Chrysler's New Culture And Its Impact On The Mangers

Ford Motor Company's hierarchical culture impacts the association's drive toward higher execution to accomplish its vision of industry administration. An organization's hierarchical culture characterizes the qualities, traditions and customs that influence individual and gathering practices. Ford utilizes its hierarchical culture to keep up an elite workforce. As the fifth greatest player in the worldwide vehicles showcase, the organization needs to keep up high efficiency and compelling backing for mechanical and procedure advancement (Khosrow-Pour, 2006). These necessities are met through a hierarchical culture that typifies Ford's vision and statements of purpose, with accentuation on perfection and collaboration. Ford Motor Company succeeds somewhat in light of tis authoritative culture. The components of this culture are connected to the company's central goal and vision, and the way of its business.

Lueneburger, Christoph (2014). Lessons from Chrysler: how to rev up a purpose-driven corporate culture. Retrieved from

The use of the competing values framework was demonstrated through Ralph Langley’s management style. He leveraged the four distinct models collaboratively as he led the production staff of the nuclear assembly room. His management approach help lead to the following: an increase in profits for the tube manufacturing operations, team cohesiveness amongst the production staff, individual ownership and problem solving during the production process, staff pride in meeting production goals and deadlines, and respect as well as admiration for management in the assembly room. The current positive direction of the nuclear assembly room staff under Langley’s leadership was in contrast to the department two years prior to him assuming the role as general foreman. It can be concluded that Langley displayed mastery of the competing values framework within the scope of his role as general foreman for the assembly room at American Radiatronics. He was able to develop a word class staff that was able to work as a team to accomplish the goals of the production unit and the company.

Every organization has values and beliefs that define what they do and how they do things in the organization. These values have significant influence on how the employees behaves and the general performance of the organization – it is these set of values and beliefs, rooted deep in the company’s organizational structure that depict the “dos”, “don’t” and the “hows”, of the organization and these unequivocally represents the culture of the organization. This concept became popular in the 1980s when Peters and Waterman in their book: “In search of Excellence” presented the profound argument that, the success of any organization is inextricable linked to the quality of its culture. (Carpenter, M., Taylor, B., Erdogan, B. 2009 p183). The purpose of this paper is an attempt to analyse the impact diverse cultures played in the success of the Lincoln Electric Company.

Organizational Structure and Culture of Rolls Royce Rolls Royce is a technology and global leader. They employ 35,200 people and operate in 48 countries. Headquarter is based in England UK. Large manufacturing plants are located in American, Singapore and China. A hierarchical structure is used to manage the company.

Use the competing values framework to diagnose Chrysler’s culture. To what extent does it possess characteristics associated with clan, adhocracy, market, and hierarchy cultures?

A difference in culture creates many challenges for American companies trying to break into foreign markets. How you view situations is shaped by culture and experiences, which differ wildly among people; and so, it becomes easy for misunderstandings to occur between people who have differing cultures. In many Asian cultures, those whose speak directly are considered to lack sophistication and subtlety. However, in American culture being direct and clearly stating what you mean is considered the norm. By being aware of these differences in perception, you can more easily navigate relationships and deal with people from across the globe (Rivers & Lytle, 2007).

It is evident the culture at Zappos would not be well accepted at Chrysler. Mr. Marchionne would not be playing Nerf Basketball in one of his corporate meeting rooms while conferencing with Fiat, an Italian automaker. In spite of the hierarchy culture that once dominated Chrysler; this organization has been successful in manifesting clan, adhocracy, and market culture tendencies. Before Sergio Marchionne being named the CFO of Chrysler. The culture was bureaucracy.

When looking at the case study of Sergio Marchionnes’ takeover of Chrysler and revamp of the corporate culture, it seems to me that Marchionne utilized several mechanisms for embedding the corporate culture that he desired. I feel that Marchionne utilized six of the eleven ways of embedding culture that was covered in the text.

When reflecting on the history of Ford Motor Company, the name Henry Ford is synonymous with the success of the company. Henry Ford created a culture of innovation and creativity (Brady & Haley, 2013), and also one in which he doubled workers’ wagers to further highlight them as valuable assets to the company (Harnish, 2012). However, by 2006, the culture that Henry Ford created had drastically changed and the company was facing potential bankruptcy. To recreate the once powerful culture of Ford, Alan Mulally was brought in as CEO to overcome the dysfunctional culture and was able to prevent the company’s downfall (Brady & Haley). The following will outline the changing culture that Mulally created.

Observable artifacts are the objects one can see in the work environment. The main observable artifact at Chrysler was the fact that Mr. Fong doubled rebates in order to make sales. This was associated with the culture that led to the company filing for bankruptcy. Another observable artifact came with the new changes Mr. Marchionne implemented such as, weekly meetings with his staff. Espoused values can be defined as the normal standards in which a company conducts business. A couple of espoused values mentioned are the “margins and vehicle quality needed to improve and better control over pricing was imperative” (Kreitner & Kinicki, 2013, p. 86). Mr. Marchionne wanted the company profitable again. Basic assumptions “are unobservable and represent the core organizational culture” (Kreitner & Kinicki, 2013, p. 65) of a company’s behavior. Marchionne made changes by firing executives and adding a shock factor to the workforce. The observable artifacts, espoused values, and basic assumptions associated with Chrysler’s culture are that the company wants to protect its market share. The assumption is that the market share and volume of sales are most important to Chrysler. For this reason it is acceptable to give discounts and rebates.

The competing values framework represents a theory, based on the crucial indicators of an effective organization. It revolves around four major components of organizational culture, which measure the organization's leadership style, institutional bonding, strategic emphases and general cultural characteristics. Leaders and managers benefit from this conceptual framework as it offers teaching tools and helps interpret various organizational functions and processes. In order the examine the organizational culture more in depth, this framework has been extended (Quinn and Kimberly, 1984, p 298). They identified the two main dimensions upon which the competing values framework of cultured is based : the competing demand of change and stability, and the conflicting demands created by the internal organization and the external environment. These dimensions were reflected by other scholars as Thomson

     Thomas C. Mawhinney has a different approach to making a good corporate culture. His six ideas are the managers behavior, employee selection, the external culture, establishing a clear corporate mission, keep the mission up front, managers must reflect the desired culture, and employee’s learning must be ongoing, (Mawhinney, 23-74). Mawhinney’s first idea is the manager’s behavior. “Studies indicate that the single greatest influence on the work culture is the manager” (Mawhinney, 28). “The speed of the boss is the speed of the team”, said Chrysler chairman Lee Iacocca.

Understanding the influence of culture in business practices and managerial decision-making requires explaining the differences between cultures. This is why, Hofstede (appendix 1) presents a well-known model based on four dimensions of culture:

Existing culture can in times be very hard to continue with because of the change in the growth or in the strategic change in the organisation. At such appropriate web of culture is important to be identified or that can be a problem in the progress of the organisation. These identified elements will give organisation a bigger picture of what was going wrong and how can they change it towards betterment of the organisation.