ch 8

Question 1

Define the environment

Answer 1

is usually defined as everything outside an organisation’s boundaries. It can differentiated between organization’s general and specific environments.

Question 2

Define The general environment

Answer 2

is essentially the same as an organisation’s environment. It includes everything - political conditions, the legal structure, the cultural conditions, etc. It includes conditions that may have an impact on the organisation, but their relevance is not particularly clear.

Question 3

Define The specific environment

Answer 3

is that part of the environment that is directly relevant to the organisation in achieving its goals. It is unique to each organisation and it changes with conditions. It includes suppliers, competitors, and clients, among others.

Question 4

Define the Domain

Answer 4

identifies the organisation’s niche. It refers to the claim that the organisation stakes out for itself with respect to the range of products or services offered and markets served.

Question 5

What is environmental uncertainty.

Answer 5

Not all environments are the same. They differ in what is called environmental uncertainty. Some organisations face relatively stable environments; this means that few forces in their specific environment are changing. Other organisations face very dynamic environments: there are rapidly changing technologies, new competitors

Question 6

What is the enacted environment

Answer 6

The process through which the actual and perceived environments interact in relation to environmental uncertainty has been explained in an interpretation called the enacted environment

Question 7

What did Tom Burns and G.M Stalker find

Answer 7

Tom Burns and G.M. Stalker found that the type of structure that existed in rapidly changing and dynamic environments was significantly different from that in organisations with stable environments. Burns and Stalker proposed two structures

Question 8

What two structures did Tom Burns and G.M Stalker find:

Answer 8

Mechanistic structure

Organic structure

Question 9

Mechanistic structure Characteristics

Answer 9

• high complexity, formalisations and centralisation;
• Job specialisation is high, with each worker only making a small contribution to the final output.
• Efforts are concentrated on improving technical processes rather than the final product.
• Power and knowledge reside in the management hierarchy, which decides how work will be accomplished. They also decide on the rights and responsibilities of workers.
• Most flow of information and communication is vertical, that is up and down the hierarchy. Emphasis is placed upon knowledge of internal processes rather than general knowledge of the environment.

Question 10

Organic structure characteristics

Answer 10

• relatively flexible and adaptive, with an emphasis on knowledge;
• there is an emphasis on lateral communication, that is, between individuals wherever they are located, rather than communication up and down a hierarchy;
• tasks are continuously redefined through interaction with others;
• commitment to the firm is valued more highly than obedience and adherence to established procedures;
• power and influence derives from knowledge and expertise, rather than position in the hierarchy;
• top managers are not considered to be the repository of all knowledge;
• problems are not passed up the hierarchy or passed onto others, but are addressed by the person experiencing the problems;
• the content of communication consists mainly of information and advice rather than instructions and decisions.

Question 11

What did Paul lawrence and Jay Lorsch hypothesis in relation to environment

Answer 11

Paul Lawrence and Jay Lorsch sought to align the internal environment of firms with their respective external environments. They hypothesised that the more successful firms within each industry would have better alignments than the less successful firms

Question 12

What two factors did Jay lorsch and Paul Lawrence measure internal environment by

Answer 12

Integration and differentiation

Question 13

What is integration in relation to internal environment

Answer 13

They defined integration as the quality of collaboration that exists among interdependent units or departments that are required to achieve unity of effort. Integration devices that organisations typically use include rules and procedures, formal plans.

Question 14

What is differentiation in relation to internal environment

Answer 14

The term differentiation, as used by Lawrence and Lorsch, closely parallels what was defined as horizontal differentiation. However, Lawrence and Lorsch argued that, in addition to job specialisation, managers in various departments can be expected to have different attitudes and behave differently in terms of their goal perspective, time frame and interpersonal orientation. Therefore, the degree of differentiation becomes a measure of complexity and indicates more complications and a need to process information.

Question 15

How does Robert Duncan explain environment

Answer 15

Robert Duncan classified environments along two dimensions - the rate of change of environments and the environmental complexity. The greater the number of elements there are in an environment, the more complex the environment.

Question 16

What are the 3 key dimensions to any organisatioons environment

Answer 16

Recent research suggests that there are three key dimensions to any organisation’s environment:

capacity,
volatility, and
complexity.

Question 17

Capacity

Answer 17

The capacity of an environment refers to the degree to which it can support growth. This refers, for instance, to the availability of finance. Rich and bountiful environments are characterised by plentiful resources. These may be drawn upon by organisations to facilitate growth and expansion. They also protect the organisation against shortages in times of scarcity.

Question 18

stability

Answer 18

The degree of instability in an environment is captured in the stability dimension.
It can be defined as the extent to which there is little change in the environment Where there is a high degree of unpredictable change, the environment is dynamic. At the other extreme is a stable environment

Question 19

Complexity

Answer 19

The environment needs to be assessed in terms of environmental complexity – that is, the degree to which the environment is concentrated on just a few elements. Simple environment have a few concentrated elements. It is easy in such an organisation for only one person to monitor the environment. In contrast, complex environments have many different elements in them which may not be related to one another and which may vary at different rates.

Question 20

which factors help explain how organisations come into being, what affects their survival,and the structures they adopt

Answer 20

population ecology,
institutional theory, and
resource-dependence theory.

Question 21

population ecology,

Answer 21

The population-ecology view argues that the environment selects certain types of organisations to survive and others to perish on the basis of the fit between their structural characteristics and the characteristics of their environment. Population ecologists argue that organisational forms must either fit their environmental niches or fail.

Question 22

institutional theory,

Answer 22

Institutional theory is an approach which integrates an organisation’s past actions and the social and environmental pressures on it to explain organisational practices. It proposes that organisations are influenced not only by their internal processes but also by the need to adapt to the institutional pressures in the external environment. This need for adaptation then leads to behaviours being repeated and becoming ‘institutionalised’.

Question 23

Resource dependence theory

Answer 23

Resource-dependence theory draws on the concept of the open system to promote the ways in which the organisation depends on the environment for its resources. However, resource dependence brings with it the capacity of suppliers to exert power on organisations, and as a result makes them vulnerable to the exercise of this power.