Managing the external environment : a strategic perspective.

Bringing together major contributions from both within and outside the management field, this unique and thought-provoking volume focuses on the strategic management of an organization's relationship with its external environment.

What are the key environmental changes likely to affect an organization's future? How can the impact of these be analysed and understood? What is the role of strategic environmental analysis in both anticipating change and proactively creating a desired future?

It is with questions such as these that the book is concerned. The first section addresses the need to `contemplate and engage with' the future, examining the issues, the processes and the management skills and attitudes involved. The second section then looks at four major domains of environmental analysis - the economic, the political, the socio-cultural and the tecnological.

Contributors explore such diverse themes as the significance for organizations of activist groups, the impacts of national and cross-national governmental interventions, the management of technological change, and key trends in socio-cultural change within Western consumer cultures. Throughout, the emphasis is on presenting different but complementary `angles of vision' on aspects of environmental change that carry significant ramifications for most organizations.

The final section of the book returns to the theme of futures analysis and considers various approaches to strategic planning that address the implications of long-term environmental change.

Managing the External Environment is a Course Reader on the Open University Course B885 The Challenge of the External Environment.