1. IBMs new strategy is to focus less on technology and more on relationships.
2. Factors external to the organizations have been primarily the focus of management as a discipline.
3. The two layers of an organization’s external environment are the general environment and the task environment.
4. The outer layer, the general environment, is widely dispersed and affects organizations directly.
5. Two important sectors of the economic dimension of a firm’s general environment are customers and competitors.
6. Current employees, management, and especially corporate culture are part of an organization’s internal environment.
7. Economic problems in other parts of the world have a tremendous impact on U.S. companies.
8. The general economic health of the country or region in which the organization operates is part of the technological dimension.
9. It can be said that managers are working under conditions of uncertainty when they do not have sufficient information about environmental factors to understand and predict environmental needs and changes.
10. The economic dimension of the general environment represents the demographic characteristics.
11. An example of part of the legal-political dimension of the general environment is a government’s report on the decline of unemployment rate to 11.9 percent.
12. President Clinton’s signing of the telecommunications bill in 1996 deregulating the industry is an example of the legal-political dimension of the general environment.
13. McDonalds, Burger King, and Checkers are competitors since all three sell fast food to individuals.
14. The raw materials that organizations use to produce its outputs are provided by customers.
15. Other organizations in the same industry or type of business that provide goods or services to the same set of customers are referred to as suppliers.
16. People in the environment who can be hired to work for an organization make up the labor market.