General Electric Case Study

1. What Managerial roles is Jack Welch most likely to play in creating a culture that values continuous improvement?

The role Jack Welch played was allowing the creation of the "Quick Response Program." Allowing his employees to take over. This is a risky role to take, but at the same time, it has the possibility of being a successful move.

2. When the Louisville facility was turned over to its employees, how might the responsibilities of the onsite managers have changed? Were the managers likely required to use a different "mix" of skills? What problems might that cause?

When the Louisville facility was turned over to its employees, the onsite managers would most likely have had greater responsibilities. Since they were no longer receiving external orders, the onsite managers had to call the shots and make sure everything ran smoothly.

It's most probable that they were required to use more than their regular skills for managing onsite. Now they were the ones COMPLETELY in charge of everything.

The problems that might arise from this, is the possibility of not being able to run everything properly. Since the onsite managers were never meant to run everything independently, they never learned HOW to run independently.

For many people, it's difficult to do something different without having any previous training beforehand. Sometimes, even with the training, some people simply cannot grasp new ways of running things. This problem is MOSTLY common with computer systems. Most people just can't grasp the new way working with these machines, unlike their old "paper" days, unless they've had previous experience with computers.

3. In a company that is involved in so many join ventures in lesser developed countries, how might cultural diversity be an issue?

The only thing I can see as an issue in cultural diversity is that GE doesn't know other cultures like they know their own. An American knows how other Americans think and would most likely know how to sell a product or service to Americans. Now for another example, if one of us were to try selling products in Asia, we wouldn't know how the Asians think. We don't know what appeals to them.