General Motors (GM)

Instructions:

Let us examine the course, Business Ethics, though the lens of your own experiences in business. Identify one company or organization (the “Company”) that you have worked with or for, describe the basic structure purpose of the Company and then write a paper in which you respond to the following questions. In your response, include specific examples and incorporate concepts and terms you studied in the course. Also use at least two reliable sources on the subjects of Corporate Culture, Business Ethics and/or the Ethics of Marketing in addition to your textbook.

1. Corporate Culture: Describe the corporate culture of the Company. How does this culture compare to other cultures you have read about or worked with? What are the strengths and weaknesses of this type of culture? Did the Company have a Mission Statement or Credo? Did the culture track the Mission Statement? In what ways did it not? Can you identify specific reasons why you believe the culture was different than these professed mores and goals? How much of the culture at the Company came from the top-down as opposed to the bottom-up? Were you in a position to make changes or suggestions to the corporate culture? Did you do so? If so, what were the results? If you did not make suggestions, why didn’t you? If you were to start a company of your own, what lessons in corporate culture could you take from the Company?
2. Meaning and Rights at Work:Was the work you did at the Company meaningful? Why or why not? In what ways could the leaders of the company make certain that the work was more meaningful? Why do we concern ourselves with whether or not work is or is not meaningful to us? Do you have a right to work at a meaningful job? Why or why not? What if the work is generally uninspiring but occasionally exceptionally meaningful—is that situation a meaningful job situation? Did you ever find yourself complaining about the lack of meaningful work or direction at the Company? Did the corporate culture help or hinder the amount of meaning people were finding in their jobs at the Company? Did you feel the amount of meaning people found in their jobs had any correlation to the amount of participation they were allowed in the decision-making process at work? Why or why not?
3. Marketing Ethics: Who were your customers at the Company? Were sales and marketing a major point of discussion within the Company? What sort of tactics and strategies were employed in order to maximize sales? Did you ever feel that the Company was acting unethically towards its customers via its marketing and sales techniques? How? If you were CEO for a day, how might you change these tactics to make them more ethical? At what point in the marketing process does “hard selling” become unethical? At what point does manipulating a customer’s sales choices become deception or lying? Did you ever feel that those lines were being crossed in your Company? How?

SUMMARY: Final Project Requirements

• 4–5 pages in length (excluding cover page, abstract, and reference list)
• Use at least two reliable sources in addition to your textbook.
• APA format (including bibliography)
• Use the APA template located in the Course Information folder to complete the assignment.

 

Introduction

Business ethics is one of the vast terms and focus on the different perspective of doing business.  there are different approaches of ethics that could be used for example the utilitarian approach, the right based approach, fairness or justice based approach, the common good approach and the virtue approach. These approaches could be used to bring ethical decision in any organization.

Corporate culture

The corporate culture of any organization is also very important to increase the ethical consideration, corporate culture is the key unit of taking any decision in any organization, and it could help to take a more ethical based decision.  The corporate culture of the General Motors is based on the community links that have tied of work. To get more control over the market, they are working more with to complete their objectives and duties. At the community of Volkswagen, people are working in the form of the team including the structure of routine working (LeBeau & Pohlman, 2015).

They are engaged with highly motivated culture and identify the well-established personnel to achieve the long-term success.  New CEO of General Motors, the Mary Barra adds the new vision of Silicon Valley Darling, for example, the Uber, Google of Tesla, etc. General Motors is working on the central objective or mission statement and work to achieve their mission statement.  The corporate structure of General Motors is compatible with their mission statement. Their mission statement is to keep the motivated and innovative team who work to provide the highest quality and competitive products to their customer.

There are many positive and negative aspects of this type of corporate culture. One of the positive points is the increase in creativity and innovation. The team working and the structure of working without the hierarchical structure is very helpful to increase motivation and innovation in working. It is the main reason that the General Motors is successful to provide more innovation and creativity in their automobile (gm.com, 2015).

However, there are different kinds of the negative aspect of  this type of corporate culture, for example, the organization would fail to establish the overall standard of working and management would also face challenges in taking a decision, but these issues and challenges could be eliminated with the help of effective communication and interaction.

