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The German University in Cairo

Faculty of Management Technology

The MBA Program

A Summary of

Strategic Responses of Top Managers to Environmental Uncertainty

By: Iger Sener

To:

Prof. Saneya Eglaly

Submitted by:

Name ID

Mohamed Sayed M1100570

22/ 09/2014

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Summary:In this article Irge Sener identifies Strategic Responses of Top Managers to

Environmental Uncertainty He cites that the organizational environment is mostly the main

determinant of the organizational strategy and one of the main topics is how to manage

environmental uncertainty, since the organizations face many constraints in its environment.

The purpose of his study is to determine the environmental dimensions that are perceived

to develop a strategy through which they can neutralize the turbulent environment. To that end

the environmental uncertainty was defined as the inability of individuals perceived ability to

distinguish between pertinent and impertinent data. In addition, the main frame was the

Contingency theory which proposed that the highest performance can be achieved when the

organization responds to environmental demands appropriately.

The Research suggested organizational environment to be a substantial constraint. Since

different environments have different economical, technical and social characteristics. Therefore,

the organizational environment was analyzed based on three dimensions that are complexity,

dynamism and resource munificence. Environmental dynamism implies the frequency of

changes in the components of organizational environment, where Environmental complexity is

the number of important components in the organizational environment and munificence implies

the abundance or scarcity of the resources.

The author collected his data using Semi-structured interviews, which were conducted

with 16 top managers of Organizations in Turkey.

He found that majority of the top managers perceived the environmental munificence

resources is the most important dimension in their organizations environment and became

scarcer in their industry and as a result competition became more intense. Based on availability

of resources they adopted growth strategies. On the other hand, the rate of managers perceiving

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environmental dynamism and environmental complexity are same, who adopted downsizing and

joint venture strategies.

The main findings of the research indicate that companies operating in munificent

environments pursue growth strategies, whereas, that managers perceiving dynamism and

complexity in their organizational environments tend to follow strategies based on alliances with

other companies.

Within this frame, it is concluded that companies form strategic alliance in either

complex or dynamic environments. Since the resources are abundant in munificent environments

the primary objective is not resource acquisition. The organizations operating in scarceenvironments primary is to increase their efficiency by adopting retrenchment strategies and

downsizing. For this reason, organizations operating in munificent and scarce environment do

not concern to form strategic alliance.

Comment:There is no doubt that adopting the appropriate strategic choice is a very critical process

that determines the future of the organization. Walking through this article one can see that this

paper makes a good contribution to the field of strategic management. He shows in a simple

language a proper way to go for the appropriate strategy to cope the competition.

The author has mentioned that strategic alliance which is a short of merge is not the best

for the munificent environment, since in this environment the key factor is resources which could

be gained through growth strategies. Yet the author did not mention the limitation of this paper.

Moreover, there are some points that need further research.