Towards an Objective Classification Scheme for Organizational Task Environments
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8551.1992.tb00045.x |
| Date | 01 December 1992 |
| Published date | 01 December 1992 |
British Journal
of
Management,
Vol.
3,
197-206
(1992)
Towards an Objective Classification Scheme
for
Organizational
Task
Environments
Abdul
M.
A.
Rasheed* and
John
E.
Prescott?
*Department of Management, College
of
Business Administration, University of Texas, Box 19467,
Arlington,
TX
76019
t
Katz Graduate School
of
Business,
llniversity
of
Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh,
PA
1.5260
SUMMARY
This study replicates, refines, cross-validates and simplifies a scheme
of
operationaliza-
tion 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 computatioually complex operationalization
scheme was simplified using a discriminant analysis approach and the discriminant
functions were cross-validated using an alternate data set.
The appropriate classification of organizational
task environments is a central problem in strategic
management research. Three focal issues facing
scholars in this area are the conceptualization
of
theoretical dimensions, the choice of methods for
measuring the dimensions and the validation and
generalization of both the dimensions and the mea-
sures. Unless these measures are appropriately
addressed, studies examining relationships between
the task environment and organizational strategies,
structures, processes and outcomes will lack vali-
dity and reliability. Generally, procedures for clas-
sifying organizational environments have either
lacked adequate validity or they have proven to
be too cumbersome. Specifications of task environ-
ments that enhance validity and provide simplifica-
tion would have several benefits. First, they would
allow the systematic selection of samples based on
the needs of a particular research question. Second,
researchers would be encouraged to examine the
generalizability of their results by comparing their
samples and results with other studies employing
similar procedures. Third, theory development
would be enhanced through the accumulation of
results, employing a variety of organizational con-
structs across different samples.
This paper presents the findings of a validated,
simple and objective procedure for the classifica-
tion of organizational task environments. While
0
1992
by
John
Wiley
&
Sons,
Ltd.
1045-3
172/92/040197-10$10.00
there are several, equally appropriate, ways in
which these issues could have been addressed, this
study adopted the resource dependence (Pfeffer and
Salancik, 1978) and population ecology perspec-
tives (Aldrich, 1979) and objective measures of the
task environment, which build on the work of Dess
and Beard
(1
984).
Theoretical
Background
Considering the diversity of disciplinary back-
grounds and philosophical orientation of
researchers, it is not surprising that research on
organizational environments is characterized by a
variety of perspectives. Bourgeois
(1980)
suggests
that organizational environments have been
defined as objects, attributes and perceptions. Smir-
cich and Stubbart (1985) suggest that there are basi-
cally three different models that represent ideal
types for explaining how members of organizations
can know their environments: objective environ-
ment, perceived environment and enacted environ-
ment. Lenz and Engledow (1986) classify research
on environments into five different categories,
based on common disciplinary roots and similarity
of their conceptions of the environment. These are:
industry structure model, cognitive model, organi-
zational field model, ecological and resource depen-
Received 18 February 1991
Revised 7 October 1991
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