8600-322 Understanding the Organization and its Context

Unit Overview

8600-322 Understanding the Organization and its Context is a unit within the ILM Level 3 module that helps to understand both the internal and external environment of the organisation. Leaders and managers have to ensure they understand the organisation from its internal and external setting, which is important in boosting their knowledge during the processes of making key decisions that influence the activities and performances of the organisation within the set markets. Leaders should understand the standards and principles, both legal and ethical, that govern their organisation as an entity and hence put in place effective strategies to manage the organisation based on these principles and standards.

8600-322 Understanding the Organization and its Context is a unit that helps the learners to build this understanding of the organisation. It helps them differentiate the internal setting and external environment, which gives them an understanding of the context of the organisation hence building capacity to make relevant decisions for that organisation.

8600-322 Understanding the Organization and its Context is a unit that has the main purpose of building knowledge and understanding of the principles and tools that can be used to understand the context of the organisation, which is critical for practising and potential first-line managers. It helps them to understand the context of their decisions based on the organisational setting as well as contributions they can make to improve performance within the current context of the organisation. The unit is taught in 7 hours of guided learning and contributes 2 credit values towards the completion of ILM Level 3 module.

Suitability of the Unit

8600-322 Understanding the Organization and its Contexts is the duty of all stakeholders within the organisation, with the duties of making critical decisions that include the structure or performance of the organisation and its competitive ability. Leaders and managers have the responsibility of making strategic and operational decisions within the organisation. The unit is suited to them as it helps to create support and backing for their decisions in contributing to the performance of the organisation within its immediate context.

The unit is designed to meet the learning needs of first-line managers within the organisation. First-line managers are involved in actively implementing strategic and tactical plans on the operational level to achieve organisational goals and objectives. With this unit, the first-line managers are provided with the tools that they can use to examine both their internal and external environment hence building their ability to improve the strategic position of their teams or areas of responsibility to achieve the set goals and objectives.

Middle and top managers can also pursue the information and knowledge provided by the unit to build an understanding of the principles and practices they should implement in improving the position of the organisation within the external market through aspects such as effectively scanning the completion and external forces of the organisation. Lastly, external consultants who provide support to decision-making can pursue the unit to understand the tools that are applicable in improving the strategic setting of the organisation. Based on the knowledge and skills built from this unit, they can set up effective strategies to advise the organisation based on its context.

Learning Outcomes

Upon completion of the unit, the learner should be able to:

• Understand the legal entity of their organisation and describe the implications of that legal entity on the structure and management of the organisation

• Identify the operational functions within the organisation that are critical in achieving the set goals and objectives

• Identify their role, area of control, and reporting line in the organisation using an organisational chart as a tool of illustration

• Describe the roles and responsibilities of managers within different levels of their organisation

• Identify the relevance of different stakeholders to the organisation

• Identify the main external forces that affect the performance and activities within the organisation

• Develop a PESTLE analysis of the organisation examining the different forces that could affect the organisation

Key Learning Areas 

8600-322 Understanding the Organization and its Context is a unit that aims at building understanding and ability to effectively evaluate the organisation from its context. This helps to design practices and activities that support the success of the organisation within its context. Some of the main learning areas are:

Internal Content Within

This area of learning, the learners are helped to effectively evaluate the internal environment of their business and understand the impact that this environment has on the development of practices and policies within the organisation. The learners are guided to effectively evaluate the entity of the business based on the legal provisions and the purpose of the organisation within the industry. It also helps them to understand tools and techniques that they can use to evaluate the operational functions within the organisation and the managerial tasks. This is critical information that helps to develop an understanding of the interrelationship between departments and people. Learners are also helped to develop a visual representation of the organisation and its hierarchies through the use of different types of organisational charts. Lastly, they are guided to understand management roles and responsibilities and different stakeholders within the organisation.

External Context

This area of learning focuses on the ability to effectively evaluate the external environment of the organisation and identify its setting within the industry or market of operation. Within this area of learning, the learner is guided with the understanding of evaluating the external forces to the organisation and conduct an effective PESTLE analysis which helps to evaluate the political, economic, social, technological, legal and environmental environment of the organisation.

They are also guided in understanding economic issues such as unemployment, trade cycles, exchange rates, inflation and competition that could affect the practices within the organisation. The learners are also helped to understand the global issues and challenges that these issues present to the organisation hence building awareness to eh internal organisation that has an influence on the business.

Evaluation

On completing the unit, the learners are put through an evaluation that determines efficiency in achieving the learning goals and objectives. This includes a written assessment where learners respond to questions on the unit as well as supervised practice or simulated exercise to evaluate the performance of the learners in terms of applying learning concepts within a practical setting.