like the seller s eBay boycott Controversial campaigns

1
External environments

• Strongly affect organizations remember the open
  systems model
• Environmental change (pace type)
  environmental complexity resource scarcity
  Lots of uncertainty
• Managing uncertainty requires
• Tolerance for ambiguity
• Good external scanning predictive ability
• Managing key resource providers
• Flexibility

2
Whos in charge?

• For both General Specific, environmental
  components represent balances of power.
• They
• Exert pressures to change
• Exert power depending on their importance
  substitutability
• DeBeers example in the text
• Can suddenly shut down historically successful
  organizations products
• Vinyl records when CDs came along
• Email and the USPS
• TIVO television advertising

3
External Environment outside the globe
4
Nissan Responds to Changing Auto Industry
Beyond the Book

• The auto industry is rapidly changing as
  consumers become more concerned with the
  environment, traditional markets slow down, and
  new markets develop in countries like China and
  India.
• Nissan CEO Carlos Ghosn responds with focus on
  tech research for environmentally sustainable
  models and low-priced models for developing
  markets.
• Ghosn plans to develop a Nissan hybrid by 2010,
  release an all-electric car in Japan by 2011, and
  make a 3000 model to compete with Tata (the
  Nano) in India.

Source A. Taylor III, Nissans Radical Chic,
Fortune, 29 October 2007, 127-134.
5
Components of the General Environment

• Economy Global in nature
• Technological trends
• Sociocultural trends
• Political / Legal trends

The General Environment components affect every
organization
6
Technology makes or breaks

• MP3s the recording industry
• Internet travel sites travel agencies
• eBay worldwide trade/flea markets
• Airline industry almost everything! fuel
  costs, labor problems, customer travel trends
• Organizations ignore technological trends at
  their peril

7
Sociocultural trends

• Again, global in nature
• Everything is changing
• Demographics
• Attitudes about work, friendship, leisure
• Gender roles
• Institutional membership norms like marriage
  religion
• Decision should we innovate along with trends,
  or, stay pretty much with what we know best?
• Apple vs McDonalds Tiffanies

8
Demographics Example
9
Political / Legal Component
Managers must be educated about the laws,
regulations, and potential lawsuits that could
affect business

• Legislation
• Regulations
• Court decisions

Wrongful terminal lawsuits increased 77 in the
last decade. Employers lose 70 of those cases.
10
Specific Environment Inside the globe
11
Advocacy groups increasing in influence

• Very organized, (usually) citizen-based groups
  that try to influence organizational or industry
  policy.
• A range of techniques levels of aggressiveness
• Petitions
• Protest marches
• Web sites
• Boycotts , like the sellers eBay boycott
• Controversial campaigns like PETAs red paint
  throwing

12
Creation and Maintenance of Organizational
Cultures
Organizational artifacts like dress code,
spatial layout, reward systems
Organizational systems like how work gets done,
expected working hours, paperwork, supervision
norms
Organizational symbols like special parking lots
cafeterias, corner offices, lapel pins
13
Levels of Organizational Culture
14
Its time to be worried

• If someone says
• Wed like you to go in and change the culture
• Well be changing the culture this year, so
  results will be better next year
• Why is culture so hard to change?
• Times when culture is more likely to change
• New leadership
• Weak culture exists already
• Small firm
• Organizational crisis