Business Environment Analysis
Industrial Management Institute
By
Morteza Imanirad
1388
Figure 1.1
The business organisation as a transformation system
Figure 1.2
The firm in its environment
• Business organization
• national environment
Business organization
• International environment
Figure 1.3
Two levels of environment
Key ‘Post Modern’ Assumptions
• Our understanding of
reality is socially
constructed
• Multiple realities exist
about the same ‘thing’
• Impossible to separate
object from subject
• Know your frame!
Do “The Pig”
Gareth Morgan, Imaginization
(c) Gareth Morgan
Skills for Leadership
(c) Gareth Morgan
Skills for Leadership
ontology
what is real ?
Objective
Subjective
External
Internal
A priori
A posteriori
Facts
Quantitative
Values
Qualitative
Epistemology
How do we know?
Objective
Subjective
Modern
Post-Modern
Reason
Perception
Evidence
Experience
Valid
Emotion
Laws
Patterns
(c) Gareth Morgan
Skills for Leadership
Multiple Views
• What do you see?
(c) Gareth Morgan
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“You don't see something until you
have the right metaphor to let you
perceive it”. Thomas Kuhn
“Believing is seeing.” Karl Weick
(c) Gareth Morgan
Skills for Leadership
Framing and Reframing
• Frames are sets of assumptions and mental models
that act as a window on the world.
• Frames are both conscious/explicit and
unconscious/implicit.
• Frames determine what we see and how we
interpret what we see.
• We need skills in engaging multiple models and
learning how to reframe situation.
(c) Gareth Morgan
Skills for Leadership
‫وقتی در یک تاتر نشسته اید چه چیزی باعث می شود شما به بخشهای خاصی از‬
‫تاتر توجه بیشتری بکنید ‪:‬‬
‫? ‪what is it that determines what you see‬‬
‫•‬
‫•‬
‫•‬
‫•‬
‫با که هستیم‬
‫در چه حالی هستیم‬
‫کجا نشسته ایم‬
‫‪..........‬‬
Lighting makes you see
whatever it wants you to
see . It can hide stuff that
exist.
Traps of Frames: Psychic Prisons
• Taken-for-granted frames render us blind to
new types of data.
• We tend to seek out data that is consistent
with our frames.
• When we believe in our frames we tend to
ignore, distort or deny information that is
inconsistent with what the frame suggests
should be there.
(c) Gareth Morgan
Skills for Leadership
Surface Assumptions and
Ask Questions
• Through Asking Questions you can Reveal the Taken-forGranted Assumptions that Limit Thinking on any Topic
• e.g. the 5 Why’s?
• Why?
• Why?
– Why?
» Why?
» Why?
(c) Gareth Morgan
Skills for Leadership
Morgan’s Five Why’s
In the first box describe the situation/ problem or issue. Ask Why? Put the answer in
the next box and repeat the process.
– Why?
Situation
– Why?
– Why?
– Why?
Answer to
Why?
Answer to
Why?
Answer to
Why?
Answer
– Why?
Answer to
Why?
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Linear Causation
A
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B
C
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D=E
Multiple Causation
B
C
A
D
E
(c) Gareth Morgan

Skills for Leadership
There is often a
tendency to
choose one and
revert back to
linear causation
models
Systems Thinking

B


A
C

E
(c) Gareth Morgan
D
Patterns
Symmetry
Network of
Interconnections
Nothing exists
independent of the
relationships that exist
among the other
components
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(c) Gareth Morgan
Skills for Leadership
(c) Gareth Morgan
Skills for Leadership
Two grand paradigms
• Newtonian Model
• Quantum physics model
Different approaches to environment
• Individualistic approach ( newtonian model)
– Win-lose approach
– Win-win approach
• Spiritualistic approach (Quantum physics
model)
Newtonian Model
• Newtonian models conceives universe as little billiard balls
• Ideas such individualism and replaceable parts in industrial
settings emerged from Newton’s idea of atomism
• Aloneness, isolation, objectivism and positivism all are
emerged from Newtonian perspective.
• Environment is something external to the firm
• When we act like a collection of bouncing billiard balls in a
box, we're often acting against each other. There's a lot of
conflict, competition, jealousy, grudges, and anger
• today's business culture is operating from the four negative
motivations of fear, greed, anger, and self-assertion
Quantum physics paradigm
• Universe as concretized balls that take no different
• When two quantum systems meet,they combine and
overlap their total identity.
• All the patterns of dynamic energy within these systems
change dramatically in relation to each other, leading to the
emergence of a
• " It's not separation; it's integration. It's not isolation; it's an
understanding that we're all part of one great big
interwoven system
• You don't get the same kind of conflict, grudges, and anger
because you've all become part of one system working
together
• You grow together and you create together