Nummi Case Study
Nate Harlan
Final Case Study
5-5-13
Personally to me it seemed like they was a huge issue of pride from the managers and union workers that they didn’t need to learn from the Toyota counterparts. This was due to them believing that they were better, and didn’t need to learn from someone lesser then them. This was classic case of discrimination. The managers in the beginning believed the information that they could attain was finite if they learned anything at all. The management and union believed that what they would learn wouldn’t be valuable to GM in the future. All of these issues then culminated into a huge issue with transfer of knowledge. As transfer started to happen the decrease in absenteeism and grievances significantly dropped early on. It is important to note that the workers from the original GM plant prior to the merger were rehired. This caused an even bigger obstacle due to their previous attitudes about their job. Knowledge transfer was very slow if at all in the beginning. From 1986 to 1990 it was slow but by late 1990 workers attitudes and transfer of knowledge began to increase. This was evident in workers satisfaction surveys. Management found by late 1990 that the learning wasn’t finite like they initially thought, but would be continuous over time. Due to the success of the joint venture in 1993 they agreed to extend past the original termination date of December 1996. The Federal Trade Commission made the new cutoff date indefinite. By 2005 they entered their 20th year of joint
Final Case Study
5-5-13
Personally to me it seemed like they was a huge issue of pride from the managers and union workers that they didn’t need to learn from the Toyota counterparts. This was due to them believing that they were better, and didn’t need to learn from someone lesser then them. This was classic case of discrimination. The managers in the beginning believed the information that they could attain was finite if they learned anything at all. The management and union believed that what they would learn wouldn’t be valuable to GM in the future. All of these issues then culminated into a huge issue with transfer of knowledge. As transfer started to happen the decrease in absenteeism and grievances significantly dropped early on. It is important to note that the workers from the original GM plant prior to the merger were rehired. This caused an even bigger obstacle due to their previous attitudes about their job. Knowledge transfer was very slow if at all in the beginning. From 1986 to 1990 it was slow but by late 1990 workers attitudes and transfer of knowledge began to increase. This was evident in workers satisfaction surveys. Management found by late 1990 that the learning wasn’t finite like they initially thought, but would be continuous over time. Due to the success of the joint venture in 1993 they agreed to extend past the original termination date of December 1996. The Federal Trade Commission made the new cutoff date indefinite. By 2005 they entered their 20th year of joint