Understanding and Managing Public Organizations, 5th Edition

CHAPTER FOUR

ANALYZING THE ENVIRONMENT OF PUBLIC ORGANIZATIONS

The historical overview in Chapter Two was intended to make clear why organizational environment became one of the most important concepts in the study of management and organizations. The early contributors to the study of organizations concentrated on the middle parts of the framework in Figure 1.1—on structures, mainly, with limited attention to certain aspects of tasks, processes, incentives, and people. They placed little emphasis on an organization’s environments or its managers’ responses to them. Contemporary researchers and experts now regard organizational environments, and the challenges of dealing with them, as absolutely crucial to analyzing and leading organizations. ...