How Organizations Interact With Their External Environment (Case Study Sample)

Management is not easy and especially so in the modern age of information. Companies must keep up with an ever-evolving internal and external environment made even more complex by globalization. Organizations must implement information systems that help process this avalanche of data to obtain insights and foresee problems before they occur. Even with the barrage of information, some issues cannot be predicted, and even then, it is up to the leaders to act accordingly and make correct decisions. Uncertainty is inherent in businesses, and every plan has a component of risk. In this light, the West Chester Private School (WCPS) situation emerges where they are involved in a crisis that seems to run them to the ground. The problem will be analyzed from the perspective of modern management systems, even though with the benefit of hindsight.
How Organizations Interact with Their External Environment
Organizations can be classified as open systems or as complex adaptive systems. A complex adaptive system comprises heterogeneous agents who must decide how to act. Of importance is that these decisions evolve with time. In addition, the agents in such a system interact, leading to another inherent characteristic: emergence. In emergence, these individual components produce something greater than the parts (Roundy et al., 2018). Therefore, it is impossible to understand the system by looking at the individual parts.
On the other hand, an open system is one that constantly receives feedback from the external environment. Inputs, outputs, processes, objectives, assessment and evaluation, and learning are critical in a system. A healthy open system should constantly exchange information with an external environment, analyze the feedback, adjust its strategies to achieve its goals (Roundy et al., 2018). It must also transmit the needful information back into the environment.
Effectiveness WCPS As an Open/Complex System at Time of Closure
Organizations consist of parts that act as a system, and the system must also interact with the external environment. An open system comprises components that can decide how to behave but produce something more significant than their individual. For example, it is evident that WCPS was having financial problems attributed to specific campuses; when the previous head of the school retired, Dr. Murphy had to make a hard decision to close the components causing the losses. Eventually, this problem snowballed, leading to the closure of more branches. This scenario illustrates that WCPS was an ineffective open system whose individual parts were ailing and led to the eventual collapse of the entire system.
WCPS could also be analyzed as a complex adaptive system in constant interaction with its external environment. For example, the school had received information about the establishment of two new charter schools nearby as early as 2017. Disappointingly, the school management did not act on this information which depicts ineffectiveness on their part. Moreover, the school management failed to focus on the technological needs that were needed, such as the online academy, causing them to be outmatched by competitors. Moreover, the school dedicated copious amounts of energy to expanding to California as if it was a sure bet. This indicates oversight that could have been avoided by an awareness of the California regulatory environment. These events demonstrate WCPS as an ineffective complex adaptive system that failed to fit in the environment.