How contradictory forces sustain productive tension at Toyota--论文代写范文

在工业时代,矛盾通常被视为要避免或消除特征。在知识时代,新知识是独特的视角，承认对立的见解是必不可少的有机整体。丰田组织内部的矛盾观点和挑战员工，找到解决方法而非诉诸妥协。下面的paper代写范文进行论述。

Abstract
  The productivity dilemma emerges from the inherently contradictory natures of exploration and exploitation. Based on empirical research that includes over 200 interviews in 11 countries, we find that Toyota transcends the productivity dilemma by seeking a higher-order resolution to conflicting forces (Osono et al., 2008). During the course of our 6-year research, we discovered that unearthing Toyota’s inner workings was like peeling an onion and never reaching the center. After peeling many layers and making seemingly conflicting observations, we realized the company actively embraces and cultivates contradictions instead of passively coping with them. Toyota actually thrives on paradoxes; it harnesses opposing propositions to energize itself. 

  The breakthrough occurred when we realized that these contradictions, opposing characteristics, and paradoxes were central to our investigation. While other companies still function according to the logic of the industrial age and stamp out such differences, at Toyota they are a way of life. As a car manufacturer, Toyota is the quintessential industrial firm, represented by the famous Toyota Production System (TPS), its quality management system, its supply chain management system, and its differing approaches to product development (e.g., concurrent engineering and heavy-weight project managers). At the same time, it is staging a successful transition to the postindustrial, knowledge age. In the industrial age, contradictions were commonly viewed as characteristics to be avoided or eliminated. In the knowledge age, however, new knowledge is created by reconciling our unique perspective with those of others who disagree with us (Nonaka and Takeuchi, 1995; Takeuchi and Nonaka, 2004). Recognizing opposing insights is essential to understand the organic whole. Toyota deliberately forces contradictory viewpoints within the organization and challenges employees to find solutions by transcending differences rather than by resorting to compromises.

  Once we realized that contradictions are central to Toyota, we tried to identify the underlying forces that cause them. After we had written six case studies, a pattern finally emerged. We identified six forces that cause contradictions inside the company. Three of the six forces of expansion lead Toyota to instigate change. They force employees to think about how to reach new customers, new segments, and new geographic areas as well as how to tackle the challenges of competitors, new ideas, and new practices. Not surprisingly, they make the company more diverse, complicate decision making, and threaten its control system. To prevent the winds of change from blowing the organization apart, Toyota also harnesses three forces of integration. They stabilize the company, help employees make sense of the complex environment in which they operate, and perpetuate Toyota’s values and culture.

 Forces of expansion 
  ‘‘This is how we do things here’’ is a common refrain in every organization. Established practices become standardized and create efficiencies. Over time, however, those methods can prevent an organization from exploring new ideas and trying new things (Osono et al., 2008). Toyota prevents rigidity from creeping in through the following three forces of expansion:
Impossible goals. Toyota sets goals for itself that most would consider impossible to achieve, knowing full well that the means to achieve them may not exist. For example, President Katsuaki Watanabe has said that his goal is to build a car that makes the air cleaner, prevents accidents, makes people healthier and happier when they drive it, and gets you from coast to coast on one tank of gas. By setting nearunattainable goals, Toyota’s senior executives push the company to break free from established routines. 

  Experimentation Toyota’s eagerness to experiment helps it clear the hurdles that stand in the way of achieving nearunattainable goals. Toyota has found that a practical way to achieve the impossible is to think deeply but take small steps—and never give up. It operates on the premise that every original plan for a project is imperfect and incomplete, as it found out when it set out to develop what is now known as Prius in 1993. The first hybrid engine would not start. When a subsequent model did, the prototype moved only a few hundred yards. In later models, the battery pack shut down whenever it became too hot or cold. If the original plan does not work, the project team learns from the experience, modifies the plan, and tries again and again. By encouraging employees to experiment, 

