COMMERCE 1BA3 Chapter Notes - Chapter 15: Wedding Cake, Starbucks, Loose Coupling
3 May 2018
School
Department
Course
Professor
Inputs
Transformation
Output
Environment, Technology and Strategy
• External Environment
o The events and conditions surrounding an organization that influence (power) its
activities
o Stuff in the environment which influence me/has power over me/puts pressure on me
to react/forces change
o New competitor if you are smart, it will change your strategy and structure
▪ Ex. Change in legislation, loss of a critical customer, increased competition,
arrival of a new supplier/loss of a supplier
• Organizations as open systems
o An organization can be described as an open system that takes inputs from the external
environment, transform something and then sends them back into the environment as
outputs
o Closed systes = you eliee you a e opletely self otaied. You do’t hae to
pay attention to the outside pressures. You believe you can function a part from an
unaffected change in inputs/outputs
o Open systems = you believe in the organizations. Your recognize that inputs and outputs
have special needs
Components of the External Environment – p.534 (See Teals handout on the source of external
dependant resources dependants
• 1. The Economy
o Recession or slump in the economy, may cause a need to downsize
• 2. Customers
o A change in customer needs, changes they way to need to respond to certain situations
• 3. Suppliers
o A shortage in supply change, cost goes up – how do i change my strategy/structure
• 4. Competitors
o Due to an increase in competition, how do you need to restructure or restrategize
• 5. Social and or Political Factors
find more resources at oneclass.com
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o Environmental knock , causes changes in your demands (better have an in house day
care)
o Major change in legislation causes change in new products
• 6. Technology
o New technologies are used in manufacturing, allows companies to upgrade their
machines as well
• Interest Groups
o Parties or organizations which have an interest in how an organization is managed (ex.
Beneficiate, helpful, generous)
Resource Dependence
• The dependency of organizations on environmental inputs, such as capital, raw materials and
human resource
• Talked about in power, politics and environment p.538
• The outputs being purchased
• Goes down with the presence of an interest group
• Organizations vary in how resource dependent they are (high to low)
• The degree of resource dependency is a function of environmental uncertainty [ E S]
• Loose coupling, resource between organizations and their environment may not be
deterministic
• What happens in the environment may or may not be reflected by the changes made in an
organization
• EX. Puttig your liders o ad or elieig you’re iiile
Environmental Uncertainty – See Teal’s doule sided hadout
• A condition that exists when the external environment is vague, difficult to diagnose and
unpredictable
The General
Economy
Customers
Suppliers
Competitors
Social/Political
Factors
Technology
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
Document Summary
You do(cid:374)"t ha(cid:448)e to pay attention to the outside pressures. You believe you can function a part from an unaffected change in inputs/outputs: open systems = you believe in the organizations. Your recognize that inputs and outputs have special needs. Components of the external environment p. 534 (see teals handout on the source of external dependant resources dependants: 1. The economy: recession or slump in the economy, may cause a need to downsize, 2. Customers: a change in customer needs, changes they way to need to respond to certain situations, 3. Suppliers: a shortage in supply change, cost goes up how do i change my strategy/structure, 4. Competitors: due to an increase in competition, how do you need to restructure or restrategize, 5. Social and or political factors: environmental knock , causes changes in your demands (better have an in house day care, major change in legislation causes change in new products, 6.
