Analysis on Joko Widodo’s APEC Speech

A president, as a leader of a country, needs to deliver speech in international forums to introduce his/her country to the world. Especially to the underdeveloped and developing countries, these forums will be advantageous and need to be put in good use.

Indonesian new President, Mr. Joko Widodo got a chance to deliver a speech in the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) – CEO Summit in Beijing, China on November 10, 2014. There are several points that I analyzed by watching his speech, among others;

1.  Talking in front of hundreds of CEOs from many countries, he opened his speech by straightforwardly saying that he is happy to talk about business and investment as well as mentioning that he was also a business man. This could be considered as one way of creating ‘rapport’ or a close and harmonious relationship between the presenter and the audience. Psychologically speaking, people like to talk with other people who are similar to them. Mr. Joko Widodo meant to develop a moment with his audience in which he wanted to share ideas and communicate well.
2. Mr. Joko Widodo continued his presentation by giving a general description about Indonesia as a big nation, such as; the huge number of population, the number of islands, and the wide area of Indonesia. He used comparison in explaining how vast the area of his country by saying: “The picture shows you our map of Indonesia. We have population 240 million and the distance is like from London in UK to Istanbul in Turkey”. When explaining about data or facts, not all audience could imagine it in the same context. By giving comparison as he did, it will help his audience to understand how vast it actually is from Sabang to Merauke.
3. In giving his presentation, Mr. President used a relatively good presentation slide which is in pointers format and not in long sentences. He also used pictures for visualization with short and simple texts which could attract the attention of the audience.

In my opinion, Mr. Joko Widodo as the new president of Indonesia would like to invite as many investors as possible to his country in order to develop the economic condition of Indonesia in the future. He intentionally mentioned “this is your opportunity” several times in between his speech to the audience which can be interpreted as invitation to the CEOs to make investments on some development areas in Indonesia.

He also addressed that he will channel the fuel subsidy to many other sectors such as providing seeds and fertilizers to farmers, providing engine and cold storage for fishermen, irrigation facilities, providing capitals for small medium and micro enterprises in village areas, creating more health and education program, and building infrastructure facilities. This can be considered as his way of providing reasons for his act of increasing Indonesian fuel price, because in the following week he announced the new fuel price nationally.

He also explained some development that would be undertaken in his era of leadership, such as; manufacture, sea toll, mass transportation, power plants, and industrial zone. He mentioned several deficiency and inadequacy that existed in Indonesia such as land acquisition and business permit. I analyzed this as his way of comparing things that happened in the past presidential era with things that he will do as solution to the problem within his leadership era. He said that he will establish a one-stop-service office to process principle business permit which will only require three days of process.

It is contradictive that the Article 28 of Indonesian Law No. 24 year 2009 about Flag, Language, Symbol, and National Anthem of Indonesia clearly written that official speech by President, Vice President, and other state officials, whether it is in country or overseas, must be delivered in Bahasa Indonesia. Even though the President will not get punished by delivering his speech in English, but it still is violating the law.

Although Mr. Joko Widodo addressing his speech in a calm and confident way, but honestly his English is not as fluent as Indonesian former Presidents, such as Ir. Soekarno, Prof. Dr.-Ing. B J Habibie, or Prof. Dr. Soesilo Bambang Yudhoyono. My recommendation would be delivering his speech in Bahasa Indonesia in order for his message to be well received by the audience, and and let the professional translators do the translation service for him. Therefore he could be more convincing to the investors.  

Mid Term Test of ACT

SUBJECT: ADVANCED COMMUNICATION THEORY

MID TERM TEST

1.       In class we discussed about research “ideology,” following Guba and Lincoln’s (2005) discussion on paradigm in communication research. What is your research “ideology” and how do you situate your current and future research in the research paradigm? Please use your research topic as a case.

Research is guided by a set of beliefs or ‘world-view’ known as paradigm. Guba and Lincoln (1994) identified the 4 major type of paradigm as: Constructivism, Positivism, Post-positivsm, and Critical theory. There is no definite prove that one paradigm is superior to the others, that is why they are debateable.

