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PART A: THE BUSINESS ORGANISATION, ITS STAKEHOLDERS AND THE EXTERNAL ENVIRONMENT 
 
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(b) 
General/task
: this is the method we will use. 
(i) The 
general (or macro) environment
 
covers all those factors influencing all organisations 
indirectly, for example: general economic trends, population growth, new technology. 
These factors are abbreviated to PEST (political-legal, economic, social-cultural, 
technological) factors. 
(ii) The 
task (or micro) environment
 
includes those areas which have a direct impact on the 
organisation, such as its ability to acquire raw materials, its competitors and its 
customers. Porter (1980)
 
analyses the task environment into 
five competitive forces
, 
which are discussed in Section 13. 
The distinction is not hard and fast, and is drawn for convenience only. 
The environment is a source of 
uncertainty
.
In other words, decision-makers do not have sufficient 
information about environmental factors, and many things are out of their control. The overall degree of 
uncertainty may be assessed along two axes: simplicity/complexity and stability/dynamism. 
(a) 
Simplicity/complexity
(i) The 
variety of influences
faced by an organisation. The more open an organisation is, the 
greater the variety of influences. The greater the number of markets the organisation 
operates in, the greater the number of influences to which it is subject. 
(ii) 
The amount of 
knowledge
 
necessary
. Some environments, to be handled successfully, 
require knowledge. All businesses need to have knowledge of the tax system, for example, 
but only pharmaceuticals businesses need to know about mandatory testing procedures for 
new drugs. 
(iii) The