Designing scales for measuring "Do Cultural factors cause changes in factors of organisational structure".

In noway the authorsof thispaperown anyof the informationorhave claimedtoresearchaboutit.
Most of the methodsinthispaperare alreadypublishedandare mentionedinreferences.The
authorsonlyhave integratedthese all methodsandshowntheirproject.
Measuring scales for Human Resourse- at Toyota Motor Corportation
1 Introduction
Since 1937, the Toyota Motor Corporation has become one of the largest auto producers in the
world and it is still evolving and penetrating different national markets all over the world. The
company is also famous for its high-quality vehicles and innovative technologies. How does the
company manage to do that? What is the secret?
Organisational culture of any company is what makes it sustain itself. The structure maybe really
methodical butwithoutcertaincultural traitsingrainedin workforce, company will not sustain. The
storyhow Toyotadoesit andis still doing it is necessary to understand. Toyota is a contradiction to
all the innovative industries that we have looked before. They are rebellion to the saying “People
are more creative in lessdisciplinedandindependentenvironment”. Not only have Toyota’s rivals
such as Chrysler, Daimler, Ford, Honda, and General Motors developed TPS-like systems,
organizationssuch ashospitalsandpostal servicesalsohave adopteditsunderlying rules, tools, and
conventionstobecome more efficient.Anindustryof lean-manufacturingexperts have extolled the
virtues of TPS so often and with so much conviction that managers believe its role in Toyota’s
success to be one of the few enduring truths in an otherwise murky world. However, Toyota
Production system is not the only reason for Toyota’s success. There is an underlying secret of
Toyota’s success.
Quite simply, TPS is a “hard” innovation that allows the company to keep improving the way it
manufactures vehicles; in addition, Toyota has mastered a “soft” innovation that relates to
corporate culture. The company succeeds, we believe, because it creates contradictions and
paradoxesinmanyaspectsof organizational life.Employeeshave tooperate inaculture where they
constantly grapple with challenges and problems and must come up with fresh ideas. That’s why
Toyota constantlygetsbetter.The hardandthe softinnovationswork intandem.Like twowheelson
a shaft that bear equal weight, together they move the company forward. Toyota’s culture of
contradictionsplaysasimportanta role inits success as TPS does, but rivals and experts have so far
overlooked it.
2 Aim: To understand the effect of culture on structure or vice versa in Toyota Motor corporation.
3 Objectives
 To understand Toyota’s culture in two different culture model.
 Make a metric scale to measure the most important cultural factors that may influence
organisational structure.
 Design a methodology of the experiment and give whole process a structure.
 Describe whatkindof analysiscanbe done on the data to have positive or negative results.
4 Toyota in different cultural model
4.1 Two models can characterize Toyota culture. One of them was presented in internal training
document “The Toyota Way 2001,” which was published for employees to introduce their main
featuresandvaluesof the managementstyleof the company (Hoseus and Liker 2008). The model is
depicted as a house, where the culture of the company stands on two pillars: Continuous

Improvementand Respect for People. Continuous Improvement has three sub-categories that are
shown as the foundation of the house (Hoseus and Liker 2008):
1. Challenge: long-term thinking, encountering various problems and risks, making up new
ideas, and looking for solutions;
2. Kaizen:permanentevolution,makinginnovations,continuousimprovementof all aspects of
the company;
3. Genchi genbitsu:seekingforwaystomake right decisions, agreements and doing your best
to achieve organization’s purposes.
The second pillar is Respect for People that stands on the foundation where there are two sub-
categories:
1. Respect: respect all people who surround you, try to avoid any misunderstandings, accept
responsibilities and form mutual trust;
2. Teamwork:motivate personal andprofessional improvement and development, work as a
team.

