The environment around a sport organization is very important when considering the structure of a sport organization. Chapter 8, in the textbook, talks about two different environments that need to be considered when thinking about the environments surrounding sport organization. I am referring to the general environment and the task environment of an organization. The general environment includes economic, political, demographic, socio-cultural, legal, ecological, and technological aspects. The task environment would include suppliers, regulatory agencies, athletes' groups, competitors, customers, members, and fans. Slack and Parent also refer to the uncertainty that comes with the environments surroundings sport organizations. Even though there is so much uncertainty there are certain strategies organizations may use to lessen the uncertainty. Sport organizations can respond to these uncertainties by either adjusting their internal structure or going outside of themselves and attempting to change the external environment. Slack and Parent offer: buffering, boundary spanners, smoothing, rationing and planning and forecasting as internal directed actions that organizations can take. Some of the external directed actions would include contractual agreements, joint ventures, cooptation, interlocking directorates, executive recruitment, public relations, advertising, mergers and acquisitions, etc. (Slack and Parent, 2006)
With all of these things considered it is important to remember that sport manager's respond to these environmental issues with a perception of what they believe the sport organization to be. This can be dangerous because this perception may be very different from the actual environment, which begs a great question.
What cause sport managers to have this false perception of their sport organization? Is it due to a blinding optimism that things are really better than they seem? Could it be that there is pessimism that causes a sport manager to neglect a market that could be embraced by the organization, but are afraid that they will not succeed?
These questions would be very hard to answer as a sport manager. I think that a sport managers' perception of their sport organization is crucial to their success. It is an area that needs to be invested in and I feel as though there could be jobs in this area. A sport organization could take on an employee who could be in charge of keeping tabs on their specific sport organization and be in close communication with the manager in hopes that it will produce better results for the organization.
Do you think that this would be a good position to invest in?
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