Looking at my research topic which is “Building relationship in the context of educational cooperation between Indonesia and Thailand towards ASEAN Community 2015”, I might identify my research ideology as Post-positivism.

According to Killam (2013) on her video entitled ‘Complex Research Terminology Simplified: Paradigms, Ontology, Epistemology and Methodology’, Post positivism is a paradigm with critical realism ontology which believes that truth exist but it can not be perfectly detected due to flawed ways of finding it as well as the nature of phenomenon.

I found this video  on youtube and it really helps me in understanding the complex terminology regarding the paradigm topic. Killam also mentioned that in Post-positivism a theory can not be proven, but a strong case can be made for it by disapproving alternatives of explanations. In my research I will depend on case studies of the relationship between Indonesians and Thais in their cooperation as citizens of two different nations with different cultural backgrounds, values, and norms but with one objective to be engaged in  the ASEAN Community 2015. The methodology of my research will incorporate a combination of qualitative and quantitative methods.

2.       Craig (1999) explains about communication as “a transmission model” and “a constitutive model.” How do you think Craig reconcile the two models?

Transmission model, considered as a conventional model. It basically sees communication as a process of sending messages from sender to receiver or merely a process of transferring information. This model has been argued by many communication theorists as philosophically flawed, ideologically backward, and fraught with paradox.

On the other side, to critique the transmission model, a constitutive model pictures communication as a process that produces and reproduces shared meanings. Shared meaning means the mutual understanding of a specific message between sender and receiver.

3.       Craig (1999) also divided communication theories into seven traditions. Given the characteristics of each tradition, which one do you think is your communication theory “ideology?” Use your research topic as a case.

Among the seven tradition theory of communication, I might say that the theory ideology of my research topic would be the sociocultural tradition where communication considered as a symbolic process that produces and reproduces shared sociocultural patterns.

As I mentioned before, my research topic would be “Building relationship in the context of educational cooperation between Indonesia and Thailand towards ASEAN Community 2015”. The two nations involved in my research represent two different sociocultural environments.

In order to build relationship with other people or institutions from other countries, one should pay attention to characteristics of people from different culture, customs, and values, as well as the best communication approach that would be suitable to deal with them.

4.       In their Chapter on “Communicator,” Littlejohn and Foss’ (2008) mentioned several communication theories in the context. Please pick one theory that you find intriguing and explain it. Please also discuss how the theory can help you better understand human communication.

According to Littlejohn and Foss (2011), there are five theories about communicator; the sociopsychological tradition, the cybernetic tradition, the sociocultural tradition, the rhetorical tradition, and the critical tradition.

One theory that I find intriguing is the sociopsychological tradition which drives us to associate communicators as individuals. In my opinion, this theory will help us better understanding human communication. The drive of this theory is to understand how and why human beings behave the way they do, and most of the theories are in research of psychology. This sociopsychological theory has two types of theory: (1) Trait theory, which assumes that how individuals communicate to others depends on the traits exhibited as individuals and the environment in which they find themselves, and (2) Cognitive theory which describes that how individuals communicate to others depends on the information or knowledge that they already posses.

References

Craig, Robert T. 1999. Communication Theory as A Field. International Communication Association

Guba, Egon G & Lincoln, Yvonna S. 1994. Competing Paradigms in Qualitative Research. Handbook of qualitative research (pp. 105-117). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage

Killam, Nurse. 2013, September 23. Complex Research Terminology Simplified: Paradigms, Ontology, Epistemology and Methodology [Video]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8xvpxBVCo0c

Littlejojhn, Stephen W & Foss, Karen A. 2011. Theories of Human Communication Tenth Edition. Illinois, USA: Waveland Press, Inc. Retrieved from http://www.scribd.com/doc/147168513/Theories-of-Human-Communication-Littlejohn-1

Toyota Product Recall Case Study

SUBJECT: BUSINESS COMMUNICATION AND GLOBAL ETHICS 

MID TERM PAPER 

A.   Issue Identification

Toyota is a brand owned by Toyota Motor Corporation, a world known Japanese automotive manufacturer headquartered in Tokyo, Japan. For more than 75 years Toyota has contributed to a more prosperous society through the manufacture industry of automobiles. It is mainly engaged in automobile business with three main business activities; designing, manufacturing, as well as selling the vehicle products, related parts, and accessories.

