GROUP EXERCISE

Strategic Constituent Analysis

Objectives

1. To continue developing your group interaction and teamwork skills.

2. To engage in open-system thinking.

3. To conduct a strategic constituencies audit and thus more fully appreciate the competing demands placed on today’s managers.

4. To establish priorities and consider trade-offs for modern managers. Introduction According to open-system models of organizations, environmental factors—social, political, legal, technological, and economic—greatly affect what managers can and cannot do. This exercise gives you an opportunity to engage in open-system thinking within a team setting. It requires a team meeting of about 20 to 25 minutes followed by a 10- to 15-minute general class discussion. Total time required for this exercise is about 30 to 40 minutes. Instructions Your instructor will randomly assign you to teams with five to eight members each. Choose one team member to act as recorder/spokesperson. Either at your instructor’s prompting or as a team, choose one of these two options:

1. Identify an organization that is familiar to everyone on your team (it can be a local business, your college or university, or a well-known organization such as McDonald’s, , or Southwest Airlines).

2. Select an organization from any of the Problem