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How the culture of an organization can impact the effectiveness of the organization
Organizational culture and its determinants
Organizational culture and its determinants
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Unlike its peers in the industry, Ford Motor Company successfully endured the negative impact of the global financial crisis of 2008 through decisive corporate leadership, introduction of innovative products, and positive culture and corporate values. More specifically, some of the primary factors that helped Ford stay afloat during the global financial crisis include: the top management’s decision to mortgage the company’s assets to have adequate cash on hand; continued investment in product development and introduction of new products that appeal to customer’s new preferences; and the company’s positive corporate culture, particularly the introduction of One Ford. One Team. One Goal, which unites all employees to work together to achieve …show more content…
When Mulally took over the management leadership, he introduced the One Ford plan, which is essentially about the responsibility of each employee to commit to the company and to each other and to stay focus in achieving the mission and objectives of Ford (Irvine, 2013). Ford’s corporate culture teaches each employee to become “One Team” and to work together towards the same goal. Moreover, the company’s management, led by executive chairman and former CEO Wiliam Clay Ford Jr. teaches Ford employees take ownership of the products made by the company (Hammod, 2011). Another important mindset that was instilled in all Ford employees is the “detail to product”. This kind of mindset, which teaches employees the importance of paying attention to detail, helps the company to continue to innovate and introduce new car models and technology that address the needs of its target customers. This companywide attention to detail dramatically supported the company to establish its strong market position today. Overall, Ford’s culture influences its employees to strive for higher performance at all
The automobile went from being a toy for society’s elite to being an essential item within the economic reach of nearly every American, all thanks to the hard work and ingenuity of Henry Ford. His dedication to quality and attention to detail earned him not only dozens of racing titles, but also the reputation of a respectable businessman. Ford understood his market so well that he knew what the people wanted before they could even ask for it, always ahead of the curve. Ford was a pioneer of American commercialism, and so his production methods were centred around efficiency and mass production, thus allowing him to increase productivity and decrees cost to meet the demand of the masses. Lastly, consideration of the working class and philosophy of raising the wages instead of raising the price point and focusing only on profit. There are a great many lessons to be learned from distinguished businessmen in history, and Henry Ford is no
I. Introduction Southwest Airlines has come from an underdog to being one of the best airlines in the industry. This reputation translates from its strategic management of resources. The Co-founder and former CEO, Herb Kelleher, established a unique corporate culture that leads to high customer satisfaction, employees’ morale, and is one of the most profitable airlines in the industry (Jackson et al., 2012). Corporate culture concentrates on empowering the workforce. It shows through Southwest Airlines core values that “happy employees lead to happy customers, which create happy shareholders” (Jackson et al., 2012).
The company’s approach to motivate employees has been working in a positive way. The employees are satisfied with the family style community, and the productivity has increased as well. The company’s style of treating employees as important partners has been successful in other manufacturing companies too. For example, when Honda opened its first factory in the U.S., the CEO and employees shared the same cafeteria, just like Lincoln.
The 1920’s was a time of great social, political, and economic change. The early automobile industry was no exclusion. It appears that throughout history, the figures that stand out the most are either worshipped or despised, and there is very rarely an in-between. Henry Ford, an icon of the 1920’s and the early automobile industry is no exemption. Many people love Ford for his innovative and entrepreneurial skills, while on the other hand, Ford is disliked by many due to his association with Anti-Semitism. Regardless of how Ford is viewed, many decisions he made significantly impacted the automobile industry. These decisions included installing the moving assembly line in his plant, and introducing the Five-Dollar Day. Through the implementation of the Five-Dollar Day, Ford was able to drastically change how the Ford Motor Company company operated, and how business would operate for years to come.
Until recently, the Ford Motor Company has been one of the most dynastic of American enterprises, a factor which has both benefited the company and has brought it to the brink of disaster. Today Ford is the second largest manufacturer of automobiles and trucks in the world, and it’s operations are well diversified, both operationally and geographically. The company operates the worlds second largest finance company in the world, and is a major producer of tractors, glass and steel. It is most prominent in the US, but also has plants in Canada, Britain and Germany, and facilities in over 100 countries.
