Organizational Task Environments Research Articles

Organizational Performance Under Critical Situations—Exploring the Role of Computer Modeling in Crisis Case Analyses

Organizations sometimes face critical situations or crises that can induce severe consequences or even disasters if wrong decisions are made. The bulk of crisis management research has relied heavily on case study methods yet often with rhetorical or even inconsistent suggestions. With an exclusive focus on crisis prevention, the issue of how organizations can maintain good performance when faced with critical situations has largely remained unexplored. There is also an apparent lack of consideration regarding how aspects of organizational design and task environment interact and affect organizational performance under critical situations. In this paper, we attempt to address this issue from an open system's perspective and integrate techniques of computational modeling with the analyses of two crisis cases, the Vincennes incident and the Hinsdale incident. The use of a computational model with strong organization theory foundation has provided a systematic mechanism for abstracting empirical information and generating theoretical results, thus complementing conventional case analyses, which thrive on in-depth information but are often limited by the lack of analytical ability to provide theoretical insight that goes beyond empirical descriptions. For the two crisis cases, the study shows, through detailed quantitative illustrations, that the computer model can be very effective in predicting organizational performance and suggesting designs that organizations can employ to mitigate the impact of crises. This study has demonstrated that our approach of computational case analysis can be very successful in providing systematic and explicit guidance for effective crisis mitigation both theoretically and empirically.

A Theoretical Study of Organizational Performance Under Information Distortion

How should organizations of intelligent agents be designed so that they exhibit high performance despite information distortion? We present a formal information-based network model of organizational performance given a distributed decision making environment in which agents encounter a radar detection task. Using this model, we examine the performance of organizations with various designs in different task environments subject to various types of information distortion. We distinguish five sources of information distortion—missing information, incorrect information, agent unavailability, communication channel breakdowns, and agent turnover. This formal analysis suggests that: (1) regardless of information distortion, performance is enhanced if there is a match between the complexity of organizational design and task environment; (2) task environment characteristics have more effect on performance than information distortion and the organizational design; (3) the effects of information distortion can be combated by training, but only to a limited extent; and (4) technology based information distortion typically is more debilitating than personnel induced information distortion.

Team role behaviour and task environment

Based on Belbin’s model of management team role behaviour and the theories on organizational environment, proposes that managers’ team role preferences are influenced by the immediate social context, that is, the organizational task environment. Analysing the task environments of five organizations and the team role preferences of 100 managers, finds significant support for the hypotheses that the task environmental dimensions differentiate the clusters of the preferences.

管理者行動論によるスポーツ組織の検討

The managerial behavior theory was applied to analyze sport organizations in this paper. The purposes of this study were 1) to clarify the factorial structure of managerial behaviors in sport organizations, 2) to examine some situational factors determining managerial behaviors, and 3) to investigate the influence of managerial behaviors on the effectiveness of sport organizations. Data were collected from 176 chairmen of the board of directors in sport organizations by a mail questionnaire. It contained 35 managerial behavior statements in daily job accomplishment and 45 items about organizational climate, organizational learning style, task trait, task environment, and organizational effectiveness. A factor analysis and multiple regression analysis were applied to analyze the data. Major findings were summarized as follows: 1) 8 factors (initiative of strategic innovation, external negotiations, consideration, initiating structure, supervision through information, fostering followers, performance emphasis, and upward influence) were extracted as sub-dimensions of managerial behaviors. 2) Some situational factors affected leadership behaviors (consideration, initiating structure, and performance emphasis) and initiative of strategic innovation. However, on the whole, the degree of the effect of situational factors on managerial behaviors was relatively low. 3) 7 factors (sub-dimensions) of managerial behaviors determined the effectiveness of sport organizations. Particularly, initiative of strategic innovation, fostering followers, external negotiations, and performance emphasis positively determined the organizational effectiveness of sport organizations.

Towards an Objective Classification Scheme for Organizational Task Environments

SUMMARYThis study replicates, refines, cross‐validates and simplifies a scheme of operationalization and measurement of environmental dimensions proposed by Dess and Beard (1984). Employing a sample of 60 industries and data over a 16‐year period, this study found considerable support for the viability of the three dimensions of munificence, dynamism and complexity. The data intensive and computationally complex operationalization scheme was simplified using a discriminant analysis approach and the discriminant functions were cross‐validated using an alternate data set.

Organizational Task and Institutional Environments in Ecological Perspective: Findings from the Local Newspaper Industry

Drawing on the distinction between task and institutional environments, this article analyzes changes in the organizational structure of a local newspaper industry over a 125-year period. The ananlysis first examines the relationship, between environmental phenomena and the patterns of founding and failure observed in the lives of 2,168 newspaper organizations. To study another relationship, that between organizational environments and performance levels, four long-lived newspapers were investigated separately. The findings show that institutional environmental variables, especially political turmoil, strongly affect the rates of founding and failure but only weakly affect performance. In contrast, task environmental variables are more closely associated with the performances of individual organizations and less with the organizational demographics of the industry.

Dimensions of Organizational Task Environments

Dimensions of Organizational Task Environments

Objective Measurement of Organizational Environments.

This paper argues for the advantages of research on organizational populations and proposes that industrial classifications deserve increased attention. Dimensions of organizational task environments that Aldrich (1979) identified are subjected to empirical test and three factors -- munificence, complexity, dynamism -- are confirmed. Implications for building both descriptive and normative theory about organization - environment relationships are discussed.

The Role of Environment in a Configurational Theory of Organizations

This paper refines existing conceptualizations of organizational task environments by distinguishing among environmental complexity, diversity, instability, uncertainty, dependence, and hostility. Based on these concepts, a typology is presented that suggests that certain combinations of environmental dimensions are important for classifying organizations. Further, the various combinations of environmental dimensions are used to specify a configurational theory of organizations by suggesting interaction effects between the various environmental dimensions and internal organizational design. Based on the typology of environmental dimensions and three premises, twelve propositions are derived for empirical testing. The existing literature relevant to some of the propositions is reviewed, the strengths and limitations of the theory are presented, and some implications for organizational research are discussed, particularly in terms of constructing more comprehensive theories of organizations.