I would not want to change the corporate culture of the organization because the team based working is key to success in modern world against the highly competitive and challenging business environment. Major values of the corporate culture in  General Motors is the sense of responsibility, the cooperation, learning, trust, respect, determination and positive attitude towards the success. I would like to follow these values and such corporate culture in my organization because I believe that the team working is key to success (LeBeau & Pohlman, 2015).

Meaning and Rights at works

I worked at the General Motors as a company as the area manager and work to increase the quality of chain supply management for the customers. In my opinion, the work that I have done with the General Motors is very meaningful because my experience of managing the marketing activities increases, they are working at the international level, so it was a great opportunity for me to learn from my experience (gm.com, 2015).

I learn many things from my experience, and I learn that we should concern with our job because our work represents us at any place. During my work with General Motors, I have experienced different new things with regard to the corporate culture of the organization and with regard to the marketing activities. In my opinion, a new vision of organizational structure that has introduced by the new CEO, Marry Barra about the Silicon Valley brings more creativity and innovation among the people (LeBeau & Pohlman, 2015).

In my opinion, the overall amount of meaning to people is correlated with the level of jib involvement of employee into different organizational decisions and activities. Thus, the increase in employee empowerment would increase the overall quality of job satisfaction for any employee. Increasing then participation of the employee in decision making process of the organization helps to increase their interest and motivation of working. It will increase the overall quality or performance of the employees (gm.com, 2015).

Marketing Ethics

After working at the General Motors, I understand many things about the marketing ethics that are important to follow for the business developments. It is the automobile manufacturing company, and they are working at international level. Thus, they are targeting customers with the help of market demographics. General Motors have invented new models and vehicle to meet the demand of different people in a market like the young generation, the people who want luxuries in their vehicle and many other features (fastcompany.com, 2016).

I have analyzed that the General Motors is following the business ethics. First of all, their design and software functioning of the vehicle has designed by considering the customers and environmental protection. Moreover, the company is using advanced technological features and sustainability approaches to increase the environmental protection and customer safety. There are different tactics and marketing strategies that have applied in the company to increase the overall sales at international level (LeBeau & Pohlman, 2015).

Major marketing focus of the company is based on highlighting the design and technological functions in their vehicles. In my opinion, the company is working to meet their commitment to their customer and providing the high quality features and technology in their cars.

In my opinion, the company is not involved in any kind of the market deceptive actions because they are working to fulfill their commitment to customers. In the marketing activities, if the companies failed to meet their commitment to their customers. Moreover, the marketing ethics are not only about to meet the commitment to the customer but it is the activity to present such things that would not violate the personal concerns or value of society. Marketers use different convincing and persuading techniques to attract more people towards their customer, but they should focus to use the positive persuading and convincing techniques because negative advertisement can increase the challenge for different people in society (LeBeau & Pohlman, 2015).

Major marketing techniques and approaches used by the General Motors are using positive marketing and advertising techniques. I have learned during my working experience that use of positive marketing tactics and persuading techniques are very helpful to increase the overall value of the company and it would also help to attract more customers.

Conclusion

            On the whole, it can describe that corporate culture of the General Motors is following different ethical concerns and values and they are working to fulfill their commitments with their customer. My working experience in General Motors was very learning. I learn many things about different marketing activities and cultural maintenance in any organization.

 

 

Bibliography

fastcompany.com. (2016). Mary Barra Is Remaking GM’s Culture—And The Company Itself. Retrieved from fastcompany.com: https://www.fastcompany.com/3064064/mary-barra-is-remaking-gms-culture-and-the-company-itself

gm.com. (2015). Innovating for a new direction. Retrieved from gm.com: http://careers.gm.com/about-gm/our-culture.html

LeBeau, P., & Pohlman, J. (2015). The corporate culture: Behind the scenes at General Motors. Retrieved from cnbc.com: http://www.cnbc.com/2014/05/16/the-corporate-culture-behind-the-scenes-at-general-motors.html