Organizational Experiences and Transaction Costs.

As a young adult, a majority of my own experience in regards to organizational structure comes more from a consumer standpoint, a bit of an outsider's perspective.  However, I have had the opportunity to be apart of a Registered Student Organization's here on campus, and have worked in fields with strict hierarchal organization structures that have blessed me with a basic insight of how organizations may function in pertinence to our daily lives.

Very early in this fragile life, I became very passionate towards any means of physical activity, specifically the sport of football.  Do not be confused however, the sport of football I speak of is the one that many of us Americans refer to as soccer.  As my childhood trudged on, I became evermore intrinsically motivated to participate in daily physical exertions, and even more so in activities that bolstered my skill in the particular sport.  My enthusiasm for football perpetuated into my late teenage years, but due to unfortunate circumstances, it abruptly came to a halt by the time I left for college.

Unfortunately my future in the beautiful game of football had become disrupted by a nasty knee injury.  The nature of the injury briefly brought my physical world to an end. Since I hade become very active early on, I refused to become stagnant in my daily lifestyle.  This refusal ignited a new flame of passion in my being, which now was directed toward the sport of weightlifting.  Unlike football, weightlifting was a sport comprised more of unidirectional movements.  These style of movements alleviated the stress that had since been persistently placed on my knee from a young age.  Considering that my knee was no longer strong against the bidirectional, lateral, and turning movements most often associated with playing football, this new passion fostered a new sense of security and confidence that had been viciously taken from me at the end of high school.

Eventually my new enthusiasm directed me towards the interest of the bodybuilding and powerlifting club here on campus.  It was a student run organization, containing a president and vice president.  The structure was fairly loose, and information was exchanged through the social medium Facebook.  The organization was not multi-dimensional by any means, with the president and vice president having a say in a majority of the organization's matters.   Mostly, the president was more in charge of organizing the group and policing the information that was being exchanged between members.  It was frowned upon to abuse the medium to relay false information, but from time to time certain members would violate this precedent, and it became the responsibility of the president and vice president to handle these matters appropriately.

At first the two clubs, powerlifting and bodybuilding, were separate, but after my sophomore year here at school the two became one.  The structure was still similar, with a very close friend of mine, who had now became the new president, supervising the members from what was originally two different clubs.  With the RSO becoming larger than it had been in previous years, more responsibility had to be allocated to different individuals.  Eventually a small hierarchy was born where the president had elected two individuals, each separately responsible for either the powerlifters or the bodybuilders.  At first glance the two sports may seem strikingly similar, and many may feel as treating the two as separate entities is a little unreasonable.  However I assure you, the worlds or powerlifting and bodybuilding are as separate as peanut butter and jelly, yet they do compliment each other well, much like the two aforementioned sandwich products.  But their differences necessitate a need to create two positions, one for each, that can answer and relay information to the president of the club.  Similar to how many professional organizations may run different departments that are under their supervision.  These two people in charge were deemed the vice presidents of the weightlifting club.

These two vice presidents were not enough however.  Like we discussed in class there were members of the organization, one familiar with the bodybuilding members, and the other familiar with the powerlifting members, who were in charge of speaking to each individual of the club and collecting their opinions and suggestions.  These people were known as the "whips."  This information was then to be transferred to the vice presidents, which was then to be relayed to the president.  This information exchange had a residual nature, and this was necessary to keep the club running efficiently, as well as to assure that every member was satisfied with the RSO's actions as a whole.

The concept of transaction costs seemingly became more applicable to this particular RSO as it continued to grow.  What started out as a loosely organized club, fitted for all fitness enthusiasts alike, quickly became a well-managed student organization.  Accompanying the organization's maturity came an expansion of new activities that were included in the club's operations.  In time the president sought to include annual meets, competitions where individuals could test their strength against one another, provide seminars with valuable information regarding the sport of bodybuilding or powerlifting, and provide new and more advanced equipment geared towards enhancing members' progress in the weight room.

With the new activities came equipment purchases, providing lecturers, and establishing meet registration payments.  All of these involved many facets of transaction costs.  First, the leaders of the organization had to find time to search for appropriate people to conduct the seminar.  Furthermore, compensation agreements had to be made between the RSO and the individual facilitating our knowledge of the sports. Also, finding the right equipment took time, and most of the time cheaper and more useful equipment could be found with longer search attempts.  These are only but a few of the transaction costs that the organization now incurred on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis.  The once simple club was now blossoming into a mature, functioning organization.