  Toyota moves out of the comfort zone and into uncharted territory. Local customization Toyota does not adapt its automobiles to local needs, nor does it consolidate its products and operations to a global standard. It customizes both products and operations to incorporate the sophistication and diversity of local markets around the world, as in the case of Scion in the U.S., Yaris in Europe, and the IMV (Innovative International Multipurpose Vehicle) in Asia. The IMVbased cars were the first that Toyota produced overseas (in Thailand, Indonesia, Argentina, and South Africa originally) without first making them in Japan. They rendered the Made-in-Japan label irrelevant, which many executives thought was too risky since it had become synonymous with quality. However, Akio Toyoda, then in charge of sales and production in Asia, launched a personal crusade to persuade employees that the company should replace Made-in-Japan with Made-by-Toyota.

 Forces of integration 
  While the forces of expansion extend Toyota’s organizational, geographical, technological, and knowledge boundaries, three forces of integration weave the company together and keep it from spinning out of control. The following three forces perpetuate its culture and stabilize the company’s expansion and transformation: (1) Founders’ philosophies While Toyota is not alone in having core values originating with its founders, it is unique in the way it inculcates and ritualizes them in practices designed to test and reinforce their relevance every day. 

  Core values are born from the historic words of the founders, such as the following: - ‘‘Bear a hundred times, strengthen yourself a thousand times, and you will complete your tasks in short order,’’ by Sakichi Toyoda, who created the parent Toyoda Automatic Loom Works. - ‘‘Customers first, dealers second, and factory last,’’ by Shotaro Kamiya, who developed the company’s sales network. - ‘‘Ask ‘why’ five times,’’ by Taiichi Ohno, the creator of TPS. Toyota began to organize and document these values and eventually published them in The Toyota Way 2001 handbook as a tool to help its employees cope with the uncertainties of constant change. These core values have withstood the test of time to define, shape, and give stability to Toyota’s corporate culture. (2) Nerve system Toyota’s intricately layered network of open communication, referred to within the company as the ‘‘nerve system,’’ tries to preserve a small-town feel throughout Toyota’s vast organization by ensuring ‘‘everybody knows everything.’’ Information flows freely up and down the hierarchy and across functional and seniority levels, extending outside the organization to suppliers, dealers, and customers. 

  What is unique in this day and age of digitization is the fact that the company has created this ‘‘interconnected’’ world primarily through analog means, mainly through face-to-face personal interactions. What is also unique is the fact that its communication system is open to criticism. Employees feel safe, even empowered, to voice contrary opinions and contradict superiors. Every employee enjoys the prerogative to ignore the boss’s orders or not take them too seriously. Confronting your boss is accepted and bringing bad news to the boss is encouraged. (3) Up-and-in human resource management In the conventional up-or-out human resource management practice, employees are expected to achieve, and poor performers are weeded out. Toyota’s up-and-in treatment of employees guarantees them long-term employment and emphasizes continuous development of employee skills and experience. Employees are allowed to fail, and performance evaluation emphasizes learning over immediate results. (paper代写)

  A quintessentially Toyota measure of manager performance is persistence or resilience. The company sees this as part of its DNA, describing it as nebari tsuyosa, which translates literally as adhesive strength. Toyota’s evaluation criteria are particularly relevant in automobile manufacturing, where various types of expertise are essential to success. It is not the kind of company where a few shine. Up-and-in human resource management ensures the stability of the workforce and fortifies corporate memory, as employees stay longer within the organization. The six forces of expansion and integration complement each other in opposition and create complex dependencies that drive Toyota to a state of disequilibrium. Any change in one of the forces disrupts this state, creating a tension that serves as a catalyst to send the company off to a new trajectory. One of the main reasons why companies fail today is their tendency to kill contradictions, opposites, and paradoxes by sticking to old routines created by their past success. In contrast, Toyota relentlessly pits opposing forces against each other to realize continuous improvement and constant renewal. As a mature organization, Toyota tries to remain dynamic by being a ‘‘green tomato,’’ in which the potential to develop still lies ahead. This is a mirror of human creativity – always growing and always incomplete.(paper代写)

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