Organizational task environment: evidence from the Brazilian industry

Abstract

Purpose – Using the industry as an approximation of the external environment of companies, Dess and Beard proposed the construct organizational task environment (OTE). If the precision of the definition of industry is desirable, it involves a multiplicity of elements that restrict the ability of generalization. This paper aims to contribute by identifying clusters of industries with similar environmental profiles. As the discriminant validity of the OTE construct was tested only by Harris in US manufacturing industry, not supporting it, this study also seeks to contribute by assessing the OTE construct validity for the Brazilian manufacturing industry. Design/methodology/approach – Authors collected data from all manufacturing sectors in Brazil, between 1996 and 2003; they used confirmatory factor analysis with the multi-trait multi-method matrix approach to assess the construct validity and ran environmental dimensions' factorial scores through the cluster analysis to find out natural groupings of industries. Findings – The results support the convergent and discriminant validity of the construct OTE, suggesting that further replication should be conducted in the US economy and in different economic contexts. Research limitations/implications – The study identified four groups of industries with similar environmental conditions, increasing possibilities of generalization of researches. The limitations stem from measurement in an extended period of time and not measuring changes in the environment. Practical implications – To expand the analytical capabilities of managers for decision making on the sharing of skills between businesses in different industries. Originality/value – The main contributions of this work are to further discussions on the validity of the OTE construct and to identify industrial clusters of homogeneous environments.