Assignment: Building Your Management Skills Portfolio
Your Management Learning Portfolio is a collection of activities specially designed to demonstrate your management knowledge and skill. Be sure to save your work. Taking your printed portfolio to an employment interview could be helpful in obtaining a job.
The portfolio activity for this chapter is Managing a Business in Japan. Study this information and complete the exercises that follow.
You are an American-educated manager who believes in Western management philosophies. You have just accepted a job as a middle manager in a Toyota manufacturing plant in Tahara, which is slightly south of Osaka in Japan. The plant manufactures Toyota's new Lexus hybrid sedan. For your entire 10-year career, you have worked as a middle manager in a General Motors plant in the United States and followed traditional American management practices. Toyota was clear, however, about expecting you to fit into its culture and follow its management practices, which have built company success. You know little about Japanese management practices and start to read as much as you can about how Japanese companies operate. Based upon your study, you come up with the following points about the differences between the ways Japanese and American companies are structured:
1. 4-14. U.S. companies tend to have a well-defined organizational structure, whereas Japanese firms tend to be more loosely structured.
2. 4-15. U.S. companies tend to have several people involved in making decisions, whereas decisions made in Japanese firms tend to be made by only one or a few people.
3. 4-16. U.S. firms tend to value making profit in the short run, whereas Japanese firms tend to value building long-term growth.
4. 4-17. Management of Japanese firms tends to be more centralized, whereas management of U.S. firms tends to be more decentralized.
5. 4-18. Job descriptions in Japanese firms tend to be broader and less precise than job descriptions in U.S. firms.68
Exercise 1: Overall, based on the information given, list three major challenges you will face as a manager at Toyota and steps you will take to meet these challenges.
Challenge 1:
What I will do to meet Challenge 1:
Challenge 2:
What I will do to meet Challenge 2:
Challenge 3:
What I will do to meet Challenge 3:
Exercise 2: Based on the information given, to be successful in Japan you will probably have to change the way you plan, organize, influence, and control somewhat. List the changes for each management function you probably will have to make.
Changes to the way I will plan in Japan:
Changes to the way I will organize in Japan:
Changes to the way I will influence people in Japan:
Changes to the way I will control in Japan:
Format your assignment according to the following formatting requirements:
1. The answer should be typed, double spaced, using Times New Roman font (size 12), with one-inch margins on all sides.
2. The response also includes a cover page containing the title of the assignment, the student's name, the course title, and the date. The cover page is not included in the required page length.
3. Also include a reference page. The Citations and references should follow APA format. The reference page is not included in the required page length.