Strategic Management: Toyota Corporate Social Responsibility

Question

Task: Business Report: Ethical and Sustainable Practices of an Organisation

Research and critically analyse firm’s strategic and ethical approach to achieve organisational key strategic goals that have been sustainably competitive in the market. In your research, analysis and critical investigation, it is expected to critically analyse the selected firm’s strategic, CSR, ethical and sustainable practices using major perspectives, concepts, models and strategic practices. You are also required to propose innovative sustainable and sensible solutions to address the current and future complex business challenges and opportunities to deliver superior value for its stakeholders that are sustainable and ethical.

Specific Requirements:
Assess the selected company strategic approach in ethical decision making including corporate social responsibility and sustainability initiatives and practices by assessing strategic resources and dynamic core capabilities including learning organisation in implementing ethical and sustainable strategic approach in generating and sustaining superior value for its key stakeholders. You need use frameworks and models, theories and concepts in your analysis and discussion on firm level analysis to explore distinct resources and capabilities of the company. You could employ relevant other subjects knowledge that you have studied in the course to carry out a multiple analysis and theoretical interpretation.

This assessment is expected to assess your ability on critical thinking, discipline knowledge, skills and application, ethical reasoning, problem- solving, reflection, research, and written communication.

• Evidence: sources of information, research, and analysis of company information
• Content, Analysis and Theory: application of relevant theories, concepts, models, and tools for decision effectiveness in strategy development and implementation
• Synthesis and Development of Argument: linking theory, concepts and practices critically in the discussion and justification
• Effective Written Communication
• You can develop this assessment as a continuation of assessment 2.
• Assess the selected company’s strategic CSR and ethical approach and sustainability initiatives and practices by assessing strategic resources and dynamic core capabilities in response or as a proactive organism in implementing the ethical and sustainable strategic approach in generating and sustaining superior value for its key stakeholders. You will need to use frameworks and models, theories and concepts in your analysis and discussion of firm level analysis to explore distinct resources and capabilities of the company. You could employ relevant knowledge from other subjects that you have studied in the course to carry out a multiple analysis and theoretical interpretation.
• Identify key policies, systems and processes including operational, structuring, control, learning and knowledge management, and performance management related to the strategic CSR and ethical approach of the company that aligns effective strategic planning and execution for sustainability.
• Examine and justify how the company addresses and integrates CSR, ethics and sustainability aspects in positioning (business strategy) the organisation as a proactive approach to CSR and sustainability meeting and/or exceeding industry and institutional CSR, ethical and sustainability requirements.
• Analyse industry to assess how the selected company positions itself in the industry against key players in the market to guide the organisation to address current and future opportunities and challenges in terms of ecological, and social aspects of the changing environment.
• Develop a future strategic and ethical roadmap for the firm’s growth and development for the next 5 years including ethical and sustainable strategic management of its value chain to differentiate the organisation's offerings for the market. You may use a diagram to illustrate your strategic roadmap.

Answer

Executive summary
This report explores Toyota corporate social responsibility strategies and it sheds light on the implications and the consequences of the strategies towards the overall sustainable development of Toyota. In this regard, Toyota corporate social responsibility strategies have been elaborated in detail. Also, it includes the various diligent efforts undertaken by the organisation to reduce the harmful effects of the gases emitted from its wide-ranging manufacturing. Their efforts contribute to the environment and society as well. In this regard, the various core capabilities and resources that play essential roles in its sustainability have also been listed. The divisional structure of Toyota contributing to its various internal systems and processes also deserve special mention. Toyota corporate social responsibility, ethics and sustainability of Toyota have been analysed. The company is taking a lot of initiatives so that they can compete in the market. They are maintaining a good relationship with the stakeholders. This is providing them with long-term commitment. They are following the principles of Kaizen for continuous improvement. Toyota comes under the automotive industry. Some trends are coming into this industry. Toyota should follow them so that they can handle their key players. A strategic road map has been made using Toyota corporate social responsibility for the next five years in the market.

1. Introduction
This particular assignment focuses on the various corporate intricacies and strategic decisions influenced by toyota corporate social responsibility approaches. Toyota. This automobile company is remarkably prominent in terms of its innovation and operations management. However, with the ever-increasing market competition and the convoluted industrial architecture, Toyota is facing some internal challenges and needs a better environment for its sustained operations.

