Week 4 Assesment

For this assignment, you will Role Play a Real-World Business Analysis where YOU are an OD Consultant!

MBA673/Organizational Change
Case Study Analysis
Case: Week 4
Overview
You are an organizational change consultant—or “OD consultant”—and
have been hired to assist with organizational diagnosis. Your analysis will be
from YOUR OWN perspective role playing as the OD consultant. Put
yourself in the OD CONSULTANT role. Your responses to the case
questions indicated in this set of instructions will be based on your reading of
your textbook and from your research on the company in the online library.
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Guidelines
Title page – Follow standard format for the MBA program. Go to Doc
Sharing and locate the document: “Title page for student papers.”
Format – per APA manual
Double-spaced
Font: Times New Roman, 12 point
Margins: per APA
Page numbers: upper right corner
Length – The total of your case analysis responses should be a minimum of
six (6) pages in length. Most students will require more space for in-depth
responses.
Terminology and Concepts – Note that you are expected use and define
organizational change terminology. You are also expected to make
frequent references to and explain concepts from the text.
Opinions – Where appropriate, also offer and justify your opinions.
Case References – Support generalizations with details from the case.
Citation, Please cite and use references per APA 6th Edition. Use the Student
Resources Link to obtain helpful materials. Use the Writing Center and
GROWS. A minimum of 10 peer-reviewed references from the online
library are required.
HEADINGS AND TOPIC SENTENCES:
For each question, include both the question number and the indicated
boldface heading. Restate the question as a topic sentence at the beginning
of your response.
Submission of Assignment and Evaluation
Please submit this case study analysis as a Word attachment by 11:59 on
the indicated Saturday.
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You will receive a grade and feedback within 72 hours from the due date and
time.
Twenty percent (20%) of your grade is based on the quality of your writing
and eighty percent (80%) is based on the quality of content.
Questions/Topics
1. Planned Change
1A. Lewin’s Planned Change Model – 10%
Explain how Lewin’s Planned Changed Model can be applied to this case.
1B. Action Research Model – 10%
Explain how the first three steps of the Action Research Model have already
been implemented in this case. Note that step two—consultation with
behavioral science expert—equates to the “Entering and Contracting”
process associated with you as an organizational change/OD consultant
described in your readings.
2. Collecting Data
2A. Method(s)
In your role playing assume you have been given data. How would you
evaluate the data collection process used by the organizational change/OD
consultant? For example, what are the major advantages and disadvantages
of the data collection method that was used to collect data from
organizational participants? What other method(s)—if any–could/should
have been used? What about the sample? Would you have involved any
other participants—e.g., first-line employees, customers, etc.? Explain your
reasoning. This gives you an opportunity to show you understand
methodology.
2B. Questions
Given your knowledge of organizational effectiveness, what questions
would you ask participants in the data collection process? Identify 3-5
questions. Include an explanation of the importance of questions and how
they are constructed. Remember to focus questions on diagnosis of the
organizational problem—i.e., profitability.
3. Feeding Back Diagnostic Data
For questions 3A and 3B, assume the role of the organizational
change/OD consultant who is assisting the organization’s leaders
with the change process.
3A. Force-Field Analysis – 10%
You have decided to begin your data feedback session with top management
team of the organization by presenting a force-field analysis chart that
provides an overview of forces for change (“driving forces”) and forces for
maintaining the status quo (“resisting forces”). Consider forces that are
identified in background information in the case. Complete a two-column
chart or table. Include an explanation of each element on your chart.
3B. Organizational Culture – 10%
How would you present what you discovered about the organization’s culture
in your interviews? What key points would you make and what would you
say about them? In preparation for this aspect of your assignment, review
the Organizational Level Model for Diagnosing Organizational System. Note
that one of the primary system design components that must be evaluated
is “Culture.” Also consider what you learned about organizational culture in
your Contemporary Management and Organizational Behavior courses.
4. Organizational Change Interventions
According to the authors of your text: The term intervention refers to a set
of sequenced planned actions or events intended to help an organization
increase its effectiveness. For questions 4A and 4B, assume the role of the
new general manager of The organization.
4A. Action Plan – Short-term – 10%
What actions would you take on an immediate basis to respond to the
diagnostic information gathered and presented by the organizational
change/OD consultant? In your response, consider the “Joint Diagnosis of
Problem” and “Joint Action Planning” steps of the Action Research Model.
Also consider communication with company employees. With whom should
the new general manager talk, in what forum (e.g., private meetings,
general employee meetings, etc.), about what, and when?
4B. Action Plan – Long-term – 10%
Provide 2-3 recommendations for organizational change interventions
intended to help The organization increase profitability in the long term. The
list of interventions on page 157 may inspire some ideas. You are not
expected to have a detailed understanding of interventions at this point in
the course or in your field of study. Apply your general knowledge to this
question.
In addition to the questions in the instructions above, let these question be
part of your thought process. Weave the answers into your analysis. Do not
simply type a Question and Answer.
