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General Motors Organizational Change
General Motors Organizational Change
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General Motors Organizational Change
General Motors, a company based in the United States, was pioneered in 1908 in Michigan State. Since its inception, General Motors has gained overwhelming influence to vehicle owners in the United States and around the globe. Over the years, its influence has been evidenced by high sales of their products in addition to market dominance in the motor vehicle industry over other companies. Since 1908, General Motors has reached a level where its work has spread to foreign countries. Moreover, its employee population has been on a constant increase since its onset. In turn, this analysis shows that the company has been extensively successful in this field. However, as much as the company has its strengths in various ways, it also has its weaknesses, opportunities and threats.
Strengths
One of the key strengths that General Motors possesses is having a vast market share. Its greatest advantage was setting up work within the United States at a time when production of vehicles in the country was minimal. Since its outset until 2007, General Motors Company had been the prevailing company in selling vehicles in the United States. However, competition has been growing within the region following the establishment of other vehicle production companies. This has seen its market share drop in the United States, but it is still leading in terms of selling most vehicles. The company has also obtained a lion’s share within the world market. Although the competition is high, both locally and on an international platform, it has been able to stay afloat among the leading companies in the world of selling vehicles.
Having different brands is yet another strength that the company owns over its counterparts. General Motors Company boasts of having different popular vehicle brands that many prefer over other companies’ vehicles. These brands are inclusive of Chevrolet, Cadillac, Saturn, Hummer, GMC, and Opel among others. The popularity of these brands has extremely grown within the local and international markets. Consequently, this popularity has led to an increased sale of vehicles from the company. Such incredible sales have put General Motors ahead of its competitors in terms of success (Jurevicius, 2013).
General Motors has also gained international recognition, which is another vital strength that the company displays. This has exposed the company to many customers and increased their revenue. Pioneering the company during the early years gave the company an opportunity to exploit the market and learn the trade early enough before its competitors could take such a step. Hence, General Motors gained adequate knowledge of the home and international markets ahead of their competitors (Jurevicius, 2013). The Asian market has always been a spectacular field where they readily accept General Motors’ products. Therefore, General Motors bears this additional strength over other companies in the same field of business.
Weaknesses
Since the year 2007, General Motors Company has faced challenging moments, such as an increased number of competitors. One of the leading challenges the company faced included running low on liquidity value. Low sales at the company are to blame for the decrement in liquidity following the accretion of competitors. The company started facing losses that affected the research and development sector negatively. In turn, production of outstanding vehicles became a slow process. This gave competitors an opportunity to catch up on the progress that General Motors had made over the years (Jurevicius, 2013).
Unfortunately, General Motors has always neglected alternative sources of energy for their vehicles. Other leading companies have taken the initiative to implement hybrid technology capabilities on their vehicles. Ignoring the change in alternative energy sources negatively affects General Motors in various ways. For example, the market share has reduced with the competitors taking up customers who prefer using alternative energy other than conventional sources. Losing customers has led to another negative impact, which is profit reduction within General Motors Company (Jurevicius, 2013).
General Motors has also been forced to make vehicle recalls. For instance, in 1998, they recalled several vehicles because the finished products were missing vital parts. Indeed, this is a good gesture and a proper aftersales service, but it was harming the company’s profitability (Jurevicius, 2013). Recalls are a great expense to the company but they have to be done. Such immense expenses are a weakness that General Motors displayed in its work.
Opportunities
In the mid-2000s, General Motors Company started becoming a favorite source of vehicles for several Asian citizens. Vehicle demand within China and India has grown tremendously. This has turned out to be an excellent chance for General Motors to sell their vehicles to people who prefer their products to other companies’ vehicles. The truck market is on an increasing trend and General Motors has seized this chance since their products are inclusive of trucks. General Motors has the tendency to produce new models, which many people prefer purchasing. Thus, they are able to cater to the different customers’ tastes in the market (Jurevicius, 2013).
