The Environmental School - A reactive process

The strategy is a response to the challenges imposed by the external environment. Where the other schools sees the environment as a factor, the Environmental School sees it as an actor.

Cope! It all depends…

Give a central role to the environment in strategy formation
The dimension of the environment are often vague and aggregated. This renders it less useful for strategy formation. Denies real strategic choice for organisations. This is unrealistic

Cultural and Environmental Schools of Thought applies to Nike between the years 1996 and 2000 in terms of strategy

According to Mintzberg, the environmental school of thought is a strategy dealing with the forces outside the organization. Unlike the other schools in his book, Strategy Safari, the environment plays a central role in the strategy formation process alongside leadership and the organization where the organization becomes subordinate to the external environment. The environmental school assumptions are that during the formative period of the organization the company shapes itself in response to the environment, but after that period is increasingly unable to respond to the environment. Moreover, the organization long term survival depends on the early choices made during its formative period. Over time, Mintzberg states, leadership becomes progressively less able to influence the performance and survivability of the organization. The environmental school of thought has three different views in looking at the influence of the environment on the organization. The first view, the Contingency, states that there is no one best way to run an organization, it all depends on four main dimensions of the environment. According to the stability dimension, an organization's environment can range from stable to dynamic. A variety of factors can make an