Liker (2003) suggested 4P model, which is depicted as a pyramid with four levels:
1. Philosophy: the foundation of the pyramid is a long-thinking philosophy that concentrates
on exceeding the needs and expectations of the buyers;
2. Process: based on the fact that Toyota’s investments are directed in research and
development sphere, the company can create more efficient processes;
3. People and partners: efficiency is made by people who operate the company, where
company’s culture teaches people to work together in a team for common purposes;
4. Problem-solving:employeesalwayslookforwaysto solve variousproblemsof the company,
which implies constant self-improvement and learning.
In both models, all their elements are closely connected to each other, and every element is
important; therefore, if any of them is missed, the entire system suffers. Both models emphasize
that continuous improvement and respect for people are essential elements in organizational
culture.The employeesshouldclearlycomprehendthe value of the processandresults:theyare not
praisedforthe projecttill theyhave precise necessary results, which relate to the objectives of the
company;moreover,employeesshouldfollow the right structure of the process and should realize
what they have learnt from doing this project. Teamwork is a fundamental element in Toyota
organization,andToyotaclaimsthatthe perfectnumberof employeesinateamis five (because it is
easier to control; furthermore, these small teams are more capable of solving problems and
maintaining mutual trust. To do this, there are three significant items that Toyota follows (Hoseus
and Liker 2008, 235):
1. The use of matrix style of management;
2. Distribution of decision-making policy is based on exact standards;
3. Clear identification of the team leader’s functions.

Hence a little hint or inference can be made from here is that Toyota’s culture affects its
structure. Teams and structure of organisation is built upon the culture of the
organisation.
Every small team has a team leader, who is responsible for control, supervising and
examining the process of work and its results, assuring safety and solving problems;
moreover, this team leader teaches new employees all aspects of Toyota culture. As
members of the group are supposed to improve themselves, a team leader is also
responsible for the results of their self-improvement (Liker 2003). The company’s prosperity
depends on the mutual trust that exists within the company between the employers and
employees. Employees are concerned about their pay-checks, personal growth, excellent
benefits, a safe workplace and having a meaningful work; when the company’s goals are
financial profit, long-term success, quality, contribution to society and quality. Toyota
managed to achieve mutual trust (Figure 8), because it is based on mutual long-term
prosperity and persistent improvement, as employees do their best to achieve company’s
objectives; after that, the company compensates what they deserve (Hoseus and Liker
2008).
Toyota’s way is based on (Elsey and Fujiwara 2000): continuous improvement and learning,
respect for people and mutual trust, teamwork and long-term thinking. These principles
help the strategic development of the company, which is penetrating various international
markets and the production of quality vehicles at low costs (Direction, 2008).
5Methodology
After previous exploratory research following factors are needed for the study and establishing a
relation in Toyota.
Organisational Structure:

1. Formalisation
2. Departmentalisation
3. Chain of command
4. Span of control
5. Centralisation
6. Division of Labour
Organisational Culture:
1. Teamwork
2. Continuous improvement through learning
3. Quality
4. Secrecy
5.1 Measurement of Organisational Structure
The structure of any company has six different aspects to it. On behalf of these six different
factors any structure is designed. Following are the six factors:
1. Division of Labour: The degree to which tasks in an organisation are subdivided into
separate jobs.
2. Departmentalisation: The basis by which jobs in an organisation are grouped
together.
3. Chain of command: The unbroken line of authority that extends from the top of the
organisation to the lowest echelon and clarifies who reports to whom.
4. Span of control: The number of subordinates a manager can efficiently and
effectively direct.
5. Centralisation: The degree to which decision making is concentrated at a single point
in an organisation.
6. Formalisation: The degree to which jobs within an organisation are standardized.
In this project we have to understand how to measure each one of these factors from high
degree to low degree. Every structure has these factors in it. Similarly Toyota’s structure can
be defined with low and high degree of these factors. Once this can be measured with the
help of different scales we can somehow correlate them with different cultural factor’s
measurement.
A questionnaire can be developed and floated among the industry with the scale in it from
0-10. In this scale the company’s employee will rate some of these factors. The
questionnaire will consist these questions specifically:
1. To what degree is the activities in Toyota are subdivided into separate groups/ Do
each employee in Toyota have some degree of work that only he is doing?
2. To whom do individuals and group report, and does this report goes even further up
the organisation?
3. On average how many employee/subordinates work under one person?- specific
number here