1.
Would you consider Toyota to be an innovative organization? Why or
why not?
Answer: Most students should see Toyota as innovative because of its
continuous improvement philosophy toward processes. The constant
improvement of how things are done with focus on reducing expenses and
improving product are an innovation technique all companies should aspire
to.
2.
Do you think Toyota’s potentially inbred leadership hinders, or
explains, its successes?
Answer: It most likely explains the company’s successes. The internal
promotion of managers ensures a strong organizational culture based on
continuous improvement is basic to the organization’s operations. The
longevity of managers ensures a long-history understanding of the company
and who it is. These strengths ensure consistent, incremental change for the
better.
3.
In 2009, Toyota reported a loss for the first time in its history. Do you
think that given its culture it will have more problems dealing with the loss
than other automakers?
Answer: Yes, report of loss for the first time is likely a very difficult
psychological effect on Toyota. But, it is positioned to respond to the
situation well. See
http://www.businessweek.com/globalbiz/content/may2009/gb2009058_991
777.htm?chan=top+news_top+news+index+-+temp_news+%2B+analysis
for insight.
4.
The new president of Toyota, Akio Toyoda (grandson of the founder),
has said, “Everyone says Toyota is the best company in the world, but the
consumer doesn’t care about the world. They care if we are the best in
town.” What do you think he means by that?
Answer: Toyoda understands his customers. The customer doesn’t care
about global positioning or competitiveness, he or she cares only that the
car they buy is reliable, attractive, effective, and efficient. The customer’s
concern is his or her pocketbook, not Toyota’s.
Source: Based on M. Graban, “Toyota Leaders Get a Lecture from a Toyoda,”
Manufacturing Business Technology (June 28, 2009), www .mbtmag.com; M.
Maynard, “At Toyota, a Giant Strives to Show Agility,” New York Times
(February 22, 2008), pp. B1, C4; and J. Surowiecki, “The Open Secret of
Success,” The New Yorker (May 12, 2008), p. 48.
Case Details (be sure to supplement these details with research in the online
library)
Innovation–and Continuity–at Toyota
If you ask experts in organizational innovation about Toyota, you’ll often see
a bemused expression on their faces. Toyota is a bit hard to figure,
innovation wise.
On the one hand, the company has been one of the most successful
corporations in the world for a generation. It is now the world’s largest car
company and shows no signs of giving up that title anytime soon. It must be
doing something innovative to continue to thrive when business conditions,
consumer preferences, government regulation, and global competition
continue to change, sometimes rather dramatically.
Toyota also produced the first, and to date the only, successful massproduced hybrid car, the Prius. Other companies have attempted to follow
suit, only to find their entries coming up short in expert ratings, new car
sales, and resale value.
On the other hand, Toyota’s products are widely thought to be more “liked
than loved,” and its cars are often criticized for being imitations rather than
innovations. The company is notorious for its “stodgy and bureaucratic”
structure, for the fact that all its senior executives are Japanese males, and
for its worshipping of the past (a bust of the company’s founder, Kiichiro
Toyoda, appears in the lobby, and in its 74-year history only three
individuals outside the Toyoda family have led it). These hardly seem the
hallmarks of an innovative, transformational organization.
So is Toyota an innovative company, or not?
The answer depends on how you define innovation. Judged by the
innovations in its products, notwithstanding the Prius (which, despite its
success, still amounts to a small percentage of Toyota’s sales), we would not
deem it a particularly innovative organization. However, when we defined an
innovative culture elsewhere in this text, we emphasized two points. First, it
is not judged only by an organization’s products. Production, service,
marketing, and other business processes are less observable to the outsider
but are arguably more important to sustained success. Second, innovation
can be incremental. Is a company that loudly reinvents itself every 10 years
really more innovative than one that makes steady, incremental changes
more or less continuously?
It’s clear that on both these points—innovation as process as well as
product, and lasting incremental innovation— Toyota excels. Toyota has
made numerous workplace innovations, including the andon cord—whereby
any worker can halt the production line when he or she sees a problem—and
its focus on lean and nimble manufacturing processes that allow it to switch
the vehicle being manufactured in nearly every plant within days. On the
second point, kaizen manufacturing— a method of continuous
improvement—is nearly synonymous with Toyota. As one expert
commented, “Instead of trying to throw long touchdown passes, Toyota
moves down the field by means of short and steady gains.”
Studies consistently show that most efforts at organizational transformation
fail and are abandoned. Perhaps if more companies thought about innovation
the Toyota way—in terms of process rather than product and of slow and
continuous improvement rather than radical change—they’d be more likely
to realize the innovations, and organizational success, they wish to achieve.
Additional readings are found at:
http://www.reliableplant.com/Read/13439/toyota-learning-organization
http://www.rfgen.com/supply-chain-case-study-toyota
https://solvesolution.files.wordpress.com/2011/05/toyota-case-study.pdf
http://www.diva-portal.org/smash/get/diva2:349746/FULLTEXT02