Environmental Influences on Structure

You are well aware of the fact that organisations continuously interact with the outside (external)  environment and the effect of environmental certainty or uncertainty on organisational structure and design is to be properly and adequately evaluated. 

Environmental Variability 

This refers to the degree of change or uncertainty with which an organisation or its sub-units is involved. Accordingly, the type of environment may be either relatively certain or uncertain owing to the following three factors : 

1. the frequency of changes in the relevant environment; 
2. the degree of difference (variation) involved in each change; and 
3. the degree of predictability in the overall pattern of change.