The notion of an ill-structured business environment refers to the situation where there are

numerous players with a complex and ever-changing web of relationships between them. The
industry boundaries are so malleable that it is difficult, sometimes even impossible, to identify
competitors and examine them or to delineate between particular stakeholders, such as owners,
competitors, collaboration partners, suppliers, distributors, customers, regulators and legislators.
Stakeholders often have multiple roles with a tangled web of interactions between them.

Turbulence refers to messy changes in the environment; it is an umbrella term that covers all of
the ones below.

Uncertainty means that what our business environment is today may change by the time we put
into action what we planned for today; an example could be the financial crisis itself.

Discontinuity refers to step-changes meaning that something starts very suddenly with
potentially huge impact; examples would be eBay or Amazon.

Rapidly changing means simply that it all happens at a fast pace. Facebook, for example, became
popular overnight and within a few years the number of members would put its hypothetical
population on a par with the third largest country in the world.

Unexpected direction means that we do not know where the change is coming from, particularly
when it arrives from beyond the boundary of the field. For instance it would have been very
difficult for typewriter makers to figure out that we would use computers to write our letters.

The unknown course signifies that we also do not know in which direction the changes take us,
even when we already see them. A case in point would be mobile phones that are partially
replacing our computers and almost completely our music devices such as the Walkman.

The unknown size means that we cannot estimate how many people or organisations will be
affected or how much money can be earned or lost because of it. For instance, computers were
originally intended for businesses and nobody thought that many of us would have more than
one computer at home.
Private, Public & Plural sectors

Several participants asked about the three sectors. Kevin was wandering whether the distinctions
are fading: My impression is that major infrastructure is increasingly being delivered by public-
private partnerships And thus he queries whether we will soon need new or mixed types.
On the other end of the scale, Solomon is asking whether politics and business organizations are
enemies. Mathew is asking what would our society look today if either the public or plural
sectors were dominant and what could we do to get the three balanced. Finally, Monika is asking
for further readings.

Answer

The three sectors, as described by Mintzberg, are pure types. I dont think we need additional or
mixed types, but we certainly do need to acknowledge that these pure types do not have
corresponding pure scopes. This means that they will often invade one anothers natural areas
of activity; how this happens will be an indicator of the dominance of a particular sector. There
can be a healthy mixing when in balance, however, when off balance, this mixing will be one-
sided. This leads over to Matthews question on what would it look like if the public or the plural
sector are dominant. Mintzberg often quotes communist regimes as examples of the dominance
of the public sector. This means over-regulating by the political power, not leaving much space
for business. I have no idea what it would look like if the plural sector was dominant, and I
cannot really imagine that happening. So are business (private sector) and politics (public sector)
enemies? Well, it depends. If in harmony, they are friends and collaborate for everyones benefit.
If badly out of harmony, they may become enemies. In an extreme political regime business may
cease to exist and if everything is in the hands of businesses, governments become powerless,
thus purposeless, and some would argue that eventually they would disappear. Regarding the
additional reading, I think it is a more general question: I suggest additional readings in more or
less every step of this course so all you need to do is scroll down. Regarding this particular
topic, the most relevant readings are under Step 1.6.

Turbulence & Change

Frank is asking if unexpected direction means that we do not know where the change is coming
from, particularly when it arrives from beyond the boundary of the field, what an organisation
can do about coping with such changes.

Answer

Frank, I am really happy that you have asked this question as I have the chance to talk briefly
about how I see strategy today. To make it easy to understand, let me use a metaphoric example
of the slalom in skiing. Who will be the winner in slalom? The person who finishes in the
shortest time missing the fewest gates. A planning approach would mean going through the
whole track, measuring the angles at every single gate, examining the texture of the snow and
measuring its temperature at different depths. Based on this the optimal route could be calculated,
it would be possible even to calculate how to take each turn, etc. The problem is that by the time
this optimal strategy was implemented, not only the race but also the whole championship
would be over. The winner tries the best (s)he can when getting to each gate. So how does the
winner prepare for a race? They try different tracks many times, they increase their strength and
stamina, train to increase their speed, practice being able to respond quickly to unforeseen
circumstances. This is also what organisations can do. There was an interesting comment from a
consultant about the various management fads; i.e. whether any of them are useful. This
consultant said that none of them is useful, but all of them (i.e. adopting each fad) are:
organisations get used to change.

