (6th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.

Weeks 6, DQ 2

What is the value (or lack of value) in job descriptions? 

A job description provides a employee a brief idea of what the employers may expect from the job requirements.  It generalizes much of the tasks and may not even have all of the requirements in the details.  So there is very little value in what is in a job description.  In a case study with United Products, Inc., job descriptions provide little to no value as people may take on additional responsibilities in a job (Jones, 2010). 

Other than job descriptions, how might work tasks and expectations be communicated, learned, and shared? 
Work tasks may be communicated via email, phone, or in-person.  These tasks may be given to an employee by another employee or a manager.  A manager or employee may be able to train someone or research might be required.  Many tasks may be skills that the employee already knows about as well and so the task is designated to them.

Provide examples from your own experiences to explain your answer

One time I was asked to create an email from a graphic into a web-based format.  The task was outside of my requirements but it was something I was familiar with creating.

Reference

Jones, G.R. (2010). Organizational theory, design, and change (6th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.

Week 6: Reflections

In this week, I have learned several different perspectives from my classmates on their experiences and ideas of what can and may happen in an organization.  Many of these opinions reflect my own concerns and perspectives as well.  Perceptions on ethics, ideals, and job descriptions are all very much related to each other in some way.  I particularly enjoyed my team's collaboration, topic, and effort that was put into our presentation.  

Team Assignment

Week 7, DQ 1

What are examples of mechanistic and organic corporations? 
A mechanistic organization may involve a group of employees that specialize in an area to complete specific tasks but work individually (Jones, 2010).  This type of organization may have clear views and have formal policies (Jones, 2010).  An organization like McDonalds is a mechanistic organization.  The McDonalds' chain restaurants require the individuals to make the same burgers on the menu that the customers order.

An organic organization may involve a group of individuals that may need to collaborate to complete the goals and tasks of the corporation (Jones, 2010).  An example of a organic organization may be similar to a company that produces websites.  This type of organizations expect specific outcomes but creativity is needed.  The employees of this type of organization may also have specific tasks but need a team to collaborate to create and complete the website.  Database processors, project managers, developers, designers, and system operations are just a few teams that may be needed to create a single high-level website.

What are the differences between these two images of organizations? 
One of the differences between these organizations are that while mechanistic corporations may require formality in their policies and processes, an organic organization may need creativity and flexibility.

How do these differences relate to the organizations you listed?
Each organization has its own set of ideas and policies on how they believe their corporation should be run to meet the needs of their audiences/customers.

Reference
Jones, G.R. (2010). Organizational theory, design, and change (6th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.

Week 7: Reflections

In week 7, I realized that we are almost done with this course! Time flew by so quickly.  I learned a few things about mechanistic and organic corporations, images and metaphors associated with them, learning systems, and the systems thinking paradigm.  I have also learned several different perspectives from my classmates on the types of corporations and how they apply to mechanic and organic organizations.

Individual Assignment

Week 8, DQ 1

What new insights has this class given you about organizations and their structure? What new insights do you have about your own organization, or an organization you are familiar with, and its structure? Have you identified areas within your organization’s design that you might improve if you were chief executive officer? What are these areas?

This course has provided me with many different types of insight and information.  I learned that there are different types of systems, that they can be applied in different ways to an organization depending on the needs of that organization.  The organization I used to work with could truly benefit from utilizing the approaches of an open system as this system attempts to learn about the organizational environment and increase the competency of their employees (Gallos, 2006).  For example, some of the developers I worked with are very talented in their areas of expertise, however when it came time to learn about new technology systems, the organization prevented it because there was not really enough time to dedicate to learning new systems.  I believe that there needs to be a segment of time set aside for anyone who wants to learn about something that can benefit the company and the employee’s knowledge base.

Reference

Gallos, J.V. (2006). Organization development.San Francisco, CA; Jossey-Bass.

Week 8, DQ 2

Considering the 21st century emphasis on teams, where might there be continued use of teams of value? What might be arguments against the use of teams? Provide examples from your own experiences.

Teams help to provide different perceptions, aspects, and levels of creativity.  Teams are valuable in that they provide a wealth of informational resources from different people and from other outside resources.  They help with problem solving as well as completing team-oriented tasks for the organization (Morgan, 2007).  One of the downsides from using teams though is that there may be points where the team needs to make a final decision and they may not all agree to it.  In one my previous organizations, a team of developers came together to try and discuss the best ways to go about completing a project.  The project was very complex and had many different routes that could be taken.  Any choice that the developers agreed to would have been fine to the organization but the developers all had their own personal views on the best possible solution.  Eventually the director had to step into the meeting to make the final decision.

Reference

Morgan, G. (2007). Images of organization. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications

Week 8: Reflections

Wow, its the last day of this course!  I feel that I learned several new things that I hope to use in my future courses.  I have learned about different systems thinking approaches, organizational theory and design, and different perspectives on organizational change.  I definitely appreciate all of the varieties of ideas and insight toward many of the experiences I have had.  Writing the creation of a paradigm was difficult for me, yet fun at the same time because I was able to explore and have some insight into how complex creating the paradigm really can be. 

Final Individual Assignment

Grade Report: ORG/716

Grade Summary (Week 1-Week 8)		Grade: A-
Total Percentage:	89.5%
Your Total Score:	89.5
Total Possible Score:	100

Week 8
	Possible Score	Your Score
Individual Paper	20.0	20.0
Comment:
Participation	4.0	4.0
Comment:
Week 8 Subtotal :	24	24
Cumulative Week 8 Subtotal :	100	89.5
Week 8 Feedback:

Week 7
	Possible Score	Your Score
Individual Paper	15.0	12.0
Comment:
Participation	4.0	4.0
Comment:
Week 7 Subtotal :	19	16
Cumulative Week 7 Subtotal :	76	65.5
Week 7 Feedback:

Week 6
	Possible Score	Your Score
Participation	4.0	4.0
Comment:
Team Paper	5.0	5.0
Comment:
Week 6 Subtotal :	9	9
Cumulative Week 6 Subtotal :	57	49.5
Week 6 Feedback:

Week 5
	Possible Score	Your Score
Individual Paper	10.0	10.0
Comment:
Participation	4.0	4.0
Comment:
Week 5 Subtotal :	14	14
Cumulative Week 5 Subtotal :	48	40.5
Week 5 Feedback:

Week 4
	Possible Score	Your Score
Individual Paper	15.0	12.0
Comment:
Participation	4.0	3.0
Comment:
Week 4 Subtotal :	19	15
Cumulative Week 4 Subtotal :	34	26.5
Week 4 Feedback:

Week 3
	Possible Score	Your Score
Individual Paper	10.0	6.5
Comment:
Participation	4.0	4.0
Comment:
Week 3 Subtotal :	14	10.5
Cumulative Week 3 Subtotal :	15	11.5
Week 3 Feedback:

Week 2
	Possible Score	Your Score
Week 1 & 2 Reflections	1.0	1.0
Comment:
Week 2 Subtotal :	1	1
Cumulative Week 2 Subtotal :	1	1
Week 2 Feedback:

Week 1
	Possible Score	Your Score
Week 1 & 2 Reflections	1.0	1.0