Ch 3 - Organizational Environments and Cultures

Question 1

all events outside a company that have the potential to influence or affect it

Answer 1

External environments

Question 2

the rate at which a company’s general and specific environments change

Answer 2

Environmental change

Question 3

an environment in which the rate of change is slow

Answer 3

Stable environment

Question 4

an environment in which the rate of change is fast

Answer 4

Dynamic environment

Question 5

the theory that companies go through long periods of stability (equilibrium), followed by short periods of dynamic, fundamental change (revolutionary periods), and then a new equilibrium

Answer 5

Punctuated equilibrium theory

Question 6

the number and the intensity of external factors in the environment that affect organizations

Answer 6

Environmental complexity

Question 7

an environment with few environmental factors

Answer 7

Simple environment

Question 8

an environment with many environmental factors

Answer 8

Complex environment

Question 9

the abundance or shortage of critical organizational resources in an organization’s external environment

Answer 9

Resource scarcity

Question 10

extent to which managers can understand or predict which environmental changes and trends will affect their businesses

Answer 10

Uncertainty

Question 11

the economic, technological, sociocultural, and political/legal trends that indirectly affect all organizations

Answer 11

General environment

Question 12

the customers, competitors, suppliers, industry regulations, and advocacy groups that are unique to an industry and directly affect how a company does business

Answer 12

Specific environment

Question 13

indices that show managers’ level of confidence about future business growth

Answer 13

Business confidence indices

Question 14

the knowledge, tools, and techniques used to transform inputs into outputs

Answer 14

Technology

Question 15

companies in the same industry that sell similar products or services to customers

Answer 15

Competitors

Question 16

a process for monitoring the competition that involves identifying competition, anticipating their moves, and determining their strengths and weaknesses

Answer 16

Competitive analysis

Question 17

companies that provide material, human, financial, and informational resources to other companies

Answer 17

Suppliers

Question 18

the degree to which a company relies on a supplier because of the importance of the supplier’s product to the company and the difficulty of finding other sources of that product

Answer 18

Supplier dependence

Question 19

the degree to which a supplier relies on a buyer because of the importance of that buyer to the supplier and the difficulty of finding other buyers for its products

Answer 19

Buyer dependence

Question 20

a transaction in which one party in the relationship benefits at the expense of the other

Answer 20

Opportunistic behavior

Question 21

the establishment of mutually beneficial, long-term exchanges between buyers and suppliers

Answer 21

Relationship behavior

Question 22

regulations and rules that govern the business practices and procedures of specific industries, businesses, and professions

Answer 22

Industry regulation

Question 23

concerned citizens who band together to try to influence the business practices of specific industries, businesses, and professions

Answer 23

Advocacy groups

Question 24

an advocacy group tactic that relies on voluntary participation by the news media and the advertising industry to get the advocacy group’s message out

Answer 24

Public communications

Question 25

an advocacy group tactic that involves framing issues as public issues; exposing questionable, exploitative, or unethical practices; and forcing media coverage by buying media time or creating controversy that is likely to receive extensive news coverage

Answer 25

Media advocacy

Question 26

an advocacy group tactic that involves protesting a company’s actions by persuading consumers not to purchase its product or service

Answer 26

Product boycott

Question 27

searching the environment for important events or issues that might affect an organization

Answer 27

Environmental scanning

Question 28

graphic depictions of how managers believe environmental factors relate to possible organizational actions

Answer 28

Cognitive maps

Question 29

the events and trends inside an organization that affect management, employees, and organizational culture

Answer 29

Internal environment

Question 30

the events and trends inside an organization that affect management, employees, and organizational culture

Answer 30

Organizational culture

Question 31

stories told by organizational members to make sense of organizational events and changes and to emphasize culturally consistent assumptions, decisions, and actions

Answer 31

Organizational stories

Question 32

people celebrated for their qualities and achievements within an organization

Answer 32

Organizational heroes

Question 33

a company’s purpose or reason for existing

Answer 33

Company mission

Question 34

a company culture in which the company actively defines and teaches organizational values, beliefs, and attitudes

Answer 34

Consistent organizational culture

Question 35

the process of having managers and employees perform new behaviors that are central to and symbolic of the new organizational culture that a company wants to create

Answer 35

Behavioral addition

Question 36

the process of having managers and employees perform new behaviors central to the new organizational culture in place of behaviors that were central to the old organizational culture

Answer 36

Behavioral substitution

Question 37

visible signs of an organization’s culture, such as the office design and layout, company dress code, and company benefits and perks, like stock options, personal parking spaces, or the private company dining room

Answer 37

Visible artifacts