Assessing Risk and Reward at Nissan Motor Company

Answer

• • Assessing Risk and Reward at Nissan Motor Company

    The Nissan Motor Company is one of the leading automobile makers in the world. The Japanese carmaker has primarily enjoyed a successful run, allowing it to enter various regional and international markets such as the United States. However, the changing business environment was not favourable to the company in 2019. Notably, the cooperation recorded losses amounting to 7.8%. The experience pushed the management into making tough decisions, requiring almost all of its North American workforce to go for unpaid leaves.

    In late 2019, the company announced that the decline in sales necessitated a two-day unpaid leave for the North American workers. The stated days for the vacation were January 2 and 3^rd    (Chicago Tribune, 2019).  Notably, this move was a crucial decision for the company because of its conflicting impacts. Whereas on the positive side it could help the firm minimize expenses, it threatened to affect the public perception of the company regarding employee welfare.

    The rewards for the decision involved cutting expenses by not paying the workers on leave, which eventually would translate into reduced expenses. Another reward was that the decision could allow the company to optimize performance by evaluating employee performances then developing new milestones. However, on the low side, the company risked affecting its public image and brand name, especially in the North American market. As per Chakravorti (2010), the way an organization treats its employees influences the firm's public perception. Thus, Nissan risked eliciting a negative public perception. With a distorted public image, the company could fail to revive its declining sales.

    I would have advised the management of Nissan to utilize the Predictive Analytic perspective in determining the right decision to take. Ideally, the approach tries to predict what might happen in the future if particular decisions or actions are undertaken at the moment (Traymbak & Aggarwal, 2019). Looking at the situation at Nissan, the company needed to develop a goal such as increasing sales. After that, they would have made decisions aimed at realizing the set goal. In this regard, the predicted outcome could give senior management an overview of whether more risks existed or significant rewards could be realized.

    References

    Chakravorti, B. (2010). Stakeholder Marketing 2.0. Journal of public policy & marketing, 29(1), 97-102.

    Traymbak, S., & Aggarwal, S. (2019). A Collaborative Approach to Managerial Decision Making Through Integration of Data Mining and Predictive Analytics. SSRN Electronic Journal, 20–54. https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3386902

    Chicago Tribune. (2019, December 6). Nissan forcing almost all U.S. workers to take unpaid days off. Chicagotribune.Com. https://www.chicagotribune.com/business/ct-biz-nissan-furloughs-sales-slump-20191205-t6xjvpkr3vbhzjiyjievfh72he-story.html

     

    39.QUESTION

    Buisness Management 

    Management Overview

    Do some research and answer the following critical thinking questions from this week’s readings in an essay format. Ensure you have a good introduction, body, and conclusion in your essay. In your analysis, cite a minimum of three (3) references from different sources (the textbook can be one source).Manager with working group behind him.

    Describe the formal, three-part definition of management and explain the most important part of the management definition and why you chose that part.
    Mintzberg’s study in the 1960s came up with three important findings about a manager’s routine. Identify the three findings and describe ways that technology and social media have changed the roles of managers since Mintzberg's 1960 study.
    Analyze the two overarching theoretical perspectives about management and how they are applied to organizations. Also, explain the three viewpoints that each one covers.

    Your submission should be a minimum of two (2), double-spaced, full pages of analysis with proper reference citation per current APA guidelines.

    ANSWER

    Business Management

    The formal three-part definition of management includes setting standards, performance measurement and correcting action (Morbach et al 2018). I chose setting standards as the most important part as it is the first part that involves studying the business process and arriving at the standards for each business process or business activity in an organization. Standards bring uniformity in an organization and improve the quality of the products as a whole. Consider the ISO standards as an example. These standards form the basis for performance evaluation and taking corrective action based on the deviation from the set standards.

    The three main findings of the Mintzberg’s study about the managerial roles include the interpersonal, informational and decision making roles in the 1960’s. These roles have changed to a great extent with the emergence of technology and social media. The interpersonal role of managers has transformed to a great extent with most of the communication taking place through social media and smartphone. The manager acts as a liaison between the employees and the management by posting positive news about the company in the social media on a regular basis. The manager inspires the employees by encouraging them to join in the online training programs for self-development and organization development as a whole. Technology has cut costs to the organization to a considerable extent by transforming the informational role of the manager. Most of the offices have become paperless offices as managers communicate with the employees through an intranet or social media. Both the internal and external communication is done in a digital manner and the informational role has been transformed to a great extent with press releases released in PDF format by the manager. The decision making roles of the manager has eased with the aid of technology. Information about employees like attendance, performance, work timings and other details are readily available to take decisions on promotions. Based on the information repository, a manager can decide on the resource purchase and allocation in the organization (Bayer et al 2020).  

    The scientific management theory is applied to assembly line organizations which primarily focus on increasing their production capacity. Task standardization is one of the main viewpoints of this theory. The other viewpoints include the measurement of the specification of organization tasks. The workers were punished and rewarded based on their work. This theory suited the mechanized work environment with routine activities.

    The systems theory viewed an organization as a system of input, process, output and outcomes to meet the common organizational goals (Cardinal 2017). Feedbacks were shared among these system aspects. Technology, raw materials, labor, capital form the main input viewpoint. The business processes and activities formed the process viewpoint and the finished products or services are the output viewpoint. The feedback from the external environment forms the outcome viewpoint. The systems theory has made a tremendous change to organizations. The systems theory is perfectly applicable to institutions like a University with a central administration including various departments.