The Contribution of Environmental Scanning to Organizational Performance

Environmental scanning, the radar to detect environmental signals, is serving as an effective way for organizations to cope with uncertainties and formulate adaptive strategies. Strategists and strategic management scholars also believe that effective environmental scanning would help organizations to achieve better alignment with rapidly changing external factors and hence improve their performance. It is, therefore, desirable to explore the relationship among environmental uncertainty, environmental scanning, and organizational performance. This paper starts with the definition and process of environmental scanning, followed by the introduction of environmental uncertainty as well as the indirect impact of environmental scanning on organization performance. Prior empirical studies trying to discover or demonstrate the potential relationships are also reviewed. Finally, the refined theoretical model as well as the proposed research methodology is presented.