EMAD RAMADAN KAMEES

1. Using the types of Corporate Strategies and the

information from the case, describe the culture at Toyota
Motor Corporation. Why do you think this type of culture
might be important to a car maker?

- The culture of Toyota Motor Corporation is growth -

concentration in order to have achieved such a title, Toyota must
have key values that and widely shared by its employees. Based on
the exhibit 2-5 Toyota has an innovative culture that is team
oriented which allows them to remain stable even while taking on
risks. This type of culture might be important to carmakers because
Toyota owns 11.7 percent of the car industry's market and despite
their organizational culture shift due to poor innovative risk taking
when it came to quality, other carmakers should find Toyota's
initial culture to be the reason for their long-term success and
growth.

2- How do you think a long-standing culture that had such a strong

commitment to quality lost its ability to influence employee behaviors
and actions? What lesson can be learned about organizational culture
from this?

One of the reasons that the company lost its ability to influence
employees' behaviors and action was because of highspeed global
growth. A lesson that can be learned through this is that too much
greed to make something better might not turn too perfect. There
could be several reasons as to why Toyota's employee behaviors
EMAD RAMADAN KAMEES
and actions could be a large factor in the organization's shift. There
are

many dimensions to an organization's culture and a few of them

could have led to Toyota's decreased connection with its
employees. Primarily, attention to details is a necessity when it
comes to quality assurance. The degree to which Toyota's
employees were executing precision, analysis, and overall paying
attention to the quality content of the car resulted in the depletion
of the cars they were making quality. However, a lack of attention
to detail comes from the degree to which the managers of the
company focused on results or outcomes rather than how the
outcomes were achieved.

3- Do you think it was important for Mr. Toyoda to apologize

for the company's decisions? Why? (Think in terms of the company's

stakeholders.)

Yes, I think that it was very important because it could have helped
the consumers of the product have more respect towards the
company and be more forgiving about the situation. In my opinion,
it was very important for Mr. Toyoda to apologize, and something
that he had to do. If he would have just stayed quiet during this
time, the company could, and probably would have fell apart. If I
were a stockholder while this happened, I would be very upset to
begin with. Then, if Mr. Toyoda would not have explained why
this happened and apologized for the mishaps, I personally would
have pulled all my money out of the company, because it would be
inexcusable. I personally believe that safety is the first thing to
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think of when you are designing something such as a car. I would
rather have a vehicle that got 5 miles a gallon than one that got 35
mpg and

4. What could other organizations learn from Toyota' experiences about

the importance of organizational culture?

other organizations can learn a lot from the difficulties that Toyota
has went through and has had to fix. Sometimes fast is not always
the best. Instead of having an aggressive culture, they should have
an organizational culture that pays attention to detail more. Toyota
also had a outcomes-oriented culture. They were more focused on
results rather than how the outcomes were achieved, which led to
faulty parts. I realize that everyone is simply part of solution for
potential company growth. Other organization can learn from
organizational culture through Toyota because of the lessons it
gained from its mistakes.