Threats
China and India are among the General Motors’ largest markets in the East. However, fluctuation of exchange rate between the US dollar and these countries’ currencies may threaten the company’s profitability. The overdependence of General Motors on the American market is also a threat to the success of the company. Competition in the vehicle market within the United States is becoming tighter. General Motors faces the threat of low sales because of overdependence in the American market (Jurevicius, 2013).
General Motors Internal Change
In 1999, General Motors made an abrupt change in the management sector within the company’s American region. A new board of directors was put in place to oversee better decision-making on behalf of the company’s stakeholders. Their main task was to replace the CEO with a suitable one who could facilitate the company’s output and profitability. The change was radical and at the same time influential to the company’s main office. The new CEOs in the company’s major office were young and one of them was a female. Since the inception of the company in the early 1900s, there was never a female CEO. Evidently, this decision was for the best of the company since after that, the company started doing well financially.
The company also took additional measures in terms of internal financial reporting. This action included advancing initiatives that had been pioneered a while back with an aim of addressing material weakness within the company. General Motors Company also made drastic changes within its research and development section. The main point of having an efficient research and development division is to keep abreast with technological changes with the rest of the world. Hence, General Motors leverages the internal research and development group and GM ventures. The leading purpose of the company is to enhance their products and come up with unique vehicles. The developments gained by the company include automotive clean-tech, having advanced materials, encompassing processors, memory and sensors in vehicles. Consequently, the changes led to manufacturing of vehicles that met the customer’s demands.
General Motors External Change
General Motors looks out to reduce legacy cost by having talks with United Auto Workers. Thus, the company made this change with the aim of maximizing their profits. Forecasts are crucial in all business settings and may be inaccurate or close to the real measures. General Motors Company involves itself in making predictions related to the economic GDP and oil prices. These forecasts are inclusive of external changes that the company faces in its operations. These forecasts are not precise and may differ or agree with real measures (General Motors, 2013).
General Motors Company experienced tough financial moments during the 2009 financial year. By the end of that year, it was bankrupt for various reasons. One of the leading reasons behind its bankruptcy was poor designs of its vehicles in comparison to the competitors’ products. Lack of focus on the main issue that was causing profit reduction was yet another cause of the company’s failure. The key problem facing the company was focusing on the financial gains rather than coming up with better vehicles. It was during that time that President Barrack Obama decided to salvage the company. General Motor’s failure affected several people, including its employees. Thus, the president saw it fit to come to its aid since the fall of the company would also have a negative impact on the country’s economy (General Motors, 2013). Consequently, he channeled huge loans towards the company. This provided the company with adequate working capital, which led to hefty profit gains in the following years. In addition, the company also increased its worker’s population and consequently, improved the country’s economy.
References
General Motors, (2013). About GM. Retrieved on 10 August, 2013 from http://www.gm.com/company/aboutGM.html
Jurevicius, O., (2013). SWOT analysis of General Motors. Strategic Management Insight. Retrieved on 10 August, 2013 from http://www.strategicmanagementinsight.com/swot-analyses/general-motors-swot-analysis.html
Tensions that Emerged Within the Argentine Society
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Tensions that Emerged Within the Argentine Society
In his book “The Western World and Its Others: From the viewpoint of the Other,” R.W. Connell argues that immigrants from Europe to Latin America in the nineteenth century caused a transformation in relations between European and Latin American societies, transforming them into “societies of the other.” This essay explores these arguments from Alberdi, Sarmiento, and Lugones within their writings to put them into perspective. It also introduces Sola and Namuncura, who experienced these changes firsthand as migrant workers on Argentine streets. My essay will investigate the tensions that emerged within Argentine society in the closing up of the nineteenth century. The “others” were those from Europe and their attempts to remake Latin American societies in their image. This process of social transformation, however, was a process fraught with contradictions, producing both positive – and negative – effects.
The essay will first introduce Alberdi, Sarmiento, and Lugones as “allies” to this transformation of relations between Latin America and Europe by investigating their writings concerning immigration policy, the popular classes, and indigenous peoples. These three men were members of the oligarchy that ruled Argentina and other Latin American states. It will then introduce Sola, an Italian immigrant who lived in a Buenos Aires working-class district known as La Boca and a leader in a local multi-ethnic workers organization, and Namuncura, leader of an indigenous people from Misiones province. The parallels between these two men and the writings by Alberdi, Sarmiento, and Lugones will be analyzed.
