This document summarizes key concepts about organizational environments and culture from a chapter. It discusses: 1. The external environment that can influence companies including general/specific environments and factors like environmental change, complexity, scarcity, and uncertainty. 2. The three-step process of environmental scanning, interpreting factors, and acting on threats/opportunities to make sense of changing environments. 3. A case study on Waste Management, the largest waste handling company, and challenges from less waste generation and demands for more recycling. 4. Definitions of organizational culture and structure and how culture influences employee behavior and company operations. 5. An analysis of the culture at Zappos using its expressed

1. Chapter3
OrganizationalEnvironmentsandCultures

2. MANA3335
ExternalEnvironment
All events outside a company that have the potential to influence it
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Generalandspecificenvironments
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Environmental Change Resource Complexity Resource Scarcity
Rate at which a company’s
general and specific
environments change
• Stable environment:
Rate of change is slow
• Dynamic environment:
Rate of change is fast
Number and intensity of
external factors in the
environment that affect
organizations
• Simple environment:
Includes few factors
• Complex environment:
Includes many factors
The abundance or shortage
of critical organizational
resources in an
organization’s external
environment.

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Uncertainty
The extent to which
managers can
understand or predict
which environmental
changes and trends will
affect their businesses.
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High change, complexity and resource scarcity = High uncertainty

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Makingsenseofchangingenvironments
Three-step process employed by managers
Environmental scanning:
• Searching for important events or issues
Interpreting environmental factors:
• Determining what events and issues mean to the organization
Acting on threats and opportunities:
• Deciding how to respond to these environmental factors
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WasteManagementCase
Waste Management, Inc.
Largest waste-handling company in the world:
• 20 million customers
• 273 municipal landfills
• 91 recycling facilities
• waste-to-energy facilities
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Generates 75 percent of its profits from 273 landfills, which can
hold 4.8 billion tons of trash.

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WasteManagementCase
• Corporations, cities, and households are greatly reducing the amount
of waste they generate, and thus the amount of trash that they pay
Waste Management to haul away to its landfills.
• Another significant change for Waste Management is that customers
also want the garbage they send to landfills to be sorted for recycling
and reuse.
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1:2:WholeGroup
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• What steps could Waste Management take to take advantage of the
trend toward zero waste that might allow it to continue growing
company revenues?
The high cost of collecting and sorting recyclable materials means that
Waste Management loses money when it recycles them.
• What can the company do to meet increased customer expectations,
on one hand, while still finding a way to earn a profit on high-cost
recycled materials?

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OrganizationalStructure
The predominant beliefs, values, attitudes, behaviors, and practices shared
by organizational members
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Zappos
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Culture
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• The environment in which people work
• Influences how they think, act, and
experience their job
• Differs greatly from organization to
organization
• Effects how a company is run and is
affected by organizational practices
• Strong cultures provide a clear
understanding of values, norms, and
expected behavior

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ZapposExpressedValues
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IsZapposahighperformingculture?
• Skilled, admired leaders who take excellent care of their people and their customers
• Clear compelling vision, mission, goals, and strategy
• Core values that drive culture and are used in decision making
• Committed to excellence, ethics, and doing things right
• Clear roles, responsibilities, and success criteria
• Commitment to engaging, empowering, and developing people
• Positive, can-do work environment
• Open, candid, transparent communication
• Teamwork, collaboration, and involvement are the norm
• Emphasis on constant improvement and state-of-the art knowledge and practices
• Willingness to change, adapt, learn from mistakes, take reasonable risks, try new things
What leaders need to know about organizational culture Table 1
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Tony Hsieh on his management philosophy

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OrganizationalAnalysis
• Find a local, national, or global business
• A single division or BU of a large company is acceptable
• Can be for-profit, government, not-for-profit, or charitable
• Elements of Analysis:
• Mission/Goals
• External Analysis of Environment
• Internal Analysis of resources, capabilities, core competencies and culture
• Identify Competitive Advantage
• Offer Strategic Alternatives and Recommendation
• Encouraged:
• Meet with and collect information from managers in the organization
• Required:
• Use public sources, annual reports, magazine/newspaper articles, press releases, internet sources,
and investment analysts’ reports
• Have your organization approved by the end of this week!
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16. Chapter6
OrganizationalStrategy
NEXT CLASS

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QUESTIONS?
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