Banking on Diversity

Organizational Environment Uncertainty Acme is made up of five key departments, they include: purchasing, drafting, productions, industrial engineering and mechanical engineering. Omega, on the other hand, is made up of four key departments: mechanical engineering, electrical engineering, industrial engineering and drafting. Both are similar. These departments play an instrumental role in the success of both companies. It is evident that Acme operates under a mechanistic structure whereas Omega operates under a more decentralized organic structure. It can be stated that in regards of complexity, both organizations have a moderate number of sectors and operate at a low level of environment complexity. In order to fully understand the organization environment of the firms we must also define the levels of stability. In this particular case it is evident that both firms operate in an unstable environment. The electronic market is unpredictable at best and little planning can be done to predict the changes in the market. In the case, the demand for the memory units was unexpected by both firms. In this particular case, the demand for memory chips by the photocopier firm was an unpredictable event. This created an unstable environment for both firms. It can be concluded that Omega, being simple and unstable, is operating at high-moderate levels of uncertainty. Acme, on the other-hand, is more complex but is also unstable. They are operating at low-moderate levels of uncertainty. Resource Dependence "The environment is the source of scarce and valued resources essential to organizational survival." Both Acme and Omega rely heavily upon environmental resources. They are extremely resource dependant as they acquire their essential materials from external sources (external environment). The success of the firms is directly related to how quickly and easily they can obtain their resources. In this case, both Acme and Omega had to delay their...