Structures

Regarding the structures, it seems that most of you are interested in whether these are the only
ones or there is more. Jessica is asking if a company can be bureaucratic and adhocratic at the
same time. Sevelyn is looking into the dynamics of structures, asking if they can change along
with the changes of supply and demand or simply because of the trends.

Answer

The organisational structures presented here are pure types, similarly to the sectors being pure
types in the first topic. However, contrary to the first topic, here mixed types and new types can
and will appear. They also tend to change over time. Mintzberg identified these five structures in
his book (and paper) introduced here, however, he did this in the early 80s. I have seen a draft
paper from him later, where he mentioned 7 structures but as far as I know that work has not
been published. There are also structures that emerged since the 80s, the trivial example would
be netocracy. I am sure I could also figure out several more versions of adhocracy beside the two
described by Mintzberg. As organisations are large entities, it is sensible to assume that different
parts may be differently structured. However, it may also happen that the difference is not
according to various parts but according to various functions. For instance, a law firm, a school
or a software company can easily have a bureaucratic structure focusing on the service aspect
and be adhocratic on the creative side. I would say that as organisations adapt to their socio-
economic environments, we will see new structures, existing structures acquiring different
characteristics, and perhaps even the concept of structures will change, to be replaces with some
more dynamic entities.

Community

There were various questions regarding communities, usually aimed at the clarification of the
concept. Jesse is asking for a definition of the modern community, particularly how
similar/different it is from ancient communities and whether the definition is standard or it varies
depending on various factors? Ubong and Henning are looking into management and leadership
in the community context; Ubong is asking whether this concept can be viable in a multinational
company and Henning suggests that a family-like identity can be an illusion Tanitha reminds
us that even a village needs a chief.

Answer
Jesse, I dont think I ever came across a proper definition of communities, and it never occurred
to me to look for one. It is similar to what my maths teaches said many years ago: you dont need
to understand mathematics, eventually you get used to it. I am not entirely serious about this, but
I dont think we need a strict definition. There are also different variants of communities, which
may make a definition difficult, if not impossible. It is better to develop an intuitive
understanding reading what Drucker, Handy and Mintzberg say about communityship. A
community may be but does not have to be family-like, although many would portray it that way.
For me the village metaphor works well but the reason may be that I have never lived in a
village. What makes a difference, is that most people care. The village does not own them and
people, or many of them, are not only there for a paycheck. Of course, there is nothing wrong
being there only for the paychack, as long as it is received for a decent work. Just think of
Handys village example: there are people who only come to work at the village. A community
is an organic concept, one pillar of which is pluralism. This means that it is OK to be different. If
you introduce a regime where everyone has to be the same, you cannot possibly have a
community. Just as you cannot order people who to be friends with. This also means, that it is
not necessary to motivate people to become community members. However, when the
community is there, it works well for all the members, it will attract people who want to be in
that community. This is what I mean by the community being organic. Of course, as Tanitha
noted, even a village has a chief. Not all need to be equal. There will be both management and
leadership in communities as well, perhaps these will change somewhat (this should become
clearer as we go over the next few weeks). Just think about Handys principle of subsidiarity.
One more note: dont associate communityship with SMEs (small to medium-sized enterprises);
I have seen communityship at Google and other very large organisations as well.

Second Machine Age

Zoltn lists high-tech topics, such as robotics and IoT (Internet of Things) accelerating with a
crazy rate, drones, 3D-printing, cloud, big-data, mobile technology being already here,
autonomous cars, wearable-technology and so on around the corner We have any clear
concept how to deal with this?

Answer

Zoltn, I did not want to talk about this yet but as you asked, I have to. Of course, I agree with
you that these things are important. So much so, that I am currently developing my second
MOOC on this topic! The focus will be on information and technology, and I can tell you that
my favourite topic is called stupid smart devices I will talk about AI and all the rest. In a few
weeks you should get the trailer. It also links to this course through the Technology week. I will
tell you more about this at the end of week 6 so be a little patient!