Task environment and strategy: a classification proposal based on munificence, dynamism and complexity

Resumen

The relationships between organizations and their respective task environments are an extremely relevant issue for the strategic management field. Given the diversity of both organizations and environments, moving toward a better understanding of such relationships has become a challenge not only to the management practice but also to scholars. In special, the identification of homogeneous environmental groups allows controlling the conditions that subordinate the actions of firms and widens the possibilities of design and generalization of researches in the strategy area. Besides, it permits identifying not apparent similarities among different industries. Along these lines, the research presented here identified industry groups sharing similar environmental conditions. The research begun with the replication of the work of Dess and Beard (1984), identifying the dimensions which characterize task environments – munificence, dynamism and complexity – for 466 manufacturing industries in USA from 1997 to 2002. Following to this, a cluster analysis was performed in order to group industries with similar task environments. Five different clusters were found. Subsequently, 1,870 American firms from Compustat data base were distributed by the groups created, which were statistically compared regarding the structure and performance features of their firms. This procedure indicated that the environmental groups can explain significant differences among the firms regarding mainly growth, profitability and size.

Key words: task environment, environmental dimensions, manufacturing industries, strategic management.