The Analysis of Perceived Environmental Uncertainty as a Dependant Variable
| Authors | |
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| Year of publication | 2016 |
| Type | Article in Proceedings |
| Conference | 3rd International Multidisciplinary Scientific Conference on Social Sciences & Arts SGEM 2016 Conference Proceedings |
| MU Faculty or unit | |
| Citation | |
| Field | Management and administrative |
| Keywords | perceived uncertainty; dynamics; measurement; environment; entry barriers |
| Description | The business environment is a crucial aspect of managerial decision-making from the viewpoint of most organizational theories. The environment can be perceived as a multidimensional construct composed of several dimensions like uncertainty, dynamics, complexity and heterogeneity. In scientific studies, environmental uncertainty is one of the frequently cited and further analysed dimensions. It not only represents an intervening variable, but also a variable influencing business performance in the form of both primary performance measures, like revenues or profits, and secondary measures, including innovation output. Thus the measurement of environmental uncertainty becomes important not only from a scientific study point of view, but also from the business perspective, because the perceived dynamics of the environment influence managerial decision making. The aim of this study is to verify the factors influencing the level of perceived environmental attributes. With this verification, the predicted influence of these factors on the perception of the environment can be eliminated. Perceived measure, therefore, mirrors reality. The influencing factors involved in the model are the age of the business, the size of the company, competitive pressure, the economic situation of the company, features of the industrial market structure and finally the industry itself. The hypotheses are tested using a sample of 228 multinational subsidiary companies active in the Czech Republic. The results indicate that uncertainty is not influenced by the features of a company such as age and size, but mainly by the economic situation of the company. The market structure influences perceived uncertainty, but the direction of the impact is not definite. Based on these results, we suppose that perceived environmental uncertainty is influenced marginally by market structure and it cannot be considered to be a good estimate of industry uncertainty. |
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