What is organizational environment?
Defined as all elements that exist outside the boundary of the organization that have the potential to affect all or part of the organization
What is task environment?
Includes sectors with which the organization interacts directly and that have a direct impact on the organization's ability to achieve it's goals
What is the organization's domain?
Is the chosen field of action
What are environmental sectors?
Subdivisions of the environment that group similar elements
What is the general environment?
Includes those sectors that might not have a direct impact on the daily operations of a firm but will indirectly influence it
What are the 2 essential ways the environment influences organizations?
The need for information about the environment and the need for resources from the environment
What is the simple-complex dimension?
Concerns environmental complexity, which refers to heterogeneity, or the number and dissimilarity of external elements relevant to an organization's operations
What is the stable-unstable dimension?
Refers to whether elements in the environment are dynamic
What is environmental uncertainty framework?
Refer to pg.151 or powerpoint slide 7
What is resource dependence?
R.D. means that organizations depend on the environment but strive to acquire control over resources to minimize their dependence
What strategies can be adopted to manage resources in the external environment?
Establish favorable linkages with key elements in the environment and shape the environmental domain
How do we establish inter-organizational linkages?
Ownership, Formal strategic alliance, Cooptation and interlocking directorates, executive recruitment, advertising and public relations
What is cooptation?
Occurs when leaders from important sectors in the environment are made part of an organization
How does an organization influence or change their environmental domain?
Change of domain, Political activity and regulation, Trade associations, Illegitimate activites