Please read the Management in Action case GMs New CEO. at the end of Chapter 2 Management Theory available in your textbook Management: A Practical Approach 7th edition by Kinicki, A., & Williams, B. And answer the following questions.
1.To what extent is GM using evidence-based management? Are they overdoing it? Explain your rationale.
2.To what extent are the managerial practices being used at GM consistent with principles associated with management science and operations management techniques? Discuss.
3.How are the managerial practices being used at GM consistent with the Quality-Management viewpoint? Explain your rationale.
4.To what extent does GM represent a learning organization? Discuss.
Management in Action GM's New CEO, Mary Barra, Must Manage a Major Recall General Motors CEO Mary Barra, in a letter to em ployees posted on a company blog March 4, 2014). said she is leading a group of senior executives who are monitoring the auto maker's recall of 1.6 million vehicles equipped with potentially defective ignition switches and built in the years before GM's publicly funded bankruptcy. The cars could suddenly turn off when the keys are jarred, shutting down the engine and the airbags. Thirteen deaths have been linked to the problem, which GM engineers first discovered more than nine years ago GM issued a recall for the affected vehicles late last month Februaryl, and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has said it is reviewing whether the auto maker should be fined for taking so long to Ms. Barra had not commented publicly on the situ- ation until GM posted her letter. In her post, Ms. Barra wrote that she is now leading the company's response to the problem, and promised that an internal investi- gation will produce an unvarnished report on what happened. We will hold ourselves accountable and im- prove our processes so our customers do not experi- ence this again." ... Ms. Barra wrote in her letter that the ignition switch issue was being reviewed by "experienced technical experts who work independently of managers with responsibility for other aspects of the business. The is sue was brought to Ms. Barra and other senior execu- tives a few weeks ago," she wrote. Now, she wrote, she has created a working group of senior executives, which I lead to direct our re- sponse, monitor our progress and make adjustments as necessary." Among other steps, GM is working with parts makers to get repair parts to dealers more rapidly and has provided federal regulators with comprehen- sive information on this issue." she wrote: "While I deeply regret the circumstances that brought us to this point, I appreciate how today's GM has responded so far," Ms. Barra said. "We have much more work ahead of us and I'm confident we will do the right thing for our customers." Ms. Barra's comments come amid the growing like lihood that GM will face more lawsuits and a federal fine for as much as $35 million if regulators determine that the auto maker violated federal rules that govern the timeliness of recalls.... GM engineers knew of the potential problem in 2004 when a switch failure incident was reported around the time of the launch of the 2005 Cobalt, ac- cording to a timeline submitted by GM and provided to NHTSA last week. GM looked into the problem, but decided to close its inquiry with no action In 2007, a group of GM employees met with NHTSA regulators in Washington, DC, to discuss an- other matter when a federal official told the GM per- sonnel that a fatal crash had occurred on July 29, 2005, in which a 2005 Chevrolet Cobalt was involved in a front-end collision, and the airbags didn't deploy ac- cording to the GM chronology But court documents reviewed by The Wall Street Journal show that concerns about the safety of vehi- cles equipped with the suspect ignition systems con- tinued to bounce around the company's engineering department in the years after the meeting. GM, on three separate occasions, repurchased ve- hicles from owners who complained of stalling or los ing power while they were driving, according to a deposition by a GM employee One customer, a New Jersey woman who had her 2005 Cobalt repurchased, said the vehicle died on the highway four times. She only had about 600 miles on the vehicle. She said the stalling issue seemed to occur on right-hand turns. The dealer reported that the cus tomer "has the fear of God in her about the car ac- cording to a deposition GM's chronology says that a higher level team to investigate the ignition switch problem was formed in 2011. The chronology does not identify the members of this team Over the next two years, GM conducted tests and investigated the problem which finally led to a meeting on January 31, 2014, where executives decided a recall was needed, the GM chronology states. On February 13, GM announced it would recall about 778.000 Chevrolet Cobalt and Pontiac G5 cars. Twelve days later, the company widened the recall to 16 million vehicles after growing consumer complaints and issued a second formal apology to consumers... Ms. Barra in her letter addressed employee con- cerns about the potential damage to GM's reputation and sales. "My answer is simple: that's not the issue," she wrote, "The vehicles we make today are the best in memory and I'm confident that they will do fine, on their own merits. And our company's reputation won't be determined by the recall itself, but by how we ad- dress the problem going forward." FOR DISCUSSION 1. To what extent is GMsing evidence-based manage ment? Are they overdoing it? Explain your rationale 2. To what extent are the managerial practices being used at GM consistent with principles associated M t Theory CHAPTER 2
