Environmental pressures and their ecological impacts

Environmental and Organizational

ENVIRONMENTAL PRESSURE

ORGANIZATIONAL PRESSURE

Individual Commitment to Environment

Retain Employment

Family pressures

Contribute to Profits

Social Pressures

Discipline

Environmental vs. Organizational Pressure

Change is disruptive and can be the source of much anxiety and stress. Regardless of these fears, changes within organizations are inevitable and are guaranteed to happen sooner or later. To better manage these changes it is helpful to compare and contrast the different types of pressures an individual may feel when working in a corporate environment. The purpose of this essay is to discuss these pressures in an organizational and environmental context to decipher their influence on organizations. For purposes of this essay I will utilize my job working for Astra Zeneca as a guide to explain these influences and how change can best be managed.

The environment contains the organization and is large in size and scope, and, in theory affecting everyone who falls under its influence. Delmas & Toffel (2012) explained that "a broad literature has emerged over the past decades demonstrating that firms environmental strategies and practices are influenced by external stakeholders and institutional pressures, " (p.229). In other words these pressures are external from the organization.

For me, the most important environmental pressure that I feel, is the commitment to maintaining my own individual personhood while working for Astra Zeneca. Humans are indeed individuals and in order to fit within the context of environment, an individual and subjective mindset must be present to contextualize the rest of the environment. I feel a great pressure to remain true to myself and not to violate what I believe to be environmentally friendly actions and behavior.

Another environmental pressure that I feel often is the tendency to align with my birth organization, or family. Many of the actions I choose to do or not do, is a direct reflection of my upbringing and family pressures. To me, this is the first environment I grew accustomed to and these values have stuck with me and will certainly sticky with me beyond my time spent at Astra Zeneca.

I also feel my social environment plays an important role in influencing my decisions at work. My social group's norms and behaviors come into play while at work and sometimes I shun away from these characteristics as well. Regardless, environmental pressures come from three levels in my estimation and all have a personal and deep effect on how my professional life unfolds.

Organizational pressures are different and slightly less important than environmental pressures in my estimation. I feel the biggest and most impactful organizational pressure is to go along with the team so I don't get fired and lose my source of income. Although this may be considered " selling out" at some level, money and resources are very hard to come by without employment and the pressure to have them keeps me aligned with the organization.

Another organizational pressure that plays into my life is Astra Zeneca's dedication to making profits. Although this is a medical company, profits are very important, sometimes more important than the helping others, even though that is what we are supposed to be accomplishing.

Discipline is a very important organizational pressure that is place upon all the employees where I work. We are expected to be on time, give an extraordinary effort and act respectful those at the workplace.

Impacts of Pressures Financial Perspective

AstraZeneca is a major international health care business engaged in the research, development, manufacture and marketing of prescription pharmaceuticals; and the supply of health care services. It is one of the world's leading pharmaceutical companies with health care sales of more than $21.4 billion and leading positions in sales of gastrointestinal, cardiovascular, respiratory, oncology and neuroscience products. Besides the pressures to maintain this large and profitable profile, my personal finances are also involved in the application of these different pressures. A constant discussion about my own personal well being and finance permeates every professional behavior I indulge and admittedly dictates my future as well. Finances are very important from both the environmental and organizational standpoint.

Personal Perspective

For me, my life is personal and I don't give into pressures easily. This is common throughout the workplace as Angell (1999) agreed. She wrote ." Environmental management typically has not held priority-status within corporate-level strategy. As a result, the field of operations management has traditionally treated environmental issues primarily as a series of decision constraints." To me organizational management does not have a personal impact yet impacts the organization as a whole. This approach of removing oneself from the bigger picture is necessary for me to do, otherwise, I lose a sense of personal importance and dignity. I cannot picture myself as a cog of a giant wheel, even though others may routinely do such a thing.

Organizational Reactions