“It’s hard to focus on what we want to achieve. I look at what our real competitors, the convenience stores, are doing and think we should copy that. Then a hundred customers come in, and I listen to each of them, and they say we should keep our little store the same, with friendly clerks and old-fashioned cash registers. Then, when I pick up a copy of SuperMarket News, they say that the wave of the future is super grocery stores, with no individual prices marked and U P C scanners replacing clerks. I’m pulled in so many directions I can’t really settle on a strategy for our grocery store,” admits Geoff Walsham, owner and manager of Jiffy Geoff’s Grocery Store. In a paragraph, apply the concept of permeable organizational boundaries to analyze Geoff’s problem in focusing on organizational

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

Applying the concept of permeable organizational boundaries, Fred is experiencing the problem of defining his organizational boundary. Boundaries exist on a continuum, from extremely permeable, whereby Fred would change his store to function like those of his real competitors or super grocery stores as depicted in the trade journal, to almost impermeable, whereby the store would remain exactly as it is. Fred would like to accept new ideas from the outside, and change for better service to his customers. However, he is undecided to what extent, because if the boundary is too lax, he would endanger his market niche and control over performance would be diminished.