Introduction
US-Qatar Business Council is a non-profit organization that is meant to create an easy entry for American companies wishing to conduct business in Qatar. The council was started in 1996. Furthermore, it is a membership-based company, which has tremendously grown over the years. The council strives to ensure that American investors have an easy entry to the country. The organization has also been keen to ensure that there is a positive relationship between the government of Qatar and that of the US. The council has been actively involved in various activities to ensure that its members’ rights are fully protected. As Adam (46) observes, this company was started by American investors in Qatar to protect their rights in the foreign environment. The council has been able to achieve this dream and many other objectives
US-Qatar Business Council: The Organizational Structure
As stated above, this is a non-profit organization that was established to ensure that US investors are able to invest in Qatar, with minimal difficulty as possible. A board of directors, who are elected by members, runs the organization. The board of directors is charged with the responsibility of ensuring that the organization is run as per the expectations of the members. The board is directly answerable to members of the council on whose behalf the board works. The board is the main decision-making body and it formulates most of the policies that run the organization, which must be approved by the council members. Communication in the organization flows from the top office of the chairperson of the board down to employees in their hierarchical order, and back to this high office.
Conflict Management within the Organization
Conflict management is a very important ingredient in ensuring that an organization remains peaceful and coherent. Atkinson (20) says that a peaceful organization is able to work as a single unit, making it able to achieve its objectives easily. For the duration that the scholar was attached to this organization, there was no conflict witnessed in this organization. The organization had a well-laid mechanism through which differences between workers or council members could be addressed. This has seen the firm grow tremendously because the entire fraternity of the council is able to work as a team. The internal environment was very pleasant, with no form of tension. All the members had a positive attitude towards one another.
Effectiveness and Efficiency of the Organization
Effectiveness refers to how well an organization achieves what it claims to do while efficiency is the ease with which work is done (Barnes and Huntington 29). US-Qatar Business Council has put up structures that have seen it achieve most of its dreams. The main objective of the firm is to ensure that American investors, who come to trade in Qatar, receive the necessary support to ensure that they succeed in this foreign country. It has achieved this as can be witnessed by the massive increase of American investors in the country. To ensure efficiency, the firm has employed locals who have a deeper understanding of the local business environment to implement most of its activities. The efficiency of the firm has also been ensured using emerging technologies to monitor market changes. The employees are also competent.
The Nature and Scope of Student’s Original Responsibilities
The intern was attached to this organization for a period of ten weeks. She was supposed to work for a minimum of 15 hours a week. The intern was supposed to support the US-Qatar Business Council by providing promotional support that includes highlighting business opportunities for US companies seeking to do business in Qatar. This would involve research on various relevant industries such as infrastructure, hotel, investment, amongst other industries. She was also expected to participate and support the Council in holding invents. However, this evolved over time because of the organizational needs (Cunningham 78). The intern was called upon on various occasions to support the clerical staff to undertake various clerical duties. She was also called upon to deliver messages from one office to the other.
Clarity of Instructions from Supervisors
The internship is part of the course. Instructions from the supervisor are therefore very important, as it would be in a normal classroom set up. Through attachment, there are specific sets of objectives that the instructor feels the intern should learn. The instructions would therefore help the intern gain maximally from the process. Clarity of the supervisor’s instructions was facilitated by the use of e-mail. The intern would keep the supervisor updated on the entire progress by e-mailing activities of the day, how the entire experience was, and the main issues learned in the process. The supervisor replied by noting issues that were to be observed in the following day. Through the e-mail, the supervisor would also point out some issues of concern in the previous day’s work. The intern would take note of the instructions the following day.
Standards Used To Evaluate the Work of the Office Staff and the Work of the Interns
Although the organization has no clear mechanism for evaluating intern workers, it has an elaborate technique for evaluating its staff members. All staff members sign the performance contract upon their hiring. Each employee has a target to meet within a specified period. In most cases, it is usually a one-year contract. The performance of the employees would then be measured against the set targets in the performance contract (Briggs 89). If the performance of the individual staff exceeds the set goal, the staff would be considered to have surpassed the performance level. The organization is relatively small and therefore, interns were integrated into the mainstream staff. The interns would work as a team and the success of the entire team would be taken as a success for individual members of the team.
Problems and Problem Solving Techniques
The kind of task the student was involved in was suitable for a marketing or communication student. The intern is an interior design student. Therefore, the task was not directly related to the basic theories learned in class. It, therefore, took some time for the intern to internalize the tasks. This was a big challenge at the beginning of the internship because the expectation the organization had towards the intern was a little too high. However, through consultation and active participation in these activities, the intern was in a position to master what was expected of her in the firm. The intern also kept close communication with the supervisor whenever a challenge that appeared too big faced her.
The Possibilities for Career Advancement in the Office
The experience in this office was very enjoyable. The intern was able to learn the business aspect of her career. Moreover, she was able to meet professional interior designers who were in the business world and who could help her advance her career. However, the office would not be the best place to advance her career. The office duties would help advance business and communication skills. However, the researcher is an interior design student. The best environment to advance such a career would be in an architectural, engineering, planning, and Interior Design firm. These firms would allow the intern to practice what was learned in class. Through this, she would be in a position to advance her career.
Contribution of the Work Experience to Student’s Personal and Professional Growth
An internship is meant to introduce a student to the industry. In most cases, students are exposed to the theory part of the course in class. A three, four, or five-year course would dedicate much time to learning the basics of the course in form of theories or simple practical set-ups in a school’s laboratory. When the student is approaching the end of her studies, he or she would go to the field to practice and experience what was learned in classrooms. In this case, the intern was able to put to practice what was learned in the classroom. Business communication, which was a unit in this course, was fully expanded and the marketing aspect of the profession was enhanced. Through interaction with professional interior designers, the intern was able to get insights into how the industry is, as well as what to expect as a professional in the field. In other words, the internship program fulfilled its objective.
Works Cited
Adam, Frank, and M. Healy. A Practical Guide to Postgraduate Research, Dublin: Blackhall Publishing, 2000. Print.
Atkinson, Peter. The Ethnographic Imagination: Textual Constructions of Reality Routledge, London, 1990. Print.
Barnes, Charles, and B. Hummington. Creating & Delivering your Value Proposition, London: Kogan Page, 2009. Print.
Briggs, Christine. Learning How to Ask: A Sociolinguistic Appraisal of the Role of the Interview in Social Science Research, Cambridge: CUP, 1986. Print.
Cunningham, Brian. The stress management sourcebook, Los Angeles: Free Press, 2000. Print.