Immigration Policy
In the late nineteenth century, Argentina experienced a massive immigration wave from Europe. The elite of Argentina, primarily of British or French descent, were anxious to preserve the racial purity of their country and believed that an influx of “others” posed a threat. Even though Argentina’s national borders were not exactly defined in terms of ethnic distinctions and the land was open to all European immigrants, the conservative elites believed they had to exclude European “others.” This led them to support an immigration policy that was strictly controlled on all levels. Argentina’s elite were influenced by Anglo-Saxon racism, which expressed itself as a fear of mixing different races. In their desire to keep out “difficult,” races – especially those from Africa – Italians and Jews were also excluded from Argentine society.
Sarmiento and Lugones were sometimes explicit about their views toward indigenous populations. They believed the Conquest to be understandable though unfortunate, and Indians had to either be converted or eradicated. Other Argentine intellectuals of the time thought it was a mistake for the Indians not to disappear completely. All three elite intellectuals considered Argentina’s immigration problem in terms of race and class. Alberdi and Sarmiento considered Argentina an extension of Europe, though Sarmiento initially welcomed immigrants from all backgrounds, while Alberdi only considered immigrants from northern European countries as desirable. Alberdi thought that immigrants from southern Europe threatened to lower the average Argentine’s standard of living. At the same time, Sarmiento did not consider Italians and Spaniards a threat since they were Catholic and knew how to work. Lugones shared Alberdi’s views about southern European immigrants (though not for the same reasons) but was more sympathetic towards Italy than most other nationalists of the time. Though each of Argentina’s elites had different ideas about immigration, all agreed on one thing: Indians were too different from being assimilated and should be removed from Argentine soil. In their view, it was natural for whites to rule over non-whites. The popular classes were also seen as sinister in each of the three elites’ eyes.
Gone were the days when they could find enough food to survive, hunted by the Europeans and their diseases. They were no longer happy, living with their extended families on their lands, hunting, and fishing to feed themselves. They lived on less than what seemed like nothing and still had that sense of happiness (Sutton). All those pleasures seemed washed away for them by foreigners who took over everything that was theirs before, killing off the native people and taking control of everything from the water sources to the land itself. Through this “development”, these people faced so many hardships known as development. Their sense of happiness and pride had been taken from them, and all that was left for them was the pain of life. “We are the last! We are the last!” Namuncura` wailed, “No one is left for us to live with us. You took everyone away from us, and we are left alone! We are alone!” (Bryce 26) These words showed how many native people had gotten sick from diseases brought to them by Europeans and that many had died to bring on more suffering, sorrow, sadness, hurt, loneliness, and despair. (Sola) The idea of getting other native people to live with them was something that Namuncura and her group had been trying to do for many years until it finally happened.
Works Cited
Sola, Oreste. “Making it in America.” The Argentina Reader. Duke University Press, 2002. 188–192.
Bryce, Benjamin. “Undesirable Britons: South Asian migration and the making of a white Argentina.” Hispanic American Historical Review 99.2 2019: pp. 247–273.
Connell, Raewyn. “Understanding neoliberalism.” Neoliberalism and everyday life 23 2010.
Sutton, Barbara. Bodies in Crisis: Culture, violence, and women’s resistance in neoliberal Argentina. Rutgers University Press, 2010.
General Motors Case Study
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General Motors: Case Study
Introduction
The General Motors Company is an automobile manufacturing company that has been in operation for a period of over a century. It is found in the United States and ranks the second largest auto manufacturing company across the globe. It has established its operations in close to thirty four countries and mainly manufactures trucks and cars. Its products are sold in close to one hundred and thirty four countries. The organization has faced numerous challenges in the past with the most profound being bankruptcy.
Nonetheless, it has re established itself and its shares are currently available on the stock market. It is against this background that this paper intrinsically evaluates the organizational structure and external environment of General Motors Company. Then, it moves further to provide an in-depth evaluation of how the M-form hypothesis defines the organizational structure of General Motors. This is imperative in enabling the reader to understand and appreciate the current leadership of the company.
