DISCUSSION QUESTIONS (12 points in total; 3 points each question)

1) Consider the three environments of a firm. Which of the environments has the most direct and immediate impact on the firm? Which of the environments has a more diffuse and delayed impact? Explain.

2) What are the major forces that affect organization-environment relationships? Describe those factors.

3) Describe the four approaches to organizational effectiveness. Give a specific example of something that a company should measure in order to evaluate its effectiveness under each approach.

4) Which of the firm's environments is most readily changed by the firm? Which of the firm's environments is least amenable to change by the firm? How does this influence the actions that firms take?

MANAGEMENT IN ACTION- The NetApp Approach to Net Satisfaction

Case question 1: In what ways does the culture at NetApp reflect the influence of the sociocultural dimensionof its general environment?

Case question 2: In what ways does the presence of competitors in its task environment influence NetApp's culture? In what ways might the systems resource and internal process approaches explain NetApp's organizational effectiveness?

Case question 3: According to NetApp CFO Steve Como, a major question facing the company's managers is: "What is an effective way to manage people who have [the] freedom" that NetApp employees do? He also observes that "most of the jobs we do require a lot of social interaction." In what practical ways might the need to encourage "social interaction" affect the company's policy to permit as much workplace freedom as possible?