Organizational Theory, Design And Change: Chapter 3

Front 1

Environment:

Back 1

the set of forces surrounding an organization that have the potential to affect the way it operates and its access to scarce resources.

Front 2

Organizational domain:

Back 2

the particular range of goods and services that the organization produces and the customers and other stakeholders whom it serves.

Front 3

Specific environment:

Back 3

the forces from outside stakeholder groups that directly affect an organization's ability to secure resources. Includes: customers, distributors, unions, competitors, suppliers, and government.

Front 4

General environment:

Back 4

the forces that shape the specific environment and affect the ability of all organizations in a particular environment to obtain resources. Includes: demographic & cultural forces, international forces, political forces, technological forces, economic forces, and environmental forces.

Front 5

Sources of uncertainty in the environment:

Back 5

Complexity - the strength, number, and interconnectedness of the specific and general forces that an organization has to manage.

Dynamism - the degree to which forces in the specific and general environments change quickly over time and, thus, contribute to the uncertainty an organization faces.

Richness - the amount of resources available to support an organization's domain.

Front 6

Resource dependence theory:

Back 6

argues that the goal of an organization is to minimize its dependence on other organizations for the supply of scarce resources in its environment and to find ways of influencing them to make resources available.

Front 7

Symbiotic interdependencies:

Back 7

exist between an organization and its suppliers and distributors.

Front 8

Competitive interdependencies:

Back 8

exist among organizations that compete for scarce inputs and outputs.

Front 9

Reputation:

Back 9

a state in which an organization is held in high regard and trusted b other parties because of its fair and honest business practices.

Front 10

Co-optation:

Back 10

a strategy that manages symbiotic interdependencies by neutralizing problematic forces in the specific environment.

Front 11

Interlocking directorate:

Back 11

a linkage that results when a director from one company sits on the board of another.

Front 12

Strategic alliance:

Back 12

an agreement that commits two or more companies to share their resources to develop joint new business opportunities.

Front 13

Networks:

Back 13

a cluster of different organizations whose actions are coordinated by contracts and agreements rather than through a formal hierarchy of authority.

Front 14

Keiretsu:

Back 14

a group of organizations, each of which owns shares in the other organizations group, that work together to further the group's interests.

Front 15

Joint venture:

Back 15

a strategic alliance among two or more organizations that agree to jointly establish and share the ownership of a new business.

Front 16

Strategies for managing symbiotic resource interdependencies:

Back 16

Reputation
Co-optation
Strategic alliance
Lont-term contracts
Networks
Minority ownership
Joint venture
Merger and takeover

Front 17

Strategies for managing competitive resource interdependencies:

Back 17

Collusion & cartels (illegal in US)
Third-party linkage mechanism
Strategic alliances
Merger and takeover

Front 18

Collusion:

Back 18

a secret agreement among competitors to share information for a deceitful or illegal purpose.

Front 19

Cartel:

Back 19

an association of firms that explicitly agree to coordinate their activities.

Front 20

Third-party linkage mechanism:

Back 20

a regulatory body that allows organizations to share information and regulate the way they compete.

Front 21

Transaction costs:

Back 21

the costs of negotiating, monitoring, and governing exchanges between people.

Front 22

Transaction cost theory:

Back 22

a theory that states that the goal of an organization is to minimize the costs of exchanging resources in the environment and the costs of managing exchanges inside the organization.

Front 23

Sources of transaction costs:

Back 23

Environmental Uncertainty and bounded rationality
Opportunism and small numbers
Risk and specific assessment

Front 24

Specific asset:

Back 24

investments - in skills, machinery, knowledge, and information - that create value in one particular exchange relationship but have no value in any other exchange relationship.

Front 25

Bureaucratic costs:

Back 25

internal transaction costs.

Front 26

Outsourcing:

Back 26

the process of moving a value creation activity that was performed inside an organization to outside where it is done by another company.