As mentioned on the official website, http://www.toyota-global.com/, at the end of 2013, Toyota conducts its business worldwide with 52 overseas manufacturing companies in 27 countries and regions. Toyota's vehicles are sold in more than 160 countries and regions.

Figure 1. Map of Toyota’s worldwide manufacturing companies

Over the last few years Toyota is facing the biggest quality issue of recalling its vehicles including those intended for sale or already sold in many countries all over the world. Some Toyota vehicles were having problems with faulty conditioning system, disabled airbags, sticky accelerator pedals, detachment of spare tires, and steering gear problem which may cause accidents. These problems were found in Toyota’s favorite brands such as Lexus, Camry, Prius and many more.

The problem started back in 2009 when it recalled 3.8 million US vehicles because of floor mat problems which could cause the accelerator to get stuck. After that, Toyota keeps on recalling its products every year up to now for various technical and safety reasons. As reported by http://www.theguardian.com (2014), the last one happened on October 20, 2014 where Toyota recalled 247.000 vehicles in USA over defective airbags.

Not only in USA, the case is also found in some other countries like China, Japan, Canada, UK, and many more. As shown in an article on http://www.theguardian.com/ there are total of 8,54 million vehicles being recalled worldwide.

Figure 2. Toyota recalls around the world

Mass media immidiately covers this issue, and just like a snowball effect negative statements about Toyota being made in the society.

B.   Effects of the Issue

This issue is surely damageing Toyota’s corporate reputation for it has strained the trust of public, car buyers, and regulators. According to Michael Wells and Deepti Ammanath (2010) on their article which was published on http://www.polk.com, from November 2009 to February 2010, Toyota customers’ loyalty dropped 11 percentage points – from 59.4 to 48.4.

Over the years Toyota has been managing a well deserved reputation for building loyalty of the customers. This issue had strike its reputation in terms of product quality which may be a great loss for Toyota globally, and at some points be an advantage for its competitors like Honda, Chrysler, and other automotive manufacturers.

Not only that the reputation got hit badly, Toyota stands to lose billion dollars for the repairing process of the recalled vehicles and the sales numbers which has significantly dropped.

Toyota is not the only business that suffers, other major businesses also experience great loss as this issue affecting them as well. All Toyota dealerships accross the globe are  directly affected with the brand being flawed. The accessories and spare parts suppliers of Toyota vehicles inevitably got hit financially as the order of Toyota’s vehicles are going down. This recall is also giving problem to online car businesses like LeaseTrader.com. As mentioned on http://www.entrepreneur.com LeaseTrader.com have received calls from people who were going to take over their Toyota lease.

C.   How Toyota Handle the Issue

In order to respond to this issue, Toyota has conducted several communication efforts to its customers, such as:

1.      Toyota has taken proactive approach to make announcements about the recalls on its official website http://toyotanews.pressroom.toyota.com/ in which;

a.     keeping the customers update with numbers of certain types of cars which will be recalled within a specific amount of time,

b.     informing the customers in details about what Toyota will do to their cars and that all services made for the remedy will be free of charge,

c.      creating frequently asked questions (FAQ) page on their website, and

d.     providing the customer service contacts.

2.      Aside than providing updated information on the website, Toyota also sends notification letters to their customers informing the recalls, and making sure that they are really sorry for misleading the customers.

3.      Not only approaching their customers, Toyota also distribute information to their dealers and associates in order to answer questions from customers and share detailed information in a public way.

