Participative Management – Workers Participation in Management

Human Resource Management

Case Study on Entrepreneurship: Larry Page

Business Analysis

The Boundaryless Career: Modern Contemperory Perspective on Career

Human Resource Management

How to Meet Costa Rica’s 2026 VASP Requirements Without Expanding Headcount

General Business Articles

Concepts of Throughput Accounting and Theory of Constraints

Financial Management

Case Study: Fiat Automobiles Survival From Turbulent Times

Fiat is a manufacturer and a seller of the common Fiat brand vehicles based in Italy and with many sales branches around the world. It has been successful for many years in the production of its vehicles and has made a lot of returns from that. However, the company has faced a lot of challenges, especially the effects of the global financial crisis, factors that have caused it to undergo a recession and a great fall in its business resulting to very low returns. On the other hand, the company has undergone a lot of pressure from its competitors in Italy and also other car manufacturers from prominent countries like Germany and Japan and this has resulted to a lowered competitive advantage. All these factors have contributed to what has been referred in the vehicle business world as the fall of Fiat. In addition, the company suffered a lot of Continue reading

Abey Francis

Cultural Integration in Mergers and Acquisitions

First, it is necessary to understand why the field of cross-cultural differences is vital to business interactions. In many situations, it is beneficial for companies to merge. Some businesses are failing to perform on their own, but still possess resources that may be valuable for businesses in the same sphere. Other companies aim to expand to increase their growth and support the rising demand for their services. Overall, joint ventures and alliances happen to raise the value of the merging entities, whether this value is connected to the brands presence, technologies and other resources or economies’ scaling. Cross-border acquisition and merger can be motivated by these factors as well – companies often want to enter new markets, for which international collaboration is essential. Its unique challenge, however, is that the market the foreign company is entering is completely new to it in many aspects. Merger and acquisition (M&A) are processes Continue reading

Abey Francis

Case Study of FIAT: Deployment of Robotics in Manufacturing

Fiat was among the first companies to adopt a Post-Fordist system in production after its recovery from the 1970 oil crisis. The large-scale deployment of robotics in the production process of Fiat Company was the most significant move to cope with increased competition and demand. In 1972, the company initiated the adoption of FMS so that it could shift to flexible production methods from the Fordistic inflexible mass production systems. The move was considered as the first step towards discontinuity in management and organization involving the shift in planned goals and replacements of procedures supporting operations supervision. The Robogate technology was developed in-house by Fiat Company and used to create flexibility with enhanced product-mix flexibility. Product-mix flexibility is the conferred ability of an organization to produce different products sequentially using the same lines of production. As indicated, the shift from Fordist mass production systems enables a company to reduce tool specificity Continue reading

Abey Francis

Real-World Examples of Marketing Segmentation

While developing effective marketing strategies and plans, managers refer to segmenting the market in order to determine the areas in which the product or services will be proposed. The overall levels of segmentation include the mass market, the segments, niches, and individuals. The managers choose whether to compete within the mass market, the certain segment, the specific niche, or be oriented to individuals. When segments are selected, the managers focus on their characteristics and differences in order to address the chosen category directly. In their turn, the segments as groups of customers with specific needs and expectations in the market can be determined with the help of focusing on variables or differences of potential customers. The process of dividing the market into segments includes the focus on variables or characteristics of customers. Traditionally, the managers divide the market into segments while referring to such variables as behavioral, geographic, psychographic, and Continue reading

Abey Francis

US vs. Japanese Corporate Philosophy and Strategies Analysis

With the advent of the word ‘Americanization’, management ideas and practices started evolving and influencing other nations of the world. However, there still is no doubt that during the 1970s and 1980s, Japanese firms under ‘capitalism’ type of Japanese Management System achieved better performance than their American competitor, counterpart and teacher. Japanese firms differed characteristically from the latter in such areas as owner-manager relations, industrial relations, inter-firm relations and business-government relations. Ironically, from the start of the 1990s, just after the Japanese Asset Price Bubble (1986-1990) era, firms and capitalism in Japan deteriorated in their performance. They then again found themselves under the influence of the United States, this time they named it ‘Re-Americanization’. Initially the 1990s for the Japanese Management System was followed by the imitation of American business and capitalism which extended to all functions of Japanese firms and all aspects of capitalism. At the individual firm level, Continue reading

Abey Francis

Ricardo’s Labor Theory of Value

Ricardo’s theory of value focuses on determining the exchange value of a commodity by evaluating the current and past labour employed in the production of the commodity. The theory determines the past labor by analyzing the cost of capital, which entails aspects such as the value of tools, equipment, implements, and buildings involved in creating a commodity while the current labor entails the quantity of skills input in the production of raw materials. For example, changes in the exchange rate of a beaver for a deer over time to a tune of one beaver for five deer would mean that the labor input in catching a beaver has increased significantly compared to the labor invested in harvesting a deer. Ricardo’s theory shifts away from the analysis of the fair and equitable value (price) of a commodity to the determination of the quantity of a good or service that the commodity Continue reading

Abey Francis