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

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 North 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.