4. Are your jobs standardized in the organisation such as your job is explicitly written?
Out of these four questions first, second and fourth will be rated on a scale of one to 10.
While third question will give us a specific average number. Then this number is aligned with
industry standard of low and high span of control and then it will be rated accordingly. The
two factors left are Centralisation and departmentalisation. These will be taken from
structure of the organisation for making the work simpler. Only three states in this will be
low, medium and high. The following table is the data of organisational structure:
Factors Scale
Work specialisation Rated by employee out of 10
Departmentalisation Low=1, Med=2, High=3
Chain of command Rated by employee out of 10
Span of control Specific averaged number given by employees
Centralisation and Departmentalisation Centralisation=1, Decentralisation=2
Formalisation Rated by employee out of 10
These will be final score for Toyota’s organisational structure too. These will interact with
each other too. Other scales that can be used to measure are Likert scale, Staple Scale and
Semantic.
5.2 Measure of Organisational Culture in Toyota
The organisational culture of Toyota has been discussed in previous pages. One can
establish that as an exploratory research. Out of all the things discussed earlier few will be
considered as factors of organisational culture. The real task is to measure those and
convert them from ordinal values to ratio values. These are the four values of Toyota’s
organisational culture that are being taken into account:
1. Teamwork
2. Continuous improvement through learning
3. Quality
4. Secrecy
 Measuring Teamwork: The teamwork in Toyota will be measured through four
subparts. The teamwork in a team can be measured by measuring
1. Attendance
2. Helpfulness
3. Initiative
4. Efficiency
5. Quality
Each of these can be measured easily and then can be scored out of 10. Helpfulness
may create little problem while measuring but it can also be measured with
feedback score from each member of team about the candidate.

𝑇𝑒𝑎𝑚𝑤𝑜𝑟𝑘 =
𝐴𝑡𝑡𝑒𝑛𝑑𝑎𝑛𝑐𝑒 + 𝐻𝑒𝑙𝑝𝑓𝑢𝑙𝑛𝑒𝑠𝑠 + 𝐼𝑛𝑖𝑡𝑖𝑎𝑡𝑖𝑣𝑒 + 𝐸𝑓𝑓𝑖𝑐𝑖𝑒𝑛𝑐𝑦 + 𝑄𝑢𝑎𝑙𝑖𝑡𝑦
5
This will give us the value of teamwork in numerical units. This will help us measure the
Teamwork in any of the team in Toyota.
 Measuring Continuous improvement (Kaizen)
We will simply use a 1 to 10 score for each one, with 5 being the highest. The important
thing is reflecting upon what’s meaningful—learning and then improving. Our
measurement criteria for evaluating the effectiveness of a kaizen event team—which are
in no particular order—are as follows (including links to relevant posts):
1. Waste elimination effectiveness: The notion here is about how well the team
identifies, acknowledges, and then eliminates the waste within their target process. Waste
elimination effectiveness (WEE) is driven as much by team aggressiveness as technical
acumen. For measuring it (Lean Metric: Waste Elimination Effectiveness) can be used.
2. Projected sustainability: Plan-do-check-act (PDCA) is one thing, and standardize-do-
check-act (SDCA) is another. There’s nothing as painful as not sustained kaizen gains.
They will sap the lifeblood out of a fledgling lean transformation. Gains must be “locked
in” with standard work. Lean management systems are needed to drive process
adherence and process performance and help facilitate further improvements. To
measure this (Leader Standard Work—Chock that PDCA Wheel) can be used.
3. Degree of difficulty :The scope, technical complexity, and change management
challenges run the gamut. Some kaizen events are easier than others.
4. Kaizen rigor: Effective teams generally apply rigor toward:
• Pre-event planning (including link-up to strategy deployment, value-stream
improvement plans, team selection, and appropriate pre-work)
• Event execution (including the event kick-off, team leader meetings, effective work
strategies, and the PDCA-driven “kaizen storyline”)
• Event follow-through
5. Demonstrated application of lean principles, systems, and tools: It’s a
wonderful thing to see the simple elegance of well-applied (and validated) standard
work—and other lean tools, for that matter. System-level (or subsystem-level—hey,
there’s only so much that can be done during an event) application is even more
impressive (e.g., pull systems, lean management systems). More “transformative”
application is something that goes beyond just the know-how of tools and systems.
Principlesencompass not only know-how, but also the “knowwhy.” Teams that enter that
realm are effective during the event and well beyond.
6. Value stream and business impact: Kaizen events are often more
about kaikaku (rapid, radical change) than kaizen (small incremental improvement).
Although we would be mistaken to believe that this is and should always be the case,

