ORGANIZATIONAL RESOURCE ENVIRONMENT: A FIELD STUDY OF RELATIONSHIPS AMONG RESOURCE ENVIRONMENT DIMENSIONS, PERCEIVED DEPENDENCE AND UNCERTAINTY, AND ADAPTIVE DECISION MAKING

The literature on organization-environment relations has seen two major developments over the past ten years which present quite different explanations for how organizations grow, survive and die. One is the resource dependence perspective (based partly on population ecology theory) and the other is the strategic management approach (the rational selection model). Borrowing from these developments this field study has several purposes: First, the study investigates more fully the nature of a firm's external environment when that environment is defined as resources and measured in terms of major environmental dimensions. Secondly, the study investigates the relationships between the dimensions of the resource environment and the conditions of uncertainty and dependence experienced by the firm with an added emphasis of looking at the interactive effects between the uncertainty and dependence variables. Lastly, the study investigates the nature of the types of decisions that are seen as useful in coping with uncertainty and dependence in the resource environment.;For purposes of investigation the processor sector of the Pacific Northwest fishing industry was chosen as the sample industry because of its demonstrated resource dependencies and the autonomy of its managerial decision making. A model of the variables in that industry's organization-environment relations was developed for purposes of testing relationships. A field study was conducted using interview questionnaire responses of individuals from thirty-three firms as the basic data for analysis. The results of this research show that the dimensions of the resource environment are essentially independent dimensions; that the environmental dimensions affect perceptions of dependence and certainty differentially; that environmental uncertainty and dependence have an interactive but independent effect on autonomy and that, consistent with theoretical predictions in the literature, some decisions are seen as more effective in dealing with organizational dependence and uncertainty than others.