Car Wars at Wolfsburg

Mia J. Hammock

4 December 2015

MBA 652 Organizational Behavior

Dr. Bonsall

Mckendree University

CAR WARS AT WOLFSBURG

The main source of struggle between Porsche and Volkswagen are that both chairmen had a breakdown in communication which resulted in different views regarding the company goals and the direction they wanted the company to move. Each of these chairman had a different standpoint on the direction and progress of the company; each making their goals incompatible. This devastating combat between the two of them. Wiedeking, the Porsche CEO, wanted to increase the profit at the employees’ expense. He also displayed terrible attitude toward the management which also help to increase the in house conflict between him and the other Chair. Another source of encounter was that Wiedeking gave in to the fact that Volkswagen could be more profitable if they got rid of the luxurious Phaeton and Bugatti because they cost too much.

Piech, the other higher liaison, saw that his vision was being threatened by Wiedeking which created a conflict of differences between the two of them and continued to intensify because Piech placed more emphasis on impressive engineering rather than outstanding profits therefore creating more unrest and instability between the two of them. Neither of the men communicated their revelations to one another before the merger which resulted in them displaying relationship conflict between one another.

The conflict handling style exhibited by both in my opinion would be constraining, although Weideking conflict handling style was much stronger than Piech, Wiedeking was clearly trying to win the discrepancy at his own expense. The conflict handling style wasn’t appropriate because they were both endangering the business. Both of them should have compromised the technique so each of them could have found a common ground in which both of them could have had a little to give up in order to gain something so that the improvement of the company wouldn’t have been hurt. Porsche ended up in financial trouble resulting to the termination of Weideking simply because they were not able to resolve their conflicts.

...