“Without change there is no innovation, creativity, or incentive for improvement. Those who initiate change will have a better opportunity to manage the change that is inevitable.” William Pollard’s, a 20th century physicist, words show us the power of being proactive, and igniting change to strengthen a company’s productive climate (Sellers, Boone, Harper, 2011). Acme Airlines flight attendants lacked incentive to improve the quality of their work, as a result of distrustful management and overall frustration within the company. Acme took successful steps to rebuild their FA program into a more relationship oriented work environment. Through an understanding of effective leadership, we will use the
Achieving world class business performance is a major challenge in today’s society. Manufacturing companies continue to face increased competition and globalization from its competitors. (1, p. 148). The automotive industry is one of the most volatile manufacturing industries that we have, which was evident in the 2008 – 2010 automotive industry crisis. (2) This global financial downturn served notice to the American automotive manufactures to raise the bar, in order to achieve word class business performance. General Motors, one of the country’s largest automotive manufactures, had to receive a government bailout to survive. During this time many with the corporation asked themselves, if we were a world class business, would we be facing this pending crisis. The answer was a resounding “NO”. General Motors has come out of bankruptcy and is focused on being a world-class business organization.
Ford Motor Company current mission statement is “committed to provide personal mobility for people around the world”. With that in mind their vision is to become the world’s leading Consumer Company for automotive products and services. By improving everything they do, the company provide superior returns to their shareholders (Vision, Mission, Values).
So the discussion on internal and external analysis clearly defines that where the competitive advantage of Ford Motors is and where it is lacking. People who have durability as their first priority will go for Ford but they lack in some of their strategies which the management should consider and work on it. We also came to know that Ford is an innovative company from the very first and also serves local demands with the help of related and supporting industry. But in some points they have taken wrong decisions which compel them to sell some of their brands to others. The good news is they are doing hard job to maintain their performance regarding their star and cash cow products to remain in the competition.
This paper takes a look at the ways in which the ideas of Fordism and Taylorism helped the success of the U.S motor vehicle industry. The motor vehicle industry has changed the fundamental ideas on the process of manufacturing and probably more expressively on how humans work together to create value.
Many economic factors exist that impact the development of Ford Motor Company's strategic plan and it’s no small task to project how some of these factors might change as the strategy is being realized. Consider the prospect of expansion into a new market like China or Mexico. Economic changes like currency devaluation will make Ford’s product more expensive to their target market potentially reducing overall sales revenue. Oil prices as we’ve seen in the U.S. economy can also play a big factor as large vehicles become less desirable and more fuel efficient compact cars gain market share.
The decline in Profit margin in 2014 was because of their less revenue in the North American market where they make good margins with their larger vehicles as shown in Figure
...when the company focused on further improvements of its pickups and SUVs instead of focusing on innovations required by the changing demand. If the management had not been ignorant and would have developed sound strategy as soon as it spotted the change, the company would have avoided the crisis. However the company just recently adjusted its production plan and plans to continue realigning its manufacturing capacity, product mix and cut costs to fix the situation (“Ford Adjusts Production”).
Since the first car was developed in 1885, car makers have been striving to create the car that will outshine over the others. There has never been a car to do it better than the Model T. Practical, reliable, and affordable are adjectives that describe the Model T since it came out in 1908. With little over 20 horsepower and a top speed of 45 miles an hour, this simple car propelled the Ford Motor Company to a level of success that had never been seen before(History, “Model T”). Henry Ford and the Model T revolutionized the car industry, as well as people's lives in the 1920s. The influences from the Model T can be found everywhere from the assembly line, to road development, to the middle class even in today’s world.
The Ford family still controls the company through multiple voting shares, even though it owns a much lower proportion of the equity. Ford’s business strategy is the integrated cost leadership/ differentiation strategy; this involves engaging in primary and support activities that allow the company to simultaneously pursue low cost and differentiation. This strategy is flexible and enables Ford to use technology to control the production of a variety of products in moderate, flexible qualities and with a minimum manual interaction, whose goal is to eliminate cost verse product variety. Cost leadership is a strong strategy, but it can be undermined by the frequent changes in technology, the imitation of cost advantage and the loss of focus on consumers. Ford’s differentiation strategy focuses on developing a unique product that consumers are willing to pay for, and the combination of these two strategies enables Ford to stay on its core competencies.