Element 3 Case Study: Change in Organizational Culture at Jaguar

1. Introduction
Organizational culture is defined by a numerous events in human resource
management. Managements, official projects and set of actions are some basic
headlines of these events which are performed by the workers of the organization. The
formation of an atmosphere in an organization is based on how the workers think and
perform.

Organizational culture is derived from the past principles of corporate culture which was
prevalent in the twentieth century. The reason of this evolution is that organizational
culture involves both profitable and non-profitable organizations. Profit making
organizations include: manufacturers, business and private institutions while non-profit
organizations include: charity work and public services.

2. Background of Jaguar’s Cultural Transition

Jaguar was initiated in the UK and was highly famous for producing top quality and
luxurious cars. As the world progressed, they felt the need of change in their
organizational culture in order to start producing cars that fulfil the requirements of latest
technology and class so they underwent a cultural change. The organizational culture
represents the attitude of the company including things such as company policies and
how the employees respond to their tasks. Jaguar has maintained a culture in which
employees are ordered to accomplish their task while other companies have different
criteria in whi9ch the employees have freedom of applying their own ideas.

3. Cultural Changes in Automobile Industry

Because of the change in world’s culture, the automobile industry was also forced to
make some changes in its culture. In the beginning of the 20 th century, Ford was very
famous which was found by Henry Ford. He had consistency in his products and
continued manufacturing cars regularly. He was happy with this kind of culture in which
the workers were given fixed tasks; He had no intensions of bringing a change to this
culture.
While the western world was all over the automobile industry, Japanese cars were
introduced and because of their production in a large amount and low cost they were
getting ahead in the market.in order to manufacture at a faster pace and high quality
they introduced the concept of TQM(total quality management). The introduction of this
culture was a bad sign for the companies like Ford.

4. Response to Cultural Change

In a response to the cultural change the companies were supposed to innovate and
enhance their ideas. The companies like Ford must forget the culture of producing cars
at low pace and similar qualities. They required a cultural change in order to bring
varieties in cars. Their aim was now to produce cars with extra capacity and different
sizes. Some employees with unique skill were hired that would be able to innovate and
cooperate with everyone else.

There was a plant of Ford located in Halewood where Ford Escort was manufactured
under the previous organizational culture and Jaguar started manufacturing Ford at
Halewood because Ford took over Jaguar due to its world-wide expansion in the 90’s.
In an attempt to get rid of Fordism, Ford demanded its workers to follow the Japanese
culture and be creative in their approach.

5. Jaguars Changing Culture and Strategy

In order to maintain the desired culture, jaguar started bringing changes in their
company. They changed their rules and construction criteria. The direction and planning
in a business to achieve the objectives of the business is termed as the strategy of an
organization. In an addition, applying the right methods and techniques also supports
the strategic decisions.

The only thing that could transform Ford’s culture into a much better culture was;
changing the mind-set of the employees. They were needed to decide that what’s better
in order to get the desired results instead of waiting for an order. TQM (total quality
management) ensures the production at a good speed. TQM decreases the amount of
waste and it further involves the production at shorter time leaving behind the indirect
and wasteful methods of doing things. TQM was implemented at Halewood and it
encouraged the employees to take extra risks. The workers could view the results again
and again which allowed them to make improvements every now and then. The team
work suited the employees more than working alone at a specific location.

The decision of manufacturing Jaguar at Halewood was based on following ideas:

 The employees would be satisfied with their jobs and would also insure the
production of high quality cars.
 There will be more passion among the workers which will lead to a much better
environment and the company will have a room for improvement every time.
 The employees will get education and extra training which will bring a variety in
the employment ensuring great results.
 If the company staff and management work together, there will be more room for
jobs and it will help the company to expand.
 The local community will be supported by the facility and will also create a better
environment.

6. Conclusion
The Japanese culture was doing so good and it took over other cultures so Ford plant at
Halewood got inspired by the Japanese culture and brought a cultural change. The
decision of manufacturing jaguar at Halewood was successful. The manufacturing of
jaguar required a lot of important details, making it a difficult task for Ford to
manufacture it at Halewood but the TQM implementation at the plant brought some
good changes and made it easy for Ford to manufacture Jaguar at its plant. This made
jaguar to maintain its legacy and the amount of waste and costs was also reduced after
the cultural change.