Environmental Uncertainty and Resource

Management-445:  Homework Assignments

Winter 2020

Overview:  The assignments are related to selected chapters in the textbook and give you the opportunity to use selected concepts, themes, and arguments from Jones in an analysis of a situation that you know about based on your experience working in a particular organization (either as an employee or as a volunteer).  This means that someone else’s account of the situation for example, in a magazine, article, blog, or other media source – is not an acceptable source for the assignment.  To receive full credit on the assignments, use appropriate frameworks/themes/vocabulary from the textbook.

Written Reflections:  You must work individually and independently of the other students in preparing the individual reflection.  The reflection should be typed, written in essay form, approximately 1000 words. Submit your typed work to the d2l assignment dropbox by the specified due date and time. Provide a word count on each document you turn in.

Cite Jones for ideas taken directly from the text, providing page-number citations in your text in the following form: (Jones, p. xx).  You may quote Jones, if appropriate, but keep such quotations brief – and provide page-number citation in the same fashion.

Evaluation:  Your written reflections will be scored based on compliance with the instructions; organization and clarity in your writing; the use of concepts, themes, vocabulary, and arguments from Jones, and your ability to link course content to real-world events. 

Refer to the syllabus and/or the calendar on d2l for due dates.

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Assignment 1:  Environmental Uncertainty and Resource Dependence (Chapter 3)

If you have sufficient work experience to answer these questions, analyze the organization you work for.  If not, choose any one local organization in the Portland community to analyze.

Answer the following:

• Provide the name and location of the organization, a brief description of how the organization creates value, and a brief explanation (couple of sentences) of the goods and/or services it provides.
• Describe the most important general and specific environmental forces (you should be able to identify at least ten) that influence the organization’s ability to access inputs and/or dispose of outputs and explain how each of those forces creates uncertainty for the organization.
• Analyze the complexity, dynamism, and richness of the environment. From this analysis, how would you characterize the overall level of uncertainty (high or low) in the organization’s environment?
• Discuss TWO interorganizational linkage mechanisms the organization currently uses (or could use) to manage symbiotic resource interdependencies. For each linkage, using resource dependency theory and transaction cost theory, discuss why the organization would choose to manage its interdependencies this way.
• Provide a word count.