Chrysler Organizational Culture Analysis

The organizational culture of the automotive industry is one that underwent a drastic decline between 2008 and 2009 (Goolsbee & Krueger 2015). However, within a few years the Chrysler organization made enhancing adjustments for the better. The catalyst for the transformation from negative to positive within Chrysler organization was Sergio Marchionne, who took radical measures to realign the organizational culture (Kreitner & Kinicki 2013). Through carefully adjusting the espoused value of the company and guaranteeing that they matched the enacted values he was able to generate a high Person-environment fit (PE fit) that guided the company out of bankruptcy. By using attentive deliberation of the Chrysler culture we can learn about the

type of culture that exists and how the culture improved.
In examining Chrysler’s culture we can see that in 2008 Chrysler had a culture that led to decreasing market shares.

This is evident in the fact that in 2008 Chrysler could not have survived without government bailout and intervention (Goolsbee & Krueger 2015). The company developed for the better via the culture that Marchionne created as perceived by the companies return to success in 2011 (Kreitner & Kinicki 2013). According to the Chrysler website they have a culture that focuses on innovation, leadership, passion, cooperation, and responsibility (FCA 2014). The website goes on to further express that this culture came about due to being granted a second chance and by rethinking the philosophy that guided their business. The competing value framework appears to be a mix between a market and hierarchy type arrangement. The market culture is evident by the expectation Marchionne has for an employee to deliver quality and through his belief to never sacrifice profit (Kreitner & Kinicki 2013). However, the company appears to fall more heavily into a hierarchical category as Marchionne displays a great amount of control over his company by holding several meetings throughout the week. Furthermore, he set up his office in an area to better control his
employee’s while personally overseeing the meetings so that he can govern pricing, focus and innovation (Kreitner & Kinicki 2013). Moreover, Marchionne instructions to security guards to check in on employees to guarantee maximum control over the flow of information displayed his hierarchical control (Kreitner & Kinicki 2013). As stated above, these tactics helped the company to become a more profitable organization. How then was the culture within Chrysler

created?
The best description of the devices that Marchionne used are described by the mechanisms of Edgar Schein, a well know organizational behavior scholar (Kreitner & Kinicki 2013). The mechanisms used were adjusting the physical space, controlling the work flow of the organization, and conducting a layoff process that completely turned the company around. To further explain, the organization of the physical work environment was arranged to increase collaboration through setting up video equipment to allow supporting companies to participate in the discussions which is a key observable artifact that points toward an attitude of change (Kreitner & Kinicki 2013). Henceforth, this adjustment to the physical space helped with the second mentioned mechanism of controlling workflow as the meetings were driven by Marchionne and via him placing his office within the engineer’s workspace to better support innovation. Finally, Marchionne conducted layoffs of key personnel so that he could rid the company of the old way of doing business and only empower leaders who would focus on the future goals he set forth. Thus, the espoused values of innovation, leadership, passion, cooperation, and responsibility created a culture that assisted in aiding employees to accomplish Marchionne’s vision. Through a hierarchical structure that aligned the espoused value with the vision and action of the company, Marchionne was able to create a positive PE fit the propelled his organization to success