The Organizational Structure of General Motors
At the very top, the organization is headed by the chief executive officer whose sole role is to provide vital financial results that meet the expectations of the shareholders. Share holders according to Blackburn (2006) entail the community within which the organization is situated, the customers and the employees. In this respect, it should be acknowledged that each region or country has its own chief executive officer. He achieves these objectives through collaborations with various directors. Directly under him, we have the chief financial officer, chief information officer, office of product development, legal issues, planning and alliances, marketing and communication, global manufacturing, purchasing and supply chain an human resources.
The chief financial officer is responsible for providing the organization with effective financial resources that are critical for its development and growth. He oversees the control and accounting office as well as the treasury. The chief information office on the other hand is charged with the responsibility of availing to the company secure information systems that are effective and well performing. Further, the product development officer oversees the functioning of the vehicle engineering sector and directs vital research and development. Then, the international operations office basically monitors operations at the international sphere. According to Pelfrey (2006, p. 46), these are established in Canada, Mercosur and Asia Pacific.
The legal office seeks to contractually provide protection of the strategic assets of the companies. Then, the chief marketing officer plays a fundamental role of understanding, satisfying and predicting the dynamic needs and expectations of the current as well as prospective customers. Specific activities include pricing, developing viable product brands and positioning the same on the market for public review (Rothstein, 2005). Under this office, we have the communication, Buick-GMC, Cadillac and marketing and strategy support offices that provide vital services geared towards achieving organizational goals. The global manufacturing sector oversees the operations of the manufacturing international segment. Finally, the human resource is responsible for hiring, motivating and managing the workforce of the organization.
Just like other organizations, General Motors does not exist in a vacuum but rather in an environment that is anchored upon the interplay of numerous intricate and augmenting factors. Thus it is impacted on and impacts on its external environment in various ways. To begin with, Dicken (2007) indicates that since historical times, the political laws and numerous regulations developed by different governments have had various implications on its holistic well being. These can partly be attributed to the inherent dynamism that the organization has undergone over time. According to studies, a significant percentage of the regulations are generated by the consumers of the products. For instance the growing concern for the environment has made the company to adopt viable measures in manufacturing of safer automobiles.
In addition, Snow, Miles and Coleman (1992, p. 26) point out that the organization has impacted on the economic environments of specific countries in various ways. In this regard, recent research reaffirms that fundamentally, the automobile industry tends to have a huge economic effects on the economic welfare of respective countries. In particular, General Motors utilizes textiles, aluminum, computer chips, plastic, steel, lead, copper, rubber and vinyl. As such, it can not be disputed that it promotes employment in numerous sectors. In this respect, Dicken (2007) posits that one autoworker of General Motors has the capacity to create seven employment opportunities in the manufacturing industries.
Notably, the socio cultural environment has also impacted on the organization significantly. At this point in time, it is worth noting that the current society has a significant degree of social stratification and populations tend to value the notion of class. As such, the type of cars that individuals drive increasingly determines the judgment that the same are accorded by the public. Usually, manufacturers base their decisions on these perceptions that shape societal thoughts. In particular, these viewpoints imply that persons who drive expensive cars are wealthy and vice versa.
Furthermore various authors of whom Bordenave and Lung (2003) are represented assert that consumers tend to attain personal satisfaction whenever they drive new and/or nice cars. The need to incorporate all these vital concerns in the manufacturing of cars has had diverse impacts on various facets of the organization. In his review, Rothstein (2005) speculates that coupled with poor management, this could have contributed to the economic downfall of the organization in the 1990s.
Further, Blackburn (2006) indicates that technology has greatly influenced the functioning of the auto industry in various ways. Of particular reference in this regard is the internet that has had changed the mode of different operations within General Motors organization. A study conducted by Hatch and Cunliffe (2006) to determine the impacts of the internet in this sector in 2002 found out that a significant 60% of prospective buyers preferred using the internet in purchase of the vehicles. Furthermore, 88% of these visited the websites of various manufacturing industries prior to undertaking a test drive. In his review, Blackburn (2006) indicates that the internet has greatly benefited the organization due to the fact that it is more efficient and has relatively low costs than other mediums. Specifically, it has been instrumental in positively impacting on various segments of the society and especially the young and middle aged.
