Perception of the Characteristics of External Environment of Organizations and Its Effect on Managersâ•Ž Environmental Scanning in Using Information Resources

Purpose: The purpose of the present study is to investigate the characteristics of external environment of companies in the second industrial area of Ahvaz and its effect on managers' environmental scanning behavior in using information resources. Method: An analytic survey method is used to analyze the relationship between variables. Findings: The findings showed that managers' perception of various external environment is influenced by variability factors (economic sector, M=3.96), complexity (economic sector, M=3.77) and importance (customers' sector, M=4.38). also the findings showed that managers' environmental scanning can match managers' perceived characteristics of various sectors of external environment, and from this aspect, they do the greatest scanning in economic environmental sector (M=7.4). The highest perceived strategic uncertainty (M=33.239) and environmental uncertainty (M=7.73) belonged to economic sector. Testing research hypotheses proved that managers' perceived strategic uncertainty and environmental uncertainty from environmental sectors of companies has a direct relationship with environmental sectors in those parts; and there is a direct and significant relationship between perceived environmental uncertainty and the frequency with which information resources is used in environmental scanning. Keyword: Managers of Second Industrial Area of Ahvaz, External Environment, Environmental Scanning, Rate of Scanning, Uncertainty, Information Resources. 1 Graduated from Library and Information. Department of Information Science and KnowledgeInformation Management, Faculty of Literature and Humanity, Khouzestan Science and Research Branch, Islamic Azad University, Ahvaz, Iran. E-mail: ([email protected]). 2 Department of Information Management, Literature and Humanity, Islamic Azad University of Ahvaz, Ahvaz, Iran. E-mail: ([email protected])-**Corresponding Author 3 -Department of Information Science, Literature and Humanity, Islamic Azad University of Brujerd, Brujerd, Iran. E-mail: ([email protected]) Statement of the problem: Great social changes are principally based on organizational activities; therefore, the problems societies face and deal with today cannot be understood without perceiving organizational content. Organizations both affect societies and their surroundings, and are affected by them. They are not born in vacancy rather their existence is based on a need originated from the community as an environment with various environmental factors and items, which indicate their dependence on environment and the necessity to interaction with the environment and its items. According to Mirshahvelayati and Nazarizadeh (2010) external environment includes 2 general classification: work environment (competitors, customers, and technology), and common environment (legislation, economic, and sociocultural). In fact, environmental characteristics are the ones that in addition to determining the scope of organizational activities, the amount and type of its products are also defined (Hall, 1997). In other words, organizational environment and the intensity of dependence and interaction between an organization and its environmental sectors is unique, which may be influenced by various variables such as goals, prophecy and mission, size, scope of activities, diversity of products and services, etc. In the world today, environment is absolutely unstable and the organizations in this era have noticed the chaotic and unpredictable atmosphere of the world. It's quite clear that in an environment characterized with quick changes, complexity, and wonders, management cannot decode measure and predict the external and internal content of an organization by using traditional methods, or even control them (Daft, 1999). To put it simply, complexity and great diversity in environmental factors, complicates the decision-making equation and removes certainty from making decision which is called uncertainty. That is a condition an individual experiences while facing a new phenomenon and feels lack of knowledge. According to Ivanov (2009) uncertainty is a characteristic of a system that describes deficiency of human knowledge about a system and the process of its development. Duncan (1972) considers it a characteristic of external environment of organizations; and Yanse-Este'ves (2006) believes that it is lack of information about the world of an institute, the way decision-makers perceive it. An environment of this type that directs managers toward uncertainty, affects organizational decision-making and its success (Ingwersen, 2011). Whenever senior managers receive false information about the environment, or fail to acquire information in the due time to perform a task, or when fail to apply appropriate approach due to lack of expertise, then their decisions may bring about negative and harmful effects (Schoderbek et al., 2008). Hence, environmental scanning is a behavior to acquire information from various information resources and is a process to remove the uncertainty resulted from environmental characteristics (rate of change, importance and complexity) and its use in making decisions. Aguilar (1976) defines environmental scanning as the processes of searching for information about the relationships and events in the surrounding environment and the knowledge and awareness of the cases that contribute to the senior management of the organization in adjusting future attempts. Babutunde and Adebisi (2012) believe that environmental scanning is the monitoring, evaluation and publication of information from external and internal environment to key individuals in an organization or institute. Environmental scanning is the process of collecting, analyzing, and distributing information for tactical or strategic purposes. Environmental scanning entails both real and concrete information, and mental information about commercial environments in which an institute functions or tends to import them. Therefore, due to the quick changes in the external environment of an organization in addition to senior managers' decisions effect on organizational strategy and long-term goals, it is essential to scan the external environment of organizations, identify the opportunities and threats collect necessary information about them and use them in senior managers' decisions in organizations. In the world today, not only information is known as one of the sources and major properties of an organization, but also it is taken a means of effective management of other sources and properties; therefore, it is of great importance and value. Information is a means of connection among organizations and their internal components, and necessitates the alignment and competition in organizations. Coordination and cooperation in an organization are possible only through distribution and exchange of information between individuals, between units of organizations and between an organization and the environment. Information resources of organizations are diverse and vast. Division of information resources has been discussed from different points of view. Sadegzadeh et al. (2013) have divided information resources according to organizational views into 4 groups including written sources, unwritten sources, audio-visual material, and electronic material. Farhadpoor (2012), Hosseini (2010), Choo (1993), and Rasuli (2013) have identified 16 information resources in their studies, and have classified them in the framework of internal/external and personal/impersonal information resources, which is in accordance with managers' and organization's environmental scanning behavior and information resources in relevant studies to environmental scanning reflect the events in environmental sector of an organization which a manager has to interact with to make decisions. Thus environmental scanning is knowing managers' information seeking behavior. Managers' environmental scanning behavior has been studied in the context of various organizations and within different studies. Managers' perception of different sectors of external environment can vary based on activity context of different companies. Hosseini's study (2010) entitled "study of environmental scanning in collection and use of information by managers of private publications in Tehran" showed that there was a significant relationship between environmental scanning and, environmental uncertainty, information resources, accessibility and the quality of information. Farhadpoor's study (2011) investigated managers' environmental scanning behavior in academic libraries and found that sectors such as addressees and customers, technology, and socio-cultural were the important sectors with the highest variability rate and complexity and they possessed a high level of perceived strategic uncertainty and environmental uncertainty. Rasuli's study (2013) evaluated managers' environmental scanning behavior among private electronic publishers in Tehran and stated that economic sector was the most important environmental sector and possessed the highest variability rate and complexity; and that there was a significant meaningful relationship between perceived environmental uncertainty and the frequency of information resources use and the amount of environmental scanning by manager. Jain (1984) studied managers in large corporations of the U.S and showed that scanning was directed in 4 economic, technological, political and social fields, and scanning in economic environment and then technological environment was more than others. Daft el al. (1988) introduced a new concept in the field of perceived strategic uncertainty as the scout activity, and showed that based on partial uncertainty in different environmental sectors, customers, economic and competitors' sectors compared to technological, legislative and socio-cultural sectors created more perceived strategic uncertainty. Managers responded to perceived uncertainty with a high frequency of scanning in all cases. Finally, senior managers in institutes with high workload compared to institutes with low work load, in case of perceived strategic uncertainty, did scanning with higher frequency by using various media. Choo (1993) studied industrial managers' network in Canada and showed that perceived strategic uncertainty was high in technological, customers, and competitors environmental sectors, and managers perceived them very important and strategic, with high variability rate and complex; such that the amount of environmental scanning for each environmental sector had a direct relationship with perceived strategic uncertainty in that sector. Popoola (2000) studied environmental scanning to identify environmental sectors from the view point of industrial banking managers and showed that information resources used in environmental scanning included coworkers, customers and private files. Customers and competitors' sectors were perceived very uncertain strategically. The purpose of environmental scanning was to gain competition advantages in the relevant industry. Nkongolo-Bakenda (2003) studied small businesses and stated that managers' need of systematic scanning in an environmental sector and a information resource used by a business is influenced by the level of uncertainty in that environmental sector, the rate of information relevance and accessibility. The results of Jorosi's research (2006) on information needs and information seeking behavior of managers in small and medium-sized companies showed that managers in his study believed information about customers and competitors was the most important information related to their company; they dedicated much of their time to active search for information and got use of personal (customers, trade, association) and impersonal (newspapers, news media, and governmental publications) sources. Zhang's (2010) study entitled "Environmental scanning: an application of information literacy at the workplace" proved that environmental scanning is an up-to-date alarm system that helps a company to develop and correct business strategies according to variations of external environment and improvement in competition. Environmental scanning provides various and applied channels for development of information and far-distance communication in the process of data analysis. Babutunde and Adebisi's study (2012) entitled "Strategic environmental scanning and organization performance in a competitive business environment" showed that there was a significant relationship between strategic environmental scanning and organization performance, and that the inconsistency and variability in on organization's effective and efficient performance is due to variability and diversity in external environment factors which indicates external environment powers of an organization have a positive effect on its performance. Review of the related literature show that the analysis and evaluation of external environment is very cruical for an organization. Environmental scanning provides managers with appropriate information about economic factors, competition, governmental rules, suppliers, technology and market to determine opportunities and threats for organization and let them acquire the knowledge for planning future affairs of the organizations. Therefore, regarding the importance of understanding and knowing external environment, the main problem in this study is to investigate managers' perception of various external environment sectors and the effect of these characteristics in creating perceived strategic uncertainty and perceived environmental uncertainty by managers in addition to amount of environmental scanning and the frequency with which information resources are used in environmental scanning based on perceived uncertainty. The Purpose and Significance of Research: In order to investigate the characteristics of external environment based on complexity, variability rate, and importance from the view point of managers in the second industrial area of Ahvaz and their effect on managers' environmental scanning in using information resources the following research question and hypotheses and posed: 1How is managers' perception of various external environment sectors based on variables such as variability rate, complexity and importance? Hypotheses: H1: Perceived strategic uncertainty by managers from environmental sectors of companies studied has a direct relationship with amount of scanning in that sector. H2: Perceived environmental uncertainty by managers from environmental sectors of companies studied has a direct relationship with environmental scanning in those sectors. H3: Perceived environmental uncertainty by managers in companies studied has a direct relationship with the frequency with which information resources are used in environmental scanning.