Chapter 1. An external perspective on organization-overview

Our position is that organizations survive to the extent that they are effective. The key to organizational survival is the ability to acquire and maintain resources.
Problems arise not merely because organizations are dependent on their environment, but because this environment is not dependable.  

Questions about how to motivate a worker to be productive are common. But questions about how resources come to be required are left unanswered or are commonly neglected.
The importance of attending to contextual variables in understanding organizations, but also that organizational survival and success are not always achieved by making internal adjustments. 
Somewhat more importantly, contingency theories have become popular, arguing that the appropriate style of behavior depends on the situation, the personalities of the subordinates, the nature of the task, the power of the leader, and so forth.
The basic, important question of how much the variance in organizational activities or outcomes is associated with context and how much with individuals has been infrequently addressed. 
[Basic concepts for a contextual perspective]
1. Organizational effectiveness
The difference between effectiveness and efficiency is at the heart of the external versus internal perspectives on organizations. 

Organizational effectiveness is an external standard of how well an organization is meeting the demands of the various groups and organizations that are concerned with its activities.

The most important aspect of this concept of organizational effectiveness is that the acceptability of the organization and its activities is ultimately judged by those outside the organization. But this does not imply that the organization is at the mercy of outside, the organization can and does manipulate, influence, and create acceptability for itself and its activities.
Organizational efficiency is an internal standard of performance. Efficiency is measured by the ratio of resources utilized to output produced. Efficiency is relatively value free and independent of the particular criteria used to evaluate input and output.
Efficiency is more of a managerial problem.
2. Organizational environment
The concept of environment is elusive. In one sense, the environment includes every event in the world which has any effect on the activities or outcomes or the organization. 

Every event confronting an organization does not necessarily affect it. 
Organizational environments are not given realities; they are created through a process of attention and interpretation. Organizations have information systems for gathering, screening, selecting, and retaining information.

Organization information systems could offer insight to those seeking to analyze and diagnose organizations.
3. Constraints
Actions can be said to be constrained whenever one response to a given situation is more probable than any other response to the situation, regardless of the actor responding. 
Constraints on behavior are often considered to be undesirable, restricting creativity and adaptation. However, in most cases, action is not possible without constraints, which can facilitate the choice and decision process.

The concept of constraints explains why individuals account for relatively little variance in the performance and activities of organizational systems. 
[ The role of manager]
Two images of the manager:
1) an advocator, an active manipulator of constraints and of the social setting in which the organization is embedded.
... enact or create an environment more favorable to the organization.
2) a processor of the various demands on the organization.
organizational actions are adjusted to conform to the constraints imposed by the social context.