Business Skills for Engineers and Technologists

1

Organizations and organizing

Summary

Organizations exist in an intricate, continually changing world, with many pressures on it that influence its behaviour. The organization structures itself to survive and prosper by planning and forming links with other organizations. At the same time, it must present an acceptable persona by working within society’s constraints.

Objectives

By the end of this chapter, the reader should:

• appreciate the complexity of the business world and the forces acting on it and be aware of the different forms of ownership and the processes involved in starting a company (Section 1.1);

• understand why organization structures arise and the links made internally and externally in the supply chain (Section 1.2