Strategic Uncertainty and Environmental Scanning: The Case for Institutional Influences on Scanning Behavior

Dynamic capabilities through continuous improvement infrastructure

“…First, because information needs to pass through several layers, it takes longer for upper management decisions to reach operational front-lines, and this delay affects the speed and accuracy of the communication (Beer et al, 2005). Second, organizational levels are affected by multiple environmental factors, making it difficult for upper management to keep track of the factors affecting each level (Elenkov, 1997). Finally, a conventional topdown structure inhibits bottom-up communication about environmental changes and thus impedes organizational learning (Wright and Snell, 1998).…”

“…Nested environmental scanning: Cohen et al (1972), Crossan and Berdrow (2003) and Elenkov (1997) Prepare employees for constant change and reorientations Double-loop learning: Argyris and Schö n (1978), Barrett (1995) and Sitkin et al (1994) Parallel participation structures Superimpose lateral structures for crossfunctional cooperation…”

“…Scanning improves an organization's capacity to react to or even preempt environmental changes that pose risks or provide opportunities (Crossan and Berdrow, 2003;Eisenhardt and Martin, 2000). Organizations interact with their environments at multiple levels-at the level of the organization, business unit, department, and process (Elenkov, 1997). For example, at the organizational level, there are regulators and major competitors to manage, while the department and process levels interact with suppliers and customers.…”

Perceived environmental uncertainty in tourism: A new approach using the Rasch model

“…Although the pioneers of this approach were Boulton, Lindsay, Franklin, Ranklin, and Rue (1982), the method proposed by Daft et al (1988) has been adopted by several other authors (Elenkov, 1997;May, Stewart, & Sweo, 2000). They calculate environmental uncertainty from the following transformation:…”

Divergence between informant and archival measures of the environment: Real differences, artifact, or perceptual error?

“…One alternative assumption is that this divergence reflects real differences between aggregate measures of an industry environment and the task environment that a firm actually faces. For example, Elenkov (1997) found that uncertainty scores differ significantly among various sectors of the environment. A second alternative is that this divergence exists because informant and archival assessments of the environment differ at both theoretical and measurement levels (Boyd et al, 1993).…”