Convenience

Physical Work Environment
A final part of the internal environment is the orga-
nization’s actual physical environment and the work that people do. Some firms have
their facilities in downtown skyscrapers, usually spread across several floors. Others
locate in suburban or rural settings and may have facilities more closely resembling a
college campus. Some facilities have long halls lined with traditional offices. Others
have modular cubicles with partial walls and no doors. Pitney Bowes Credit Corporation
re-created its offices to resemble something like an indoor theme park with cobblestone
look-alike carpet, a town square clock, a café, and a diner. Increasingly, newer facilities
have an even more open arrangement, where people work in large rooms, moving
among different tables to interact with different people on different projects. Freestand-
ing computer workstations are available for those who need them, and a few small rooms
might be off to the side for private business.
10
Employee safety and health regulations have caused many organizations to pay more
attention to their internal environment. This concern, in turn, has also fostered new
business opportunities. Rebecca Boenigk, founder and CEO of Neutral Posture, turned
a small operation in her garage into an international company selling neutral body pos-
ture chairs designed by her father, Dr. Jerome Congleton.
board of directors
Governing body
that is elected by a
corporation’s
stockholders and
charged with
overseeing the
general manage-
ment of the firm to
ensure that it is being
run in a way that best
serves the
stockholders’
interests
42
Part 1:
An Introduction to Management
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THE ETHICAL AND SOCIAL ENVIRONMENT
OF MANAGEMENT
The ethical and social environment has become an especially important area for man-
agers in the last few years. In this section, we first explore the concept of individual
ethics and then describe social responsibility.