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Problem Statement: With operations in more than 160 countries and regions worldwide, 340,000 employees, and $17.9 billion in annual profits - Toyota Motor Corp has been referred to as the gold standard of the automotive industry. Toyota reached success in part because of its exceptional reputation for quality and customer care. In total contrast, Toyota embodies a culture of smug, insular arrogance unable to properly handle a recall crisis. The general problem and focus of the current case study is Toyota's arrogant organizational culture and structure of denial. The goal of this study is to examine characteristics of organizational culture as it relates to crisis management.

Research Questions: 1) What is the relationship between organizational culture and ethics? 2) Compare and contrast the transparency, efficiency, and consumer trust issues of GM and Toyota.  3) How do organizational structures and models differ in contrast to Toyota's? 4) What are the behavioral implications of culture and conflict?

These questions are only food for thought. You can change these or add more. The goal is to stay consistent in research tone and focus to the research problem noted above. SUB-HEADERS: Not limited to, your literature review MUST cross-reference and integrate a discussion on elements of the case and the following topics: (1) Organizational Culture, (2) Organization Structure, (3) Leadership, (4) Ethics, (5) Understanding Work Teams, & (6) Conflict and Negotiation. YOU MUST DISCUSS THE PROS AND CONS OF EACH. Research cannot be one-sided or it is not valid and reliable.

My Parts

Literature Review

You must address at least six scholarly resources in this section. Approach this section as a mini "book report" on each of the reference sources that significantly informed your analysis and proposed solutions. Give the reader an encapsulated review of what information you found most relevant to your research. You may have found conflicting opinions/theories related to your topic area. Identify and discuss any such contrasts and/or describe in detail significant agreement among your sources. Your literature review should be separate and distinct from your analysis section; it is a summation of your research.

Solutions

Identify at least three potential workable solutions to your problem and identify the pros and cons of each alternative solution and its high-level implementation steps. 

Identify your preferred solution and describe exactly what should be done and how it should be done, including by whom, with whom, and in what sequence. Always explain your thinking behind your final solution set. It's important to be clear about why a particular alternative (solution) was chosen, as opposed to others.

Reflection : Think about this assignment and write a well-thought-out reflective statement about how this assignment influenced your personal, academic, and professional leadership and managerial development.

CASE

Did Toyota’s Culture Cause Its Problems?

You may be familiar with the problems that have recently plagued Toyota. However, you may not know the whole story. First the facts. In 2010 Toyota issued a series of recalls for various models. The most serious was for a defect called “unintended acceleration,” which occurs when a car accelerates with no apparent input from the driver. Investigations revealed that unintended acceleration in Toyota cars has been the cause of 37 deaths since 2000. When the problems first surfaced, however, Toyota denied it was the cause. Eventually, Toyota apologized and recalled more than 9 million cars.

To many, the root cause of Toyota’s problems was its insular, arrogant culture.Fortune argued: “Like GM before it, Toyota has gotten smug. It believes the Toyota Way is the only way.” Time reported “a Toyota management team that had fallen in love with itself and become too insular to properly handle something like the current crisis.” Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood described Toyota’s culture as “safety-deaf.”

But is this the reality? Increasingly, evidence suggests that Toyota’s culture—or even the cars it produces—is not the source of the problem.

A 2011 report released by the U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) concluded that unintended acceleration was not caused by problems in the electronic circuitry. The Wall Street Journal wrote that “safety regulators, human-error experts and auto makers say driver error is the primary cause of sudden acceleration.” Forbes and The Atlantic commented that most of the incidents of sudden acceleration in Toyota cars occurred 537538with elderly drivers, and elderly drivers are known to be more prone to confusing pedals. Many other independent investigations, including ones conducted by automobile experts at Popular Mechanics and Car and Driver, reached the same conclusion: the main cause of unintended acceleration was drivers mistaking the gas pedal for the brake pedal.

There’s a long history of misreporting on this issue. Audi was nearly driven into bankruptcy when 60 Minutes aired a report, “Out of Control,” purportedly proving that defects in the car were behind six fatal sudden-acceleration accidents. As it turns out, 60 Minutes paid sometime to tamper with the car—filling a canister of compressed air linked to the transmission—to cause the sudden acceleration shown in the segment. Further investigations never uncovered evidence that defects in Audi’s cars were behind the incidents.

Does Toyota have an insular and inbred corporate culture? Probably. But it’s been that way for a long time, and it’s far from clear that the culture, or even the company’s cars, is responsible for the sudden acceleration problems.

Questions

1.

If Toyota is not the cause of unintended acceleration, why was it blamed for it?

2.

Investigations have shown that after stories of unintended acceleration are publicized, report of incidents increase for all automakers. Why is this the case?

3.

Is it possible to have a strong—even arrogant—culture and still produce safe and high-quality vehicles?

4.

If you were the CEO of Toyota when the story was first publicized, how would you have reacted?