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CASE ANALYSIS REQUIREMENTS
The following steps should be helpful to you in preparing your case analysis:
1. Identify the relevant problem(s), stating assumptions if appropriate. The emphasis at this stage is on getting an overview of the issues involved. Students often get bogged down in recounting details, many of which may be irrelevant, rather than identifying the issues.
2. Identify or select the most important problem(s). For example, “The problem in this case is a poor fit between the organization and its environment”. It is important that you are identifying the real problem and not just one or more symptoms.
3. Analyze the problem and its causes in terms of the theories and concepts discussed in the text and in class.
4. Identify and weigh alternative actions to “solve” or “improve” the situation.
5. Select the best alternative and explain why you chose it.
6. State how and when the recommended action should be implemented.
Your written analysis should be formatted into three major sections as follows:
· Statement of the Problem – In this opening section, you should clearly and succinctly state the issue or issue you believe needs to be addressed or solved. This section should be a few sentences or a paragraph at most.
· Analysis and Evaluation – This is the most difficult part of the assignment because analysis is hard work. You should offer analysis and evidence (hard facts) to back up your conclusions. Try to inject balance into your analysis and to avoid emotional rhetoric. Since your papers must be written in third person point of view, you should avoid phrases such as “I think,” “I feel,” and “I believe”. This section should include discussion of two or, at most, three alternative methods of addressing the issue.
· Recommendation – In this section, you will select what you consider to be the best alternative, discuss why you believe it to be so, as well as how and when it should be implemented.
Your case analysis should be in APA format, three to five pages in length, not counting the title page and references page. The paper should be double-spaced, 12-point font (Times New Roman), with one inch margins at the top, bottom, left, and right of each page. An abstract is not required. Points will be deducted for errors in spelling, punctuation, and grammar. An template, which is in APA format, has been posted in the “Course Materials” module.
Organizational structure and design at the Toyota Motor Corporation (TMC)
Name
Institution/Affiliation
1.0 Statement of the problem
For the last decade, Toyota Motor Corporation (TMC) has enjoyed an enviable position in the automotive industry thus being referred to as the gold standard. In reality, TMC owes much of its success to its well-structured manufacturing system that reflects the principles set by the Toyota Quality Management (TQM). Nonetheless, the real problem threatening the success of TMC is the centralization of services as most of the critical company decisions are made under the Japanese-controlled organizational structure. For instance, TMC can be described as a highly centralized organization such that the power of decision-making is not delegated to its operations such as in the USA. Therefore, due to such circumstances, the management of a company fails to gain the trust of the consumers as well as the business world (Bateman et al., 2015).
2.0 Analysis and Evaluation
During the time of crisis, it became apparent that Toyota Motor Corporation (TMC) was a highly centralized organization that despite the United States representing two-thirds of the company profits all decisions regarding operations were made in Japan. As such, due to the Japanese-controlled organizational structure, TMC had not delegated decision-making power or authority to its executives in the United States. For that reason, at any point TMC was faced with a quality issue concerning the recall of vehicles, it was required that the final decision would be communicated by the company's headquarters albeit the process is vulnerable to high bureaucracy levels. In consequence, it was impossible for the company executives stationed in the United States to issue a recall for affected vehicles. It is imperative to state that most of the information communicated to the headquarters was one way since the top hierarchy of the company often dismissed the quality claims fronted by the lower management. Consequently, TMC proved to have gradually become too centralized and too bureaucratic as such this fronted the company with...
