5. environment
p 526
The environment concerning shoe styles changes perhaps more rapidly than any other style product and this means that there is greater uncertainty in the industry and a need to make quick decisions. Uncertainty arises when employees are not certain how to deal with certain challenges.   The structure or heirarchy of the decision making is tall and often goes back to a single person multiple times, especially Allison and Lawson, which means the whole process takes from 2 weeks to a month. 

7.

 Since there is such high uncertainty and change in the industry, the best call Illinois Shoe Company would be to decentralize and empower self managed teams to make informed decisions.  The tall hierarchy makes this difficult as does the number of times things have to be sent back up the channel to Allison or Lawson.  Allison even commented that, "If we could speed that up [the two weeks to a month it takes to launch a pilot run for a shoe], it would make the company just that much more secure in staying in the game against big companies..."

9.In terms of the environment, as discussed in 5 and 7, it would be beneficial to Illinois Shoe company to flatten the hierarchy or use self managed cross functional teams

If there is quick changes in the industry, there is greater uncertainty. The best call for the O is to decentralize and empower self managed teams to make informed decisions instead of sending everything back through the channels to Alison. This will add flexibility.

6. greater tech  - need more flexibilty (task variety (# of problems) and analyzabiluty (degree to which programmed solutions are available)

7. They send too much up to alison