value stream and business impact should be taken into account when
evaluating kaizen event team effectiveness.
7. Learning and development: Kaizen events are excellent and intense laboratories for
individual, team, and organizational growth. Growth opportunities extend to the
technical, teamwork, leadership, and change management areas and serve as a training
ground for daily kaizen.
Continuous Improvement score out of 10(example)
Waste elimination effectiveness 9
Projected sustainability 7
Degree of difficulty 8
Kaizen rigor 6
Demonstrated application of lean
principles, systems, and tools
9
Value stream and business impact 8
Learning and development 7
Continuous improvement factor=
𝑂𝑣𝑒𝑟𝑎𝑙𝑙 𝑠𝑐𝑜𝑟𝑒(𝑏𝑦 𝑎𝑑𝑑𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑎𝑙𝑙 6 )
6
 Measure of Quality
Measurement of quality is the easiest of all when it comes to cultural factors. The
principle of TQM involves overall quality issue which contains product quality,
working environment, people treatment etc. Various papers are there that give us
the process of measuring quality. We would be giving process of how to measure
quality but it is beyond the scope of this project to discuss the details pertaining to it.
The steps of the framework of the quality measurement on the synthetic level are as
follows:
1. Develop a quality pattern at a fixed time.
2. Identify the requirements.
3. Perform segmentation of requirements.
4. Convert the requirements of selected segments into values of inherent
characteristics and determine accepted ranges of variability for each
characteristic.
5. For each inherent characteristic establish a function normalizing results of
measurement on the analytical level to the dimensionless scale within the
range < 0,1 >,
6. Select a function aggregating all normalized inherent characteristics. The
formula of the function should consider a limited substitution of inherent
characteristics phenomena. Range < 0,1 > constitutes a set of values of
selected function.
In Toyota there are no broad functions in which quality can be studied. Work
done before over Toyota’s quality introduces 50 factors that contribute to

quality. Each of them has to be put in the following framework to give us a
definite value. Since this value will be between 0 to 1 we will convert it in 0 to
10 for making our data simpler.
 Measure Secrecy
This factor has recently decreased in Toyota due to restructuring of the organisation
in 2013 followed in 2017. The measure of secrecy has been done through many type
of index like financial secrecy index, communication index etc. A composite of this
can be used to measure the secrecy in Toyota.
5.3 Formulation of hypothesis
“Cultural factors cause changes in factors of organisational structure”.
5.4 Sampling Design Process
Step 1: Target population- Employees in the Toyota organisation.
Step 2: Sampling frame- All employees of Toyota should be included for a robust design. As
to include every employee would become a complicated task, hence, at least three locations
are needed to be in sample. One of them should be Japan other two should be some foreign
unit of Toyota.
Step 3: Sampling technique used is convenience sampling. Given the size of organisation
only three units are less. Also if a real sample is to be taken then all the employees of Toyota
are to be needed which will become a tedious task. The underlying assumption here is that
the core culture values would be same throughout every Toyota unit.
Step 4: Sample size should be the total population of three units.
5.5 Survey Techniques
For all kind of factors here data collection should be through interview or questionnaire.
Perfect questions have to be made through proper understanding of each factor. The
question should be indirect, hence no worker should be asked about the quality of
environment directly. These questions should be handled delicately as employees may find
them offensive. These could be the data collection technique for different factors.
Sno. Factors Data collection method used
1 Work specialisation Questionnaire
2 Departmentalisation By exploratory research, will be taken as high, med and
low
3 Chain of command questionnaire
4 Span of control Average of numbers given by employees
5 Centralisation By exploratory research, will be taken high and low
6 Formalisation questionnaire
7 Teamwork The attributes that are their in teamwork are measurable.
Hence the data on each individual has to be collected.