Quoting Ron Kirkpatrick, Toyota’s National Manager of Executive, Internal and Social Media Communications, on an article entitled ‘How Toyota executes a well-driven strategy to recover from a crisis’ which was posted on http://www.simply-communicate.com/, Toyota has created what they call ‘Fast Facts’ – a one-page summary delivered via email. Introduced in early 2010, the channel consisted of two to three stories with snappy headlines and three to four essential points for dealers and associates to communicate to family, friends and Toyota customers about Toyota-related issues or controversies in the news. Below is the view of the website.

Figure 3. Toyota ‘Fast Facts’

“The idea is that associates would hopefully see the news from us first, before hearing it from a news outlet. We often stay up late or into the early morning to coordinate with Japan announcements,” Kirkpatrick explains.

4.      As mentioned on an internet article posted on http://www.scpr.org written by Kisher, Tom (2014), Toyota also provides free driving service for those who are afraid driving their cars to their dealer for the repair. This service will be helpful to many of the customers, especially those who live outside the recall zone.

5.      Toyota changed its motto from “I Love What You Do For Me, Toyota!” to “Moving Forward!” this is to attempt to communicate to customers that Toyota has desire to start afresh and look toward a better future.

D.     Recommendation

Ever since Toyota’s recall of vehicles issue reach the public, the company has been trying to recover its brand equity and rebuild consumer trust. Some efforts that are considered as the best practices are explained below.

The first one which attracts my attention is that Toyota has proven its goodwill by fully admitting the wrong doing which has misled the customers. This could be considered as a corporate advocacy (Crable & Vibbert, 1985) to prevent misinformation and clarify the facts to its public. Furthermore, Toyota is willing to pay back the customers’ loss. Toyota has pointed out that cars are very complex and that recalls are a part of the automotive business. Most consumers understand that things can go wrong with automotive products. They want to be assured that Toyota will be open about the issue and take full responsibility for fixing it.

The second one is that Toyota uses notification letters to their customers, which in my opinion is the right thing to do. According to Bovee and Thill (2012) on their book Business Communication Today, written medium of communication have a number of advantages over oral media, among others: allow us to plan and control the message, reach geographically dispersed audiences, and minimize the distortion that can result with oral and some forms of electronic messages.

Toyota has done numbers of communication efforts in responding to the issue, but still has many miles to travel before they can regain its popularity. I recommend Toyota to remind its public about the positive aspects or acts that have been conducted in the previous time. It will help an organization to pass the management crisis with a positive reputation. They could use new advertisements that bring back their past-positive-performance in their new technology and product.

Communication efforts may be costly and time consuming. The bigger the issue, the greater effort should be taken to overcome it. As Toyota’s case considered as a big issue, the consequences is that it has to invest big amount of money to keep on communicating with its public.

Toyota also has to be more creative in term of creating activities or programs which include the customers. Basically they need to do whatever it takes to please the customers, for example by providing free insurance, or promoting a touring activity, providing test drive for prospective customers, and many more. Make sure that the media are being invited to those events.

References

Bovee, Courtland L & Thill, John V. (2012). Business Communication Today. USA: Prentice Hall

Browning, Roger. (2010, February 9). Toyota recalls across the world: full list so far. Retrieved from http://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2010/feb/09/toyota-recalls-full-list#data

Crable, R. E., & Vibbert, S. L. (1985). Managing issues and influencing public policy. Public Relations Review, 11, 3-16.

