Exam 4: The External Environment

In the framework for assessing environmental uncertainty:

All of the following are strategies for controlling the environmental domain except

The purpose of boundary-spanning roles is to absorb uncertainty from the environment.

The greatest uncertainty for an organization occurs in the simple, unstable environment.

Incompetence means that decision makers do not have sufficient information about environmental factors.

One outcome of high differentiation is that coordination between departments becomes more difficult until integrative devices are put in place.

Roger Ramon is a militant member of a faculty union at a medium-sized college. When the union's negotiating committee is reporting to a meeting of the faculty, he always finds fault with the work of that committee and strongly advocates striking. When a member of the negotiating committee resigns because of illness, the union's executive committee appoints Roger to take his place. This is an example of:

____ refers to the high-tech analysis of large amounts of internal and external data to spot patterns and relationships that might be significant.

Sectors of the environment which have direct impact on the organization are called the:

The boundary-spanning role is designed to bring information to the organization about changes in the environment, but not to work in reverse to take information into the environment about the organization.

Complex + Unstable environments = high uncertainty

Explain the pro and con arguments to creation of buffering roles.

____ can be used to erect regulatory barriers against new competitors or to squash unfavorable legislation.

When organizations depend on the environment but strive to acquire control over resources to minimize their dependence, it is referred to as cooptation.

In addition to establishing favorable linkages to obtain resources, organizations also may try to change the environment.

The general environment includes sectors with which the organization interacts directly and which have a direct and regular impact on the organization's ability to achieve its goals.

List and describe three organizational adaptations to environmental uncertainty.

Competitive intelligence refers to the high-tech analysis of large amounts of internal and external data to spot patterns and relationships that might be significant.

An interlocking directorate is a formal linkage that occurs when a member of the board of directors of one company sits on the board of directors of another company.

The international environment includes sectors with which the organization interacts directly and that have a direct impact on the organization's ability to achieve its goals.