How has Toyota corporate social responsibility helped identify Business Problems?

Strategic management issues: Toyota's divisional organisation structure formulated certain improper strategic planning leading to strategic problems. For example, some of the products of Toyota were out in the market but failed to deliver well owing to the recession period of 2009. Since then, the problems have been continuing. These made serious quality issues to Toyota's operations management.

Damaged reputation: Toyota is encountering a huge challenge with its slurred reputation owing to the sudden and unforeseen acceleration recalls. This was referred to as the sudden unintended acceleration that resulted in faulty vehicles. toyota corporate social responsibility is not being questioned and faces substantial government fines and lawsuits which require hefty settlements. Also, their ageing line-up of same and mundane vehicles is hurting the business the most.

Financial issues: In the year 2009, Toyota encountered an economic downtown which led to above 6000 job losses and market shares decline (Toyota-global.com 2019).

What is Toyota corporate social responsibility Objectives on this report?
This report intends to cast light on these areas to propose solutions to facilitate the sustainable growth and continuity of Toyota. The toyota corporate social responsibility report shows the aim as well as the limitation of the chosen topic.

Methods used to collect and analyse data
This toyota corporate social responsibility report depends on the intensive research from various journals, articles and websites having an all-inclusive data and information on Toyota. Such methods are referred to as the secondary method of data gathering. Numerous studies and literature have been considered to provide a detailed report of Toyota's strategic decision alignment with all its authenticity.

2. Assessing the CSR strategies of Toyota
Toyota corporate social responsibility is not considered or commonly referred to as CSR as any special undertaking. They consider CSR activities schematically to depict more-strategic and proficient ways to fulfil the same. Toyota generates specified CSR strategies with appropriate targets that set the overall directions for the CSR strategies of the company. In this context, the social contract theory is important that promotes and engages social contribution leading to sustainability (Muldoon, R., 2016).

1. Toyota's CSR strategies focus on maximizing its annual revenues. They are concerned about the societal and environmental welfare. Thus, toyota corporate social responsibility strategies balance the requirements of society and customers. They respond to all the environmental issues besides manufacturing quality vehicles.
2. They intend to protect the environment by implementing concepts like the manufacture of hybrid cars.lthough there are criticisms regarding the effect of nickel mining done for the Prius batteries of the vehicles (Ivanov et al. 2019). This creates doubt about the environmental aspect of Toyota. In response, they have put their diligent initiatives to protect the environment. Toyota's R&D has designed a flower species that minimize the atmospheric heat and also absorb harmful gases. This is Toyota's green way of reducing the emission of harmful gases from manufacturing.
3. To reduce the pollution from its manufacturing, Toyota deigns vehicles as per the 3 R's; reduce, reuse and then It manufactures automobiles using recyclable materials. It has created its Super Olefin Polymer to make car parts (Keivanpour, Ait-Kadi and Mascle 2017). The toyota corporate social responsibility strategy encourages its customers to participate in its recycling program.

In this regard, Toyota's ethical and sustainability approaches must be considered. Toyota's ethical approaches focus on the safety and health of its employees and society. Their ethical initiatives create business uniqueness. It has specified ethical standards that contribute towards its consistent sustainable advancement (Global.toyota.com 2019). toyota corporate social responsibility approach uses a strategic approach in its ethical decision-making which includes its CSR and other sustainable initiatives. Toyota lacks ethical decision-making which is evident from the accelerator issues of its vehicles. To generate revenues they continued using faulty products in their cars. By doing so, Toyota demonstrated its negligence in ethical decision-making. Besides, Toyota depicted ethical dilemma during the recalls. Toyota failed to respond timely despite criticisms and accusations. Toyota uses strategic resources like a consistent improvement to attain sustainability. Its strategic resources determine its performance. The resources include physical, economic, technological and intellectual capital resources. By using them, Toyota creates expertise in lean manufacturing and inventory management. These, however, compensates for its ethical dilemma and enables flexible and reliable global eminence. Moreover, its dynamic core capabilities are critical to its strategic decision-making. However, toyota corporate social responsibility prioritise areas like environment, water and so on by positioning their activities on a small-scale basis and scaling them once they get the desired results.

3. Strategic CSR and ethical approach of Toyota that aligns effective strategic planning and execution for sustainability
Toyota has certain strategic CSR policies and systems that align with its strategic planning and application for sustainability.

