Strategic management in water resource sustainability and macro-level policy issues

Wild Water Gets Soaked:

Wild Water is a water park that is managed by Jason and Marie Salerno since it's a family business. The brother and sister run the park that is situated around the New Jersey shore and also receive help from their parents. The park has developed to become a landmark for both locals and summer tourists since it has been in existence for over 4 decades. Throughout its operations, the water park's organizational culture has remained hierarchical despite of the fact that the employees and Jason and Marie refer to each other as part of the family. However, while this organizational culture at Wild Water is the same, the environment in which the park operates is constantly changing. As a result of these changes in the environment, there are significant effects on the organization's competitive environment due to various elements in its macroenvironment.

Generally, the macroenvironment and competitive environment elements or issues that affect a business originate from the underlying factors in the specific industry. This is primarily because of the differences in industries in terms of market size and growth rate, industry capacity, geographic scope, and number and size of sellers (Thompson, Strickland & Gamble, 2010, p. 85). For Wild Water, the macroenvironmental issues or elements that are currently affecting the organization's operations are laws and regulations and the present state of the economy. Similar to all industries, the management of the Wild Water is required to comply with the specific laws and regulations that govern the industry in the United States. Jason and Marie Salerno recently discovered that there is a new safety law that needs some expensive modification to meet the code. As a result of the discovery, the need to abide with this law as well as the other industry regulations is a major macroenvironmental element that affects Wild Water.

The second macroenvironmental element that affects Wild Water is the present state of the economy. The main reason for the impact of the economy on Wild Water is because the Salernos only open their business several months in the year. During this period of the opening of the business, these managers have to exert extra effort and work to generate enough income. As a result, the Salernos only generate limited income annually, which is a major factor that has limited them from upgrading the park in order to stay relevant.

In addition to the elements of the macroenvironment, Wild Water is also faced with some elements in its competitive environment in its current operations. While the organization does not have any competition at the moment, the main element of the competitive environment is customers. Similar to all businesses across various industries, customers act as the main driving force for Wild Water. Generally, the company currently has a good customer base and has been able to satisfy the needs of these customers throughout its years of operations. The existence of a huge customer base for Wild Water originates from the lack of competitors since locals and summer tourists can only go to the water park as the only place of entertainment in the area. Moreover, the lack of competitors has enabled Wild Waters to have a strong market position in this industry in the New Jersey area.