The thematic area of the article is the application of outsourcing in the logistics of an organization in crisis. The study will indicate, among other things, such aspects as:
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defining a crisis situation in an organization
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defining selected causes of crisis situations in organizations, including those resulting from globalization (regionalization) or those resulting from the dynamic development of the Internet
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characterization of selected aspects for logistics processes in organizations in crisis
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determination of selected criteria for selecting outsourcing concepts in an organization in crisis.
The thematic area related to the application of outsourcing in the logistics of an organization in crisis remains vast due to, among other things:
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the diversity of existing types of organizations, including those based on the size of the organization (number of employees, revenue size, and others)
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the nature of the organization, based on established goals – profit and non-profit organizations, for example, commercial law companies, local government organizations at all levels, government organizations, or even the state treated as an organization
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the scope of the organization’s operation – very dynamic, resulting from the process of globalization, international agreements (for example, the European Union), bilateral and multilateral agreements (of an economic, military, political, social nature), as well as resulting from the use of the Internet, both as a means of communication and as an economic environment – a virtual economic environment
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the dynamics of changes in the causes of crisis situations in individual organizations, for example, due to: natural causes resulting from global warming – uncontrolled CO2 emissions, causes resulting from global terrorism, causes resulting from the lack of regulation of political situations in many regions of the world, including North Korea, the Balkans.
The presented selected issues related to the attempt to characterize the thematic area show its complexity on the one hand, and on the other hand, clearly indicate its importance in the functioning of individual organizations, including the largest ones, such as states or transnational corporations.
R. W. Griffin defines an organization as a group of people who work together in an orderly and coordinated way to achieve a set of goals. The definition very accurately captures the idea of modern organizations, where aspects related to the resources of individual components in the organization move to a lower level of importance in the organization. At the same time, it shows the entire complexity of the functioning of any organization, which results from the inalienability of the dogma of cooperating people – employees for the realization of established goals. The above implies possible crisis situations, regarding the nature and multitude of their occurrence, the course of the crisis situation, and its long-term effects.
In most cases, “crisis” or the expression “crisis situation” derived from it evokes associations with natural and anthropogenic disasters. However, managers of various types of institutions and organizations (including the state) much more often have to face crisis situations related to their typical duties, for example, the organization achieving its intended goals and effects, performing specific tasks, or dealing with problems causing disruptions in the functioning of a given entity. Therefore, a crisis situation is not only one in which the peace or safety of citizens, the state, or another organization is threatened. It is also a situation in which the threat is more “trivial” and does not concern fundamental issues. It is also not a necessary condition for recognizing a given situation as a crisis that there is a transition from one stable state to another with qualitatively different properties, because a change in the state of a system is a natural process of the development of this system of society or state, taking place through evolutionary or revolutionary means.
E. Kołodziński defines a crisis as: an event initiating a crisis situation, which is a consequence of the occurrence of one or many events (activation of potential threats), of the same or different nature, with such force or on such a scale that their effects cause:
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a sudden deterioration in the living and health conditions of people and the state of the environment
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a limitation of the functioning of public institutions to such an extent that it leads to the breaking or limitation of social, economic, and structural ties to a degree unacceptable to society.
Kołodziński characterizes the concepts of “crisis” and “crisis situation” very interestingly; quite often in studies concerning security, the terms “crisis” and “crisis situation” are used interchangeably. The difference between these concepts lies in the fact that a crisis is interpreted as an event of breaking the stability of the functioning of an existing system (state of affairs, order), while the phenomena following it until stability is achieved in a new (usually qualitatively different) situation are referred to as a crisis situation.
The article comes from the journal “Logistyka” 2/2009.