Day 202 Managing environment

Managing environment

Similar to individuals, the organization’s performance is heavily affected by the environment. Generally, it is referred as the forces and conditions that operate beyond boundaries. Therefore, the manager should not only consider the internal factors within an organization, but also the task and general environments. Due to the rapid competition and technology innovation in the modern market, it has become crucial for managers to be able to perceive, interpret, and respond to different situations. 

As mentioned above, there is both internal and external environment for the organization’s operation. The external environment can be divided into two segments: the task and general environments. Firstly, the task environment comprises the forces that originate with suppliers, distributors, customers and competitors. So basically these participants will affect the organization’s ability to obtain inputs and distribute outputs. The management strategy will focus on each element, in order to establish the advantage in rivalry. On the other hand, the general environment is probably what ordinary people recognize as environment. It is a broader definition, which determines the drivers of the organization and its task environment. For instance, economic, technological, sociocultural, demographic, political, legal and global forces have a dramatic impact over the institution’s performance. These factors require close attention since they are beyond manager’s control, they 

Besides all the external conditions, the internal environment is also called the organizational culture. It is the set of values, norm, standards for behavior and shared expectations that influence the ways employees interact with each other and cooperate to achieve organizational goals. With a strong organization culture, members share an intense commitment to cultural values, beliefs and routines. This culture will improve the efficiency and effectiveness of work, so researchers were conducted to establish the attraction-selection-attrition(ASA) framework, which is the model to interpret the fundamental factors of cultural creation. To illustrate, these factors are: the value of the founder, organizational socialization, ceremonies and rites, stories and language. 

In conclusion, these forces and conditions will immensely influence the acquirement and utilization of organization resources. Consequently, the manager must understand the environment for making appropriate decisions.