Organisational Responses to External Forces
Environmental factors and forces are analysed alongside their ability to achieve an organisation’s objectives
Duration
2 weeksWeekly study
10 hours
Organisational Responses to External Forces
Environmental forces are explored in the context of an organisation’s strategy
Organisational culture shapes the way things are done and the dynamics within an organisation. In this course, we define and use different models to explore and evaluate it to better understand how it is created.
Micro and macro environmental factors are considered, and the course will examine what impacts the organisational internally and externally and how environmental uncertainty impacts an organisation.
In order to better determine factors which impact an organisation, both a PESTEL and SWOT analysis are described and consideration is given to how organisations compete.
What topics will you cover?
Organisational culture
- Introducing organisational culture
- Defining organisational culture
- Four cultural types
- Analysing cultural types
- Hofstede’s five dimensions of culture
- Assessing cultural dimensions
- The leader’s role in creating a positive culture
- Influencing an organisation’s culture
The internal with the external environment
- Identify micro and macro environmental factors
- Map out environmental uncertainty
- Explain resource dependency theory
SWOT analysis
- SWOT analysis
- Developing a SWOT analysis
- Limitations of a SWOT analysis
PESTLE analysis
- Why use a PESTLE?
- PESTLE (political, economic, sociological, technological, legal and ecological) analysis
- Identify megatrends
- Undertaking a PESTLE analysis
- SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats) analysis
Evaluate competitive positioning
- The macro environment and the nature of competition
- How would you identify a competitor?
- Defining the competition
- Competitor analysis
- Porter’s five forces
Approaches to competitiveness
- Porter’s generic strategies
- Concept mapping
- Benchmarking
- Balanced scorecard
A customer-focused approach
- Explain the difference between internal and external customers
- Complete an internal customer flow diagram
- Explain the concept of internal customer care
- Explain what influences external customer expectations
- Describe the customer dissatisfaction gap and how it could be caused
- Discuss the concept of return on investment of a customer service strategy
Learning on this course
On every step of the course you can meet other learners, share your ideas and join in with active discussions in the comments.
What will you achieve?
By the end of the course, you‘ll be able to...
- Evaluate organisational culture
- Compare the internal with the external environment
- SWOT analysis
- PESTLE analysis
- Evaluate competitive positioning
- Approaches to competitiveness
- Produce a customer-focused approach
Who is the course for?
This course is designed for junior and middle managers, either with a degree in a non-business-related discipline or without a degree, entrepreneurs who want to be equipped with a range of skills to run their business, and learners who want to progress either within their existing workplace or pursue opportunities outside of their employer.
What software or tools do you need?
No specific software required.
Who will you learn with?
Clare Garrick BA,(Hons), MA, FHEA, CMgr MCMI – business course leader. Coventry University Scarborough
Who developed the course?
Coventry University
Coventry secured 5 QS Stars for Teaching and Online Learning in the QS World University Ranking 2020 and has received No. 1 in the world for Massive Open Online Courses in MoocLab’s World University Ranking 2021.
Established
1992Location
Coventry
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