jeremy kish

jeremy kish

33p

38 comments posted · 2 followers · following 0

13 years ago @ http://www.personal.ps... - Week 13, Group 2, Q1: ... · 0 replies · +1 points

I agree that selecting the right parter is the first step to integrating cultures. The companies must have something in common if at least a common goal. That being said all the companies involved must be able to trust one another or the alliance will fail. Walter states that it is important that each company has a strength that the other companies want and that none of the companies have the desire or ability to acquire the strengths of other companies. As Leslie states if each company bring a core competency to the alliance that makes it much harder for another company to push them out. If a companies strength is easily duplicated, once the other companies learn how that company operates they can take advantage of that knowledge and remove that companies strength. Selecting companies with a similar culture built on trust and mutual goals gives alliances a much better chance to succeed.

13 years ago @ http://www.personal.ps... - Week 13, Group 2, Q1: ... · 0 replies · +1 points

Blending of cultures is more important with the higher the engagement of the agreement. Companies that engage in alliances such as one produces and one distributes need to focus on meeting each others needs but two companies that form a JV need to totally blend their cultures. JV are seperate entities from their parent companies and therefore need to have a culture of their own. Aspects from each parent company should be incorporated but for a JV to function successfully, the employees need to feel as if the company is their own and create their own culture.

13 years ago @ http://www.personal.ps... - Week 13, Group 2, Q3: ... · 0 replies · +1 points

As Lisa said higher engagement entry modes give a firm a higher level of control. Turnkey or licensing/franchising put more of the final product into another parties control. By setting up a JV or an aquisition a company keeps that control all through the delivery of their good or service. Many successful firms have core competencies that are hard for other companies to imitate. Using a less engaged means of entry companies are basically giving away these advantages. A joint venture or aqusition allows the company to keep control of those resources. As Peng states Northrop's aquistions must conform to their aqusition plan. This ensures that all the companies they aquire fit with their company goals. By aquiring the company they all ensure that the new aquition will follow the parent companies lead where as a less engaged partner could have a different view and break away.

13 years ago @ http://www.personal.ps... - Week 11 Group 2 Q 3: L... · 0 replies · +1 points

I agree with everything Matt said about he LE employees and would also add outgoing. At most organizations there are not many front line employees that are comfortable enough to join an Advisory Board and meet with top executives let alone stop into an executive office to pitch an idea. As had been stated before this stems from the culure that was set forth by top level management. If even one manager had ridiculed an employees idea or shut the door on them it would have cast a negative light on all managers and prodution workers would not have been comfortable to continue to propose suggestions. The fact that LE promoted from within their organization explains how that open door policy has survived for all these years.

13 years ago @ http://www.personal.ps... - Week 11 Group 2 Q1: Li... · 0 replies · +1 points

I believe culture plays a large role in how an organization performs. As the case states, when Miskoe moved to the Australia plant in 1940 and introduced a version of LE incentive system the plant had fewer then 100 employees. As the plant grew and more employees were hired they bought into the system because the current employees liked it. If the orginal employees had been against the incentive system they would have spoken out against, future employees would not have embraced it, and ultimately it would have failed. By createing the right culture when Miskoe first arrived at the plant he set the tone that the company had the production employees interests in mind therefore employees from that point forward were accepting to upper managements ideas.

13 years ago @ http://www.personal.ps... - Week 11 Group 2 Q 2: L... · 0 replies · +1 points

I agree with Leslie that LE's incentive system was rare and hard to imitate but I want to break that down. I do not think the piecework portion of that system is the rare part. Other manuafacturing companies use a piecework pay system and any organization will be able to find individuals that work hard and produce a qualitiy product and the piecework system works well. I think the real advanatage from this system comes from the annual bonus. Even though the bonuses dropped in 80s and 90s to only 50 or 60% of an employees salaray that is still a very nice bonus to receive. In the case James Lincoln states that "All those involved must be satisfied that they are properly recognized of they will not cooperate". So even though the piecework method works in other organizations once an employee has maxed out their earning potential they have no drive to go further. In the LE environment workers continally found ways to cut company costs in order to increase overall profit because they knew they would be rewarded at the end of the year not only because they were a hard worker but because the company as a whole did well.

13 years ago @ http://www.personal.ps... - Week 11 Group 2 Q 2: L... · 1 reply · +1 points

I agree with DeShawn that other companies had the opportunity to set up the same company culture but they did not. The other companies that could rival LE early on (GE and Westinghouse) were too set in their own corproate culture that they could not make the change to the LE strategy. LE's incentive system proved to be far more valuable to employees so they worked harder and faster and forced GE and Westinghouse out of the market.

13 years ago @ http://www.personal.ps... - Week 11 Group 2 Q1: Li... · 0 replies · +1 points

LE is definetly holding a competitive advantage in human resources and capabilities. As the case states the employees at LE turned down unionization in favor of the companies incentive system. This shows that the managerial style that LE was using was perfect to motivate employees to increase production. I think it is summarized best when the CFO, Jay Elliot, says "the guy in grubby clothes is just as proud of his job as the chairman in a suit". As it has been mentioned above LE had a large market share and focused perfectly on US culture but their competitive advnatge truly comes down to the interaction between management and production workers how the culture of that relationship had been built.

13 years ago @ http://www.personal.ps... - Week 10, Question 3, G... · 0 replies · +1 points

A point that is not included in the Opacity index is the location of the countries. Managers must make sure they know where their country is located and more specifiically how is transportations for people and products/services. While both Finland and Sweden have a favorable opacity risk score their location may prove to be problem for busineses to get products in and out of the country. If a company uses materials that come from South America it may not make sense to move part of their business to one of these countries because the cost of shipping the goods that far will out way the premium receieved from doing business in those countries.

13 years ago @ http://www.personal.ps... - Week 10, Question 2, G... · 0 replies · +1 points

Referring back to the class for this week Dr. Warner mentions that all four the modles (including Ghemawat's paper) analize nations but they also overlap. I think this shows that if four different professional groups publish papers that overlap concepts from each other it shows that one method is not the end all be all for a company looking to move outside their home country borders. Not only should interested companies look at these models to determine approiate foreign countries they should also do their own research based on their companies specifics. Only then can they make a smart choice when investing in a foreign country.