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Business Environment: Emerging External and Internal Pressures for Sustainable Production

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Responsible Consumption and Production

Synonyms

Competitive environment; External business environment; Internal business environment; Macro environment; Microenvironment; Operational environment; Organizational environment; Sustainable production

Definition

Companies need understanding about their business environment to stay competitive, survive, and prosper (Duncan 1972; Dreyer and Grønhaug 2004). Research has developed numerous methods for organizations to scan and build scenarios on their environment (see Amer et al. 2013 for overview). In general, describing the business environment requires analyzing the external and internal context in which the company operates.

Companies’ external environment includes relevant factors outside the boundaries of the organization (Duncan 1972). These factors can occur generally as macro-level trends or as micro-level changes in companies’ immediate operational environment. There is a dynamic interaction between the macro and micro levels. Focusing on a specific level of analysis...

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Correspondence to Natalia Saukkonen or Johanna Kirjavainen .

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Saukkonen, N., Kirjavainen, J. (2019). Business Environment: Emerging External and Internal Pressures for Sustainable Production. In: Leal, W., Azul, A., Brandli, L., Özuyar, P., Wall, T. (eds) Responsible Consumption and Production. Encyclopedia of the UN Sustainable Development Goals. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-71062-4_1-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-71062-4_1-1

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