Institute for Public Relations. (2011, September). The Toyota recall crisis: Media impact on Toyota’s corporate brand reputation. Retrieved from http://www.instituteforpr.org/wp-content/uploads/JFGRA-InfoTrend-case-study-ver-2.pdf

Kass, Kelly. How Toyota executes a well-driven strategy to recover from a crisis. Retrieved form http://www.simply-communicate.com/case-studies/company-profile/how-toyota-executes-well-driven-strategy-recover-crisis

Kelly, Anne Marie. (2012, May 3). Has Toyota's Image Recovered From The Brand's Recall Crisis? Retrieved from http://www.forbes.com/sites/annemariekelly/2012/03/05/has-toyotas-image-recovered-from-the-brands-recall-crisis/

Kisher, Tom. (2014, October 21). Recall: US agency warns car owners to get air bags fixed. Retrieved from http://www.scpr.org/news/2014/10/20/47512/recall-us-agency-warns-car-owners-to-get-air-bags/

Lienert, Anita. (2013, October 17). Toyota Recalls 803,000 Vehicles in the U.S., Including 2012-'13 Camry. Retrieved from http://www.edmunds.com/car-news/toyota-recalls-803000-vehicles-in-the-us-including-2012-13-camry.html

Nbcnews.com. Toyota Recall Timeline. Retrieved from http://www.nbcnews.com/id/35240466/ns/business-autos/t/toyota-recall-timeline/#.VFUlwDSUfng

Riley, Charles. (2012, October 10). Toyota recalls 7.43 million cars. Retrieved from http://money.cnn.com/2012/10/10/investing/toyota-recall/

Theguardian.com. (2014, October 20). Defective airbags prompt urgent Toyota recall and US warning over ruptures. Retrieved from http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/oct/20/defective-airbag-recall-warning-toyota-explosive-rupture

Toyota-global.com. Worldwide Operations. Retrieved from http://www.toyota-global.com/company/profile/facilities/worldwide_operations.html

Wells, Michael & Ammanath, Deepti. (2010, July). How Did the Toyota Recalls Affect Customer Loyalty? R.L. Polk & Co. Michigan, USA.

Williams, Geoff. (2010, April 26). The Toyota Effect: Unlikely Winners and Losers. Retrieved from http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/206328

My Thesis Topic

SUBJECT: ADVANCED COMMUNICATION THEORY 

ASSIGNMENT 1

The topic that I might potentially work on my thesis would be about “Building relationship in the context of educational cooperation between Indonesia and Thailand towards ASEAN Community 2015”.

Over the years, Indonesia and Thailand have enjoyed well established cooperation in various sectors, particularly in educational sector. Student exchange program, dual degree program and other undertakings regarding educational institution have been continuously conducted between the two nations. Education improvement both in quality and quantity has always been the concern of the cooperation for both countries.

One of the efforts for the quality improvement of educational institutions in both countries could be made through partnership program. Indonesia and Thailand as parts of ASEAN member countries have potential in strengthening relationship through educational cooperation program in various ways.

As stated on ASEAN official website, ASEAN views education as the vehicle to raise ASEAN awareness, inspire the “we feeling”, and create a sense of belonging to the ASEAN Community and understanding of the richness of ASEAN’s history, languages, culture and common values.

This issue would be worth studying as a feasibility study for Indonesian educational institutions in analyzing their needs in establishing, developing, as well as maintaining cooperation with other countries within the region. It also would probably be a sample for other Southeast Asian countries that share the same needs in the era of ASEAN Community 2015, where the promotion of improved standards will be prioritized, and better access to education through networking and institutional collaboration among ASEAN countries will be highlighted. In order to build relationship with other people/institutions from other countries, one should pay attention to characteristics of people from different culture, customs, and values, as well as the best communication approach that would be suitable to deal with them. That would be considered as key success factors of the process.

The reason why I am choosing this topic is because at my office, SEAMOLEC (Southeast Asian Ministers of Education Organization Regional Open Learning Centre), I am currently working in a task force for educational cooperation between Indonesia and Thailand since the year 2008 up until now. Therefore, I could easily get access to information, materials, observational results and the opportunity to conduct surveys or to do interview to specific persons/officials of the program when doing my thesis.

Reference:

Overview of ASEAN Education Ministers Meeting (ASED). Retrieved from

http://www.asean.org/communities/asean-socio-cultural-community/category/overview-24

2008, January. ASEAN Economic Community Blue Print. Retrieved from

http://www.asean.org/archive/5187-10.pdf