A Descriptive Study of Functional Integrated Marketing and Public Relations: A Case Study of Toyota Motor Philippines

Abstract

This study sought to ascertain how is IMPR, as a functional integration of Marketing and Public Relations, practiced in the vehicle sales department of Toyota Motor Philippines. It focused on seven sub-problems that are based on the Seven-S model of the organization: How is the department structured? What are the different strategies utilized by the department? What are the systems used for operation? What are the different styles of management used in the organization? How is the staff of the department trained and developed? What work or type of activities is the department best known for? How are the departmental goals related to organizational goals? The data from this study was gathered using interview schedules containing open-ended questions that were based on the definitions of the Seven-S model. The interviews were administered to three respondents who were purposely sampled to be working within the IMPR department and having work experience of at least two years within the department. The analysis of the data show that department structure had more horizontal than vertical characteristics, the main strategy employed by the department is the coordination and synchronization of activities, they operated under the system of team work and principles of the “Toyota way,” they applied a democratic yet controlled Japanese style of management, the staff maintained a state of continuous development in line with the principle of “kaizen, ” they were known to be killed in maintaining the company’s position of overall sales, passengers car sales, and commercial vehicle sales and that departments goals were aligned in support to the corporate objectives. This study recommends future research on the levels of integration between the different groups of the department and the local Toyota branch with the international branches, evaluating the effectiveness of the communication programs, analyzing the effectiveness of the IMPR strategies, the effect of the “Toyota way” to the organization’s processes and individual psychology of the Toyota employee, sampling a bigger population to further evaluate the IMPR practices of the department, a comparative study with other organizations with similar departments, a statistical measure of the levels of integrations between groups and sources of group conflict, to ascertain levels of proficiency and skill of the IMPR staff, and a study on the current level of integration of the department in continuation from this initial study as some as the studies to be taken under future consideration.