Dynamics in demographics has also been implicated for influencing the operations of the organization. For a significant period of time now, Blackburn (2006) notes that General Motors has targeted the baby boomers generation as its main market for the products. However, this is expected to change because of the realization that this generation is set to retire and hence spend less resources in the auto industry. The focus has been directed to their children that are currently in their 30s and mid 20s. Analytic studies indicate that in the next ten years, the baby boomers generation is likely to account for an insignificant 20% of the total sales in the motor industry (Bordenave & Lung, 2003, p. 62).
Theoretical Construct
This study utilizes the M-form hypothesis in describing the organizational structure of General Motors. Studies affirm that General Motors assumed the multi divisional structure of organization as a form of response to various economic challenges. Fundamentally, this M-form is comprised of operational divisions that represent various different businesses or profit centers. Each of these has an overall corporate officer that is charged with the responsibility of delegating various responsibilities required for daily operations.
Essentially, every division has a self contained and distinct business that has its own organizational hierarchy. In other words, Schwartz (1991) defines this form of organizational structure as a complex entity that is comprised of dependent geographic groups and a central headquarters that is charged with the responsibility of overseeing the overall organizational strategy and coordinating vital interdependencies within it. In his review studies posits that the procedure to attain this form f organization is based on four main steps.
The first step entails acquiring of vital resources. In this regard, Hatch and Cunliffe (2006) indicate that General Motors was created after an acquisition of various small entrepreneurial organizations as well as numerous large organizations that were competing against each other. The second step in this regard constitutes establishment of functional structures in a bit to enhance the efficiency of the larger corporation. Regarding this, Pelfrey (2006) ascertains that General Motors acquired various companies and made practical efforts to improve their functioning to be able to address the future demand with ease.
Attainment of this status was aided by its establishment as an assembler of global commodities. This was characterized by deskilling the members. Moreover, its structure gave it an opportunity to provide close supervision to the employees. The third step according to Hatch and Cunliffe (2006) constitutes specific importance. This is characterized by adoption of a growth as well as diversification strategy and diversification of products in new markets. Finally, General Motors developed a revolutionary diversionary form that was used in managing large corporations.
Conclusion
From this analysis, it is certain that General Motors Company is a complex organization that was established close to one hundred years ago. Its output is large and is considered the largest vehicle manufacturing industry within United States. Within the global arena, it is ranked the second largest auto industry. This is exemplified through its geographically expansive operations. Through time, it has undergone various transformations that are partly influenced by its external environment.
Basically, all factors in its external environment have contributed in various ways to molding the company in to its current structure. Notably, this had various implications on its holistic wellbeing. Seemingly, its organizational structure can be best explained by the M-form hypothesis. This is due to the fact that it is a complex entity whose formulation and creation was highly dependent on small entrepreneurial as well as large competitive organizations. Moreover, it has various interdependent segments whose operations are directed and coordinated by a central power.
List of Reference
Blackburn, R 2006, Age Shock: The Role of Finances, Verso, UK.
Bordenave, G & Lung Y 2000, Strategies in Motor Industry. Pelgrave, USA.
Dicken, P 2007, Global Shift, 5th edition, Guilford Press, USA.
Hatch, M & Cunliffe, A 2006, Organization Theory, University Press, Oxford.
Pelfrey , W 2006, Understanding the Organization and Operations of General Motors, University Press, Oxford.
Rothstein, J 2005, Global Commodity Chain: Auto Industry, Social Forces 84 (1), pp. 50-69.
Schwartz, H 1991. Evaluating General Motor Business, Ethics Quarterly, 1 (3), 248-269.
Snow, C, Miles, R. & Coleman, H 1992, Managing Modern Network Organizations In Christopher Mabey and Bill Mayon-White (eds), Managing Change 2nd edition, Open University Press, UK.