The automotive industry is at a crossroads. The key to survival and prosperity will be to achieving and sustaining competitive differentiation. Competitive differentiation depends…
Abstract
The automotive industry is at a crossroads. The key to survival and prosperity will be to achieving and sustaining competitive differentiation. Competitive differentiation depends on distinguishing quality, cost/value, and timeliness attributes. The industry is experiencing significant changes: (1) Quality – the definition of quality has moved on from traditional objective measures (such as reliability, durability, noise) to expanded definitions that are more subjective, experiential and emotional criteria. (2) Cost/value – the price of an auto has decreased due to the declining real cost of goods (competitiveness has forced automakers to take out costs and pass saving on to consumers), and the margin shrinkage that is the result of information transparency. Internet sites are offering retail prices, dealer invoices, rebates, financing, online buying services, etc.; this has enhanced the consumer’s power. (3) Timeliness – bringing a product to market quicker than the competition will mean that an OEM can nimbly translate market trends into products eagerly sought by buyers. Attractive products require fewer incentives to move them over their lifetimes. The implications of how automakers approach and execute differentiating strategies: attributes are continually being redefined by creative designers and engineers, new materials, and new technology; a greater focus is being placed on features that are useful and valued by consumers; experiential attributes are increasingly significant as sources of differentiation; customer handling excellence (while important) will always be outweighed by product attributes; and competitive benchmarking is useful only up to a point. For all automakers, the foundation for competitiveness are: invest in fresh, attractive, affordable, consumer‐driven products rather than incentives that push product to consumers; nimbleness must be achieved through accelerate product development; push for the use of intelligent platform, subassembly and component sharing; target flexible manufacturing and work practices; optimize order to delivery processes; cap production of individual car lines to control supply; and focus on key developing markets (the last “battlefields”).
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This paper examines how ingrained differences in heritage, social and business culture predispose American, Japanese and European automakers to plan and act in different ways…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper examines how ingrained differences in heritage, social and business culture predispose American, Japanese and European automakers to plan and act in different ways, with long‐range consequences – both successful and unsuccessful – of their strategies and actions. To secure its twenty‐first century competitive position, each automaker must understand its cultural proclivities, strengths and weaknesses – as well as those of its competitors – to develop proactive strategies around a set of common industry game rules.
Design/methodology, approach
The paper distills the author's observations from serving automakers of all nationalities over a 20‐year consulting career. Findings – US original equipment manufacturers' (OEMs') cultures are characterized by the “tyranny of Net Present Value” (NPV), whose manifestations and short‐term focus have eroded once‐commanding industry positions. The primacy of the collective, frugality, resourcefulness and the long‐term perspective are values that predispose the Japanese automakers to continue growing in importance. Volume European automakers' cultures and higher‐cost work practices – mirroring the continent's work‐life balance and socialist principles – make them vulnerable, particularly in China, where they lag behind in comprehending the market, tailoring their products and working along bi‐cultural lines.
Practical implications
The paper presents arguments and context for the US automakers' need for a new culture that better balances NPV considerations and the long‐term strategic view. The volume Europeans will have to make work rule and cultural changes to stay cost‐ and productivity‐competitive, as well as work more effectively in the important China market.
Originality/value
The paper provides unique, holistic but succinct cultural‐based perspectives and insights for struggling automakers to understand and improve their positions.
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Serge P. da Motta Veiga, Daniel B. Turban, Allison S. Gabriel and Nitya Chawla
Searching for a job is an important process that influences short- and long-term career outcomes as well as well-being and psychological health. As such, job search research has…
Abstract
Searching for a job is an important process that influences short- and long-term career outcomes as well as well-being and psychological health. As such, job search research has grown tremendously over the last two decades. In this chapter, the authors provide an overview of prior research, discuss important trends in current research, and suggest areas for future research. The authors conceptualize the job search as an unfolding process (i.e., a process through which job seekers navigate through stages to achieve their goal of finding and accepting a job) in which job seekers engage in self-regulation behaviors. The authors contrast research that has taken a between-person, static approach with research that has taken a within-person, dynamic approach and highlight the importance of combining between- and within-person designs in order to have a more holistic understanding of the job search process. Finally, authors provide some recommendations for future research. Much remains to be learned about what influences job search self-regulation, and how job self-regulation influences job search and employment outcomes depending on individual, contextual, and environmental factors.
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Tota Panggabean, Yasheng Chen and Johnny Jermias
This study uses an eye-tracking device to examine the effects of dissenting opinion on information search style and decision quality, using insights from dual-process theory. When…
Abstract
This study uses an eye-tracking device to examine the effects of dissenting opinion on information search style and decision quality, using insights from dual-process theory. When evaluating strategic outcomes, managers not exposed to a dissenting opinion employ directed information search using System 1 (heuristic, automatic cognitive processing), leading to low-quality decisions. Providing a dissenting opinion causes managers to use System 2 (sequential information search characterized by deliberate, slow, and effortful cognitive processing), leading to higher-quality decisions. This study provides useful insights into the cognitive processes underlying managers' judgments, and the factors that influence their decisions. We conclude by discussing the critical role of dissent in business practices, and explain how dissent affects people's System 2 cognitive processes.
