Communication Case

Assignment 1 – Case analysis

Transferring the Japanese manufacturing model to Thailand has not been as successful as the Japanese managers thought. The managers brought exactly same concept that is working in Japan to Thailand subsidiaries. A main problem is that these tools and models are not working in Thailand like they meant to work because of different culture and habits.

A good example how these models are utilized wrong way in Thailand are the quality control circles which are mainly dropped, or are never present, because of heavy production deadlines. Another problem is job-rotation, which doesn’t work either because workers are reluctant to change tasks. They also take job-rotation as a sign of unskillfulness in their current jobs. In addition they have tight social bonds with their co-workers which they don’t want to break. These two examples revealed that the Japanese manufacturing model which stresses task flexibility and is based on strong information flows throughout the organizational hierarchy is not working efficiently in the Thai manufacturing plants. In other words, production systems in Thailand are still managed from above and decision-making is centralized to a cadre of managers.

A possible solution to fix these problems would be to use a new set of communication strategies in Thailand. First of all, written materials and all education should be provided to the employees in their native language. Moreover, to build a better communicator-audience -relationship, translator should not be used. This will also move new workers faster onto production lines. Second, the managers should emphasize the meaning of job-rotation to employees by telling it’s for their own best and it is important for them to be versatile – they can benefit of it in future. In other words, they should try to make job-rotation as an interesting option. Third, the Japanese managers should change their way to communicate to Thai audience. In order to completely utilize...