Wahl (Ningbo): Humanistic Management and Strategic Transformation of a US-funded Chinese Company

Name: Wahl (Ningbo): Humanistic Management and Strategic Transformation of a US-funded Chinese Company (English version)
SKU: TU0127

Qu, Qing; Fu, Pingping; Meng, Fei; Hu, Qianqian

Product #:TU0127

Supplier:Tsinghua University

Discipline:Human Resource Management

Setting:China

Details:Case (PDF) • 20 pages • 2021-11-10

Subjects:

Leadership Organizational behavior Organizational culture Leadership and managing people Business management Organizational culture Organizational behavior

Geography:

China Asia

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$12.40

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Wahl Clipper Ningbo Ltd. is a wholly owned company of Wahl Group, a century-old American enterprise, in China. Owing to a crisis in 2008, Wahl (Ningbo) was on the verge of bankruptcy. Qian Moxing was appointed as a general manager at the time of the crisis. In line with the proverbial saying 'new broom sweeps clean', 'A new person makes many changes'. Qian was enlightened with traditional Chinese culture. Therefore, he motivated employees to learn traditional Chinese culture. In addition, the introduction of management reforms to encourage 'working and living happily for common development' resulted in tremendous changes within a few years. This reform led the US-based headquarters to adjust the strategic positioning of Wahl (Ningbo): from a manufacturer to an enterprise integrating independent R&D, production, and sales and from a producer of middle and low-end products for overseas households to a manufacturer of high-end products for Chinese hair salons. Strategic transformation meant opportunities as well as challenges. Though the company's current corporate culture and human resource management aligned with the goals of a happy enterprise, it failed to meet the goals of sales and R&D. Accordingly, this article highlights ways through which Wahl (Ningbo) can enhance the current corporate culture and human resource management to adapt to the new strategic positioning.

Learning Objectives

1. Help students understand ways to motivate people from the perspectives of leadership, appraisal, remuneration, education and training, and corporate culture; 2. Explain ways to successfully implement organisational change as well as help students understand the stages of organisational change and the main factors determining organisational change; 3. Explain the relation between human resource management and corporate culture and help students understand ways to establish a human resource management system aligned with corporate culture; 4. Guide students to consider the characteristics of human resource management using different strategies and understand the manner in which human resource management supports corporate strategies; 5. Guide students to analyse the relation between corporate culture and corporate strategy; 6. Help students understand the concepts of transformational and servant leadership.