Key policies: Toyota's rational basis is its CSR policies that focus on harmonious and steady sustainable development. toyota corporate social responsibility policies intend to emerge as a business that is trusted and adored by society (Global.toyota.com 2019).

Systems and processes
Structure and operations management: Toyota's divisional structure focuses on assisting its CSR strategies to trigger the steady attainment of its strategic direction and corporate goals. And, its operations management covers the major decisions of the efficient operations that enhance productivity. On a global scale, Toyota is a leading business with remarkable operations management (Ivanov, Tsipoulanidis and Schönberger 2017.). This aligns with toyota corporate social responsibility strategies that cohesively contribute towards its sustainability. Its strategic planning and its corresponding execution are in sync with its systems and operations. Its operations processes utilize productivity measures based on their CSR policies. Also, Toyota works to ameliorate its performance management by the considerable ethical approach towards its CSR policies. This can be demonstrated from its quality, flexibility, employees and cost factors. Toyota's performance management strategies help them to integrate varied operation activities. This improves Toyota's service quality and minimizes operating costs. The new production strategies of Toyota correspond to its learning and knowledge management system (KMS) that intends to focus on innovation. Toyota is aware that its knowledge is a distinctive process wherefrom outsiders can take adequate learning. Its KMS gives them a competitive edge through the implementation of path-breaking innovations on the production floors (Moore, Calvo-Amodio and Junker 2016). Its KMS includes approaches like lean production, the total quality management and so on.

4. Examining how toyota corporate social responsibility addressed ethics and sustainability aspects in positioning
Toyota corporate social responsibility, ethics and sustainability helps them to position themselves in the industry. These are a part of the global vision of the company. They have given equal importance to profit maximization and CSR by enriching the community’s lives. The company is handling their business partners like dealers and suppliers. This is helping them to grow a long-term relationship and realize their mutual growth. Toyota is trying to maintain free and fair competition in each country (Balqiah 2018). They are also following the competition law of different regions. The Toyota corporate social responsibility emphasis trying to use cleaner, safer and improved technologies so that the needs of the society are fulfilled for sustainable mobility. There is no tolerance for any kind of bribery by any of the business partner, public authority and government agency. An honest relationship with the public authorities and government agencies are made. The company is engaged in social activities which help in strengthening the communities. It also contributes to the enrichment of society. Toyota has the philosophy of respecting the people by their culture, history, laws and customs (Mefford 2019). Hence, it won’t be difficult for them to position themselves in the market. They are promoting local purchasing globally. Toyota is providing road safety education programs in most of the countries. They are having 2.14% of the workforce with disabled people.

The way of life at Toyota is through sustainability. The approach of the company is to serve its customer first. They are having business responsibility which is a four-step approach. It has reactive, proactive, predictive and influences. The company feels that the predictive approach works best for them. They are focused on improving the quality of their products. Toyota is applying the principles of Kaizen. This is a continuous improvement process for sustainable practices. The central focus of the company is to integrate its various elements in the pyramid of sustainability. Toyota is having some targets for the year 2050 (Simão and Lisboa 2017). They are aiming at the environmental challenges with no CO2 emissions and reducing the wastage of products. They are significantly handling the stakeholders, customers, dealers and communities. A balance was being created so that they can compete in the market with others. All the sustainability initiatives would give them an edge over other companies in the automobile industry. In future, the company will be having more tighter norms. They will be targeting social, environmental and economic sustainability.

5. Analysing industry to assess how Toyota positions itself in the industry against key players in the market
Toyota is falling under the automotive industry. Toyota has to improve them so that they can compete in the market. There are certain trends currently in the automotive industry which should be followed by Toyota so that they can handle the ecological and social aspects. A lot of smart technologies are being used in this industry. One of them is connected vehicles. This can share all the information like speed, weather, sudden braking. This is also known as vehicle to vehicle communication. It is just like the Wi-Fi technology. The challenges of the automotive industry are overcoming through the blockchain process (Gao et al. 2016). There is increased usage of electric vehicle in this industry. There is mass production of such vehicles. This is reducing the crisis of non-renewable energy. There are a lot of advantages to this process. Such cars are cost-effective and are becoming highly popular these days. toyota corporate social responsibilitystratogy is to make electric cars that conserve and save the environment from getting destroyed. They are also utilizing materials which are eco-friendly in nature. Toyota is contributing to the development of recycling technology. Fuel efficiency is being increased by Toyota (Traub, Maier and Barbehön 2017).

