Toyota , known as top three car industry in the US, has built itself on pillars of safety, quality and reliability. But after the recall issues aroused with the problems of unintended acceleration and brakes, their quality control and crisis management abilities have been put into questions based on the circumstances that they are unable to offer the first-hand information to the public and tend to shirk the problems and failures. Noticeablely, Japanese enterprise culture is characterized by tradition-rooted reputation and honor, which could explain why, not surprisingly, they have been loudly criticized for not offering a sincere and empathetic apology . Because from their perspective, once they admit their failure, it is not only matters about the company but also about the whole country’s reputation and honor. So crisis management could be a newly-tough task for them.
From toyota’s case, their crisis managements could be investigated into three divisions: Overseas production management, intercultural management, and early-phase crisis management.
First, when crisis happen they should develop the management plan and crisis communication plan. And according to Toyota’s company scale, the structure of the team could be composed of the CEO, vice president of PR, vice president of HR, vice president of marketing, General counsel and head of legal affairs, senior officer in charge of international relations, the chief financial officer, the technical officer, and a customer service manager.
Second, It is important for the CEO to name the chair of the team, and have a representative of him when necessary. And the chair has the responsibility to keep each members of the team completely-committed and understanding the importance of implementation. Besides, since Toyota is still In early crisis management phase and share different cultural background, they may not have a crisis plan or a experienced team to deal with the crisis; therefore, the newly appointed chair...