Halmstad University
School of Business and Engineering
Master in Management of Innovation and Business Development

Toyota Crisis: Management Ignorance?
– A Swedish Case of Consumers Perceptions

Master’s Dissertation in Management of Innovation and Business Development, 15 ECTS
Final seminar 2010-05-27

Authors:
Yuanyuan Feng
Supervisor:
Mike Danilovic

Hamlstad

University

Feng(2010)

TOYOTA CRISIS: MANAGEMENT IGNORANCE?
– A SWEDISH CASE OF CONSUMERS PERCEPTIONS
Yuanyuan Feng
School of Business and Engineering, Halmstad University, Sweden

Abstract

Since the late 2009, the famous vehicle manufacture Toyota has suffered a severe crisis due to unintended quality problems in its cars which had triggered Toyota’s largest officially recalls of its cars around the world. This crisis threatens the company’s previous reputation of good quality cars, as well as the brand image built up over time. This study aims to elaborate on the Toyota crisis in order to understand why Toyota faces this crisis and how they deal with the crisis; and investigate consumers’ perceptions of Toyota brand as the outcome of the crisis, with a focus on
Swedish market. A qualitative research along with a number of face-to-face interviews with Toyota Swedish dealer and Swedish vehicle consumers is conducted. The findings reveal that the impact of the Toyota crisis in Sweden is not as serious as that in
America; there remain satisfied and loyal Toyota’s customers who are not swayed by the negative publicities; While Toyota should manage the crisis even in a better way in order to retain its good reputation.

Key Words

Crisis, Toyota, Corporate Reputation, crisis management, consumer perception

INTRODUCTION
“We deeply regret the inconvenience and concern caused to our customers and others by our recent recalls of multiple vehicle models across