However, the company needs to position them in the market so they need to have some proper planning for it. There are some steps which the company should follow so that they can meet the trends of the automotive industry.

• They can try to reduce the amount of wastage outside their factories. Toyota should use the proper waste-disposal system and should not throw their waste in the rivers.
• They should encourage the employees to use eco-friendly methods of working. In this way, they can save paper. They should also plant some trees on a weekly basis.
• They should avoid the usage of harmful chemicals and products while making cars.

6. toyota corporate social responsibility Strategic road map
The company’s growth and development is dependent on a strategic road map. This is being made for Toyota in the next five years. This also includes sustainable strategic management so that the company can differentiate them from others.

A Strategic Road Map
(Source: Self Developed)

Toyota should plan some strategies for the years 2022, 2023 and 2024. From the above road map, it is clear that there are three things which the company needs to follow. toyota corporate social responsibility activities focus on educating their employees. They should also encourage them to participate in such activities so that the betterment of the environment takes place. Toyota needs to have a self-evaluation system for the ethical branding process. In this way, they can understand their mistakes and make some changes accordingly. They should positively contribute to the environment. Lastly, they will have to reduce the amount of pollution generating from their factories. The waste products must be recycled. They should not release the waste in the rivers.

7. Conclusion
This report is based on ethical and strategic components of toyota corporate social responsibility strategy. Toyota is considered for this particular report. The introduction part firstly introduces the topic and the company. The company is having some CSR strategies that are properly assessed. There are some ethical approaches for the main stakeholders. A detail description is given on it. The company is having effective strategic planning for its CSR activities. With the help of these activities, they are trying to position them in the market. Toyota falls under the automotive industry. There are certain trends in this industry which should be followed by the company. A toyota corporate social responsibility strategy road map is there to explain the process which Toyota should consider for the next five years. Toyota corporate social responsibility assignments are being prepared by our management assignment help experts from top universities which let us to provide you a reliable assignment help online service.

Reference List
Balqiah, T.E., 2018. Green CSR and Brand Attitude: The Role of Stereotype Content Model. toyota corporate social responsibility. European Research Studies Journal, 21(1), pp.230-249.

Gao, P., Kaas, H.W., Mohr, D. and Wee, D., 2016. Disruptive trends that will transform the auto industry. McKinsey & Company, 1(January), pp.1-9.

Global.toyota 2019. Sustainability. Available at: https://global.toyota/en/sustainability/. [Accessed on 5th Aug 2019].

Ivanov, D., Tsipoulanidis, A. and Schönberger, J., 2017. Global supply chain and operations management. A Decision-Oriented Introduction to the Creation of Value.

Ivanov, Y., Ivanov, R., Kadikyanov, G., Staneva, G. and Danilov, I., 2019. A study of the fuel consumption of hybrid car Toyota Yaris. toyota corporate social responsibility. Transport Problems, 14.

Keivanpour, S., Ait-Kadi, D. and Mascle, C., 2017. Automobile manufacturers' strategic choice in applying green practices: joint application of evolutionary game theory and fuzzy rule-based approach. International Journal of Production Research, 55(5), pp.1312-1335

Mefford, R.N., 2019. Sustainable CSR in Global Supply Chains. J. Mgmt. & Sustainability, 9, p.82.

Moore, B., Calvo-Amodio, J. and Junker, J.F., 2016, January. Synthesizing systemic intervention approaches: combining viable system model, knowledge management, and toyota production system for a sustainable holistic management model. toyota corporate social responsibility. In Proceedings of the 59th Annual Meeting of the ISSS-2015 Berlin, Germany (Vol. 1, No. 1).

Muldoon, R., 2016. Social contract theory for a diverse world: Beyond tolerance. Routledge.

Simão, L. and Lisboa, A., 2017. Green marketing and green brand–The Toyota Case. Procedia Manufacturing, 12, pp.183-194.

Traub, M., Maier, A. and Barbehön, K.L., 2017. Future automotive architecture and the impact of IT trends. toyota corporate social responsibility. IEEE Software, 34(3), pp.27-32.

Appendix
Toyota CSR strategies

(Source: Global.toyota.com 2019)

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