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The action taken by the Council of the British Medical Association in promoting a Bill to reconstitute the Local Government Board will, it is to be hoped, receive the strong…
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The action taken by the Council of the British Medical Association in promoting a Bill to reconstitute the Local Government Board will, it is to be hoped, receive the strong support of public authorities and of all who are in any way interested in the efficient administration of the laws which, directly or indirectly, have a bearing on the health and general well‐being of the people. In the memorandum which precedes the draft of the Bill in question it is pointed out that the present “Board” is not, and probably never was, intended to be a working body for the despatch of business, that it is believed never to have met that the work of this department of State is growing in variety and importance, and that such work can only be satisfactorily transacted with the aid of persons possessing high professional qualifications, who, instead of being, as at present, merely the servants of the “Board” tendering advice only on invitation, would be able to initiate action in any direction deemed desirable. The British Medical Association have approached the matter from a medical point of view—as might naturally have been expected—and this course of action makes a somewhat weak plank in the platform of the reformers. The fourth clause of the draft of the Bill proposes that there should be four “additional” members of the Board, and that, of such additional members, one should be a barrister or solicitor, one a qualified medical officer of health, one a member of the Institution of Civil Engineers, and one a person experienced in the administration of the Poor‐law Acts. The work of the Local Government Board, however, is not confined to dealing with medical, engineering, and Poor‐law questions, and the presence of one or more fully‐qualified scientific experts would be absolutely necessary to secure the efficient administration of the food laws and the proper and adequate consideration of matters relating to water supply and sewage disposal. The popular notion still exists that the “doctor” is a universal scientific genius, and that, as the possessor of scientific knowledge and acumen, the next best article is the proprietor of the shop in the window of which are exhibited some three or four bottles of brilliantly‐coloured liquids inscribed with mysterious symbols. The influence of these popular ideas is to be seen in the tendency often exhibited by public authorities and even occasionally by the legislature and by Government departments to expect and call upon medical men to perform duties which neither by training nor by experience they are qualified to undertake. Medical Officers of Health of standing, and medical men of intelligence and repute are the last persons to wish to arrogate to themselves the possession of universal knowledge and capacity, and it is unfair and ridiculous to thrust work upon them which can only be properly carried out by specialists. If the Local Government Board is to be reconstituted and made a thing of life—and in the public interest it is urgently necessary that this should be done—the new department should comprise experts of the first rank in all the branches of science from which the knowledge essential for efficient administration can be drawn.
SEPTEMBER finds the summer irrevocably over, although there will still be one or two very beautiful months in the English autumn remaining. It is usually the time when the older…
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SEPTEMBER finds the summer irrevocably over, although there will still be one or two very beautiful months in the English autumn remaining. It is usually the time when the older librarian thinks of conferences, and today he realizes regretfully that these have receded into what already seems a remote past. This month as we write we have to repeat the expectation we have expressed every month since May that before these words appear in print the threatened lightning attack on the life of England will have been made by the Nazis. It is becoming so customary, however, that one can only suggest that so far as circumstances allow we proceed with our normal work. The circumstances may make this difficult but they should be faced. One thing stands out: that in public libraries, at anyrate, the demands made by readers have gradually returned to their usual level and in some places have risen above it. This does not always mean that the figures are as high as they were, because in many of the great cities and towns a part of the population, including a very large number of the children, have been evacuated. In spite of the pressure on the population as a whole, it would seem that head for head more books are being read now than at any previous time.
WE are happy to publish a very interesting and practical little article on a simplified system of borrowers' registration. Such a question may seem to have been settled long ago…
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WE are happy to publish a very interesting and practical little article on a simplified system of borrowers' registration. Such a question may seem to have been settled long ago and not to deserve further discussion, but Miss Wileman makes it quite clear that there is still a little more to be said. Not all librarians will agree with her on one point, although recently it seems to be accepted by some librarians that the numbering of borrowers' tickets is unnecessary, and especially the decimal numbering of them. This matter has been discussed at various meetings of librarians who use these numbers, and they arc, we understand, unanimous in their desire to retain them. They are not intended for a single library such as is at present in operation at Hendon, from which our contributor writes. They are for a system of many branch libraries with a central registration department, and where there is telephone charge and discharge of books. The number is simply intended to give an accurate and rapid definition of an actual person. This we have said several times before, we think, and to dismiss a method which has been found successful with the statement that it is surely unnecessary rather implies that the writer has not fully understood the question. That, however, does not reduce the value of our article.