Reference no: EM132903999

The Japanese electronics giant, Sony, employs 130,000 people worldwide.

Sony makes and markets PlayStation home video game systems, televisions, digital and video cameras, laptop computers, personal music players, and semiconductors. Japan accounts for about one-third of Sony's annual sales. Europe and North America account for another 20 percent each. China and other Asian countries generate 10 percent each. Remaining sales come from the rest of the world. The firm has several entertainment divisions, including Epic and Sony Pictures Entertainment. Sony has plants in China, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, Spain, and the United Kingdom. Recent challenges facing Sony include the impact on sales of the strong yen, cyber threats, and strong competition. PlayStation faces serious competition from Nintendo / Xbox. Amazon's Kindle and iPad put the Sony Reader out of business. The iPod and iPhone have displaced Sony's music-player business. Slowing sales of smartphones and other mobile devices in emerging markets have hurt Sony's semiconductor business.

The Manufacturing Workforce

In the past decade, senior management has substantially reorganized Sony. It has closed more than a dozen factories, cut 20,000 jobs, and shifted component and product manufacturing to low[1]cost countries. Sony tries to maintain strong labor relations and tries to avoid worker layoffs. Factories in the United Kingdom manufactured cathode-ray tubes. These components became obsolete with introduction of the flat-screen TV. Sony worked with unions to create enhanced severance packages and find new job opportunities for many employees. Management successfully restructured the plants to produce high-definition broadcast cameras. Sony built strong customer relationships, developed talent, created a new corporate culture, and aligned employees to the new strategy. The plants reinvented themselves by emphasizing best-in-class efforts to achieve preferred supplier status. Sony's numerous plants and R&D centers in China employ many expatriates. China's attractions are its low-cost labor and superior worker skills, particularly for high-tech projects. Sony's R&D center in northern China employs more than 20,000 software engineers. Nearby universities and technical institutes churn out thousands of engineering graduates each year. The high concentration of foreign firms in China (including Dell, Hitachi, IBM, and NEC) has created significant competition for local talent.
Human Resource Philosophy

Sony has a highly developed approach to international human resource management. When recruiting new employees, executives seek candidates who have an entrepreneurial spirit, think creatively, and have strong communications skills. Sony's former chairman, Norio Ohga, was also an opera singer, an orchestral conductor, and a licensed jet pilot. His education in music and the arts, alongside science and engineering, strongly influenced the development of the firm's most successful products. In all areas, Sony encourages employees to structure their roles to make best use of their individual strengths. In Sony's foreign subsidiaries, human resource managers spend time with executives and employees, linking the firm's objectives and strategies to employee capabilities. Senior managers identify key jobs for realizing the firm's objectives and analyze whether they have the best people in the most strategically important jobs and what talent they need to acquire. When Sony Europe had to reinvent itself, the human resource group focused on identifying and leveraging the key strengths of man[1]agers to enhance corporate performance. The firm introduced mentoring projects that encouraged employees to focus on what they do best and maximize their contribution to increasing firm performance.

Training and Talent Development

Sony offers management trainee programs for its most promising recruits. Trainees are counseled to follow their passions and use their distinctive talents to advance the firm. They complete formal courses and training tailored to individual demands and career aspirations. The firm established a mentoring and coaching network across all its talent pools. Executives coach their potential successors, who in turn act as mentors to younger upper-management candidates. Sony develops global managers and does succession planning for top management jobs. Senior management grooms executives with strong analytical and intellectual qualities who are driven and not shy about taking risks. Programs stress visionary leadership, emotional intelligence, people skills, and the ability to influence others. Sony implemented an extensive talent pipeline running vertically through the organization, developing and supporting high potential employees from entry level all the way to senior levels of the firm. Management has a system of exhaustive interviews and assessments for identifying potential talent within Sony's own ranks. Executive candidates must be fluent in English and two other languages, have significant international experience, and possess the drive and ambition to take on international leadership roles. Senior managers are required to scan the employee pool continuously to identify and groom potential talent. Recently the firm, long bound by its Japanese culture, launched initiatives to groom more English-speaking executives as a way to transform itself and remain on the cutting edge. Former CEO Howard Stringer appointed numerous non-Japanese leaders who are much younger than the traditional, seasoned Japanese management. Having a non-Japanese CEO helped shift the firm toward a geocentric staffing policy.

Corporate Social Responsibility

Sony pursues an integrity approach to foreign manufacturing operations and attempts to maintain workplace standards that exceed local requirements. As the firm expands internationally, management knows that actions today may be crucial for entry to new markets tomorrow. Exploiting low workplace standards in one country can ruin a reputation and jeopardize entry to new markets. Sony learned a lesson from its experiences in Mexico, where human rights groups accused it of violating worker rights. Rather than simply following local standards in host countries, MNEs should strive to develop global standards for company operations. Sony has taken steps to standardize workplace norms so that management can benchmark internal performance, transfer expertise among countries, and apply holistic, cohesive planning and practices in operations worldwide. Sony is aiming for a universal employment standard, offering superior working conditions and locally relevant wages and benefits at all locations. Wages in foreign factories should provide a fair standard of living to all workers.

#8 . What is your view of Sony's efforts at corporate social responsibility (CSR) in international operations? What steps can Sony take to improve CSR in organizing and managing its operations around the world, particularly in developing countries and emerging markets?