Chapter 3 gives an overview of the impacts, successes, and opportunities when organizing in a global environment. A few takeaways for this chapter include:

• listing the forces in an organizations specific and general environment that give rise to opportunities and threats
• identifying why uncertainty exists in the environment
• describing how and why an organization seeks to adapt to and control these forces to reduce uncertainty
• understanding how resource dependence theory and transaction cost explain why organizations choose different kinds of interorganizational strategies to manage their environments to gain the resources they need to achieve their goals and create value for their stakeholders

As you reflect on Chapter 3, you will understand that managing the organizational environment is a crucial task for an organization. Page 86 gives a good summary overview. For our group discussion, answer the Discussion Questions (page 87). Each of you should be able to add your own organization of choice and answer from what you learned in Chapter 3.

Here are the questions:

1.Pick an organization, such as travel agency or supermarket. Describe its organizational domain, then draw a map of the forces in its general and specific environment that affect the way it operates.

2. What are the major sources of uncertainity in an enviroment? Discuss how these sources of uncertainty affect a small biotechnology company and a large carmaker.

3. According to resource dependence theory , what motivates organization to form interorganizational linkages? What is the advantages of strategic alliance as a way of exchanging resources?

4. According transaction cost theory , what motivates organizations to form in-terorganizational linkages? Under what conditions would a company prefer a major formal linkage mechanism to a less formal one

5. What interorganizational strategies might work most successfully as a company expands globally? Why?