Also for peer group feedback interviews should be taken
8 Continuous
improvement
There are definite scales that are discussed in above
section. Hence with the help of our sample same step
should be taken.
9 Quality Following the above given steps conclude the quality
value.
10 Secrecy In-depth interview is the only option. Departmental index
can be formed, hence three units that are under the
sample should make different indices for departments or
functions (marketing,operation etc)
5.6 Analysis technique to be used
Since we have all the factors listed above with the measurement. The last data we need is
the same over time. The data should be collected over time of five years or ten years. This
will help us in understanding data over time. Also since all values will change over time one
can find the changes structure has due to culture or vice versa. Other important aspect is
these all data may relate with each other. Example is high span of control may relate to high
span of control. Hence each data in structure or culture may correlate with every other data
point. The final data table may look like this. The value inserted are just an example, no real
data was collected in it.
Time Departm
entalisat
ion
Centralis
ation
Work
speciali
sation
Span of
control
Chai
n of
com
man
d
Formali
sation
Team
work
Continuo
us
improve
ment
Quality Secrecy
2005 2 1 8 6 8 7 9 9 8 8
2006 2 1 7 7 9 6 8 8 9 9
2007 2 1 9 5 10 6 9 10 8 8
2008 2 1 6 6 8 7 8 7 7 7
2009 2 1 7 5 9 8 7 8 8 8
2010 2 1 8 4 8 7 8 9 9 7
2011 2 1 9 6 7 6 9 8 8 8
2012 2 1 8 5 8 7 8 7 9 9
2013 2 1 7 7 9 8 7 8 8 8
2014 2 1 8 5 8 6 9 9 7 7
*Departmentalisation and centralisation data may also change to other state. In case of
Toyota though the company always had high degree of Centralisation(Hence given 1).
*The above data will also be in decimal points as they are average scores of the
organisation’s each factors.

*The above data is just for illustration. No data was collected in this project as for collecting
this kind of data one needs to conduct a thorough survey over the years inside Toyota
Motor Corporation.
After this correlation analysis can be done between these factors. Hence, the correlation
factor between these can be done. An example of this correlation table is shown below:
Factors Departm
entalisati
on
Formali
sation
Centrali
sation
Span of
comma
nd
Work
Speciali
sation
Chain
of
comm
and
Tea
m
work
Qualit
y
Continu
ous
improv
ement
Secrecy
Depart
mentali
sation
0 0.7 0.9
Formali
sation
0.8 0 0.9
Centrali
sation
0.6 0
Span of
comma
nd
0.5 0
Work
Speciali
sation
0
Chain
of
comma
nd
0 0.8 0.7
Team
work
0 0.6
Quality 0.9 0 0.7
Continu
ous
improv
ement
0.7 0.9 0
Secrecy 0
*Above some values are filled in this way the interdependencies between the factors can be
found. This type of analysis can help us to understand what cultural factor affect structure
and by how much.
6 Limitations
1. Since the data collection is done with the help of convenience sampling. Hence,
some kind of error may come in exact notations.

2. The factors may have high correlation values; hence, it will be difficult to create
causation between structure and culture.
3. The absolute scaling of these factors is very hard to make. Every value given in the
project is in relative scale. This means that while scaling the subjectivity plays and
important role.
4. The data is collected through questionnaire and in-depth interview hence; it lies on
the part of observer or moderator: what kinds of questions are asked. This may lead
to error if the survey questions or interview questions are not right.
5. The individual effect of any factor on any other is difficult to find. This limitation
occurs due to high interdependencies among the factors.
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