Analysis Of Lincoln Electric Company Of Cleveland Ohio Usa ' S Organizational Culture

Every organization has values and beliefs that define what they do and how they do things in the organization. These values have significant influence on how the employees behaves and the general performance of the organization – it is these set of values and beliefs, rooted deep in the company’s organizational structure that depict the “dos”, “don’t” and the “hows”, of the organization and these unequivocally represents the culture of the organization. This concept became popular in the 1980s when Peters and Waterman in their book: “In search of Excellence” presented the profound argument that, the success of any organization is inextricable linked to the quality of its culture. (Carpenter, M., Taylor, B., Erdogan, B. 2009 p183). The purpose of this paper is an attempt to analyse the impact diverse cultures played in the success of the Lincoln Electric Company.

The founder, James F. Lincoln used his Christian upbringing as the basis for his vision of how he defined entrepreneurial success. The customers ' needs are first priority, the employee second, and the stockholders are last. Quality and cost efficiency are the two most important factors considered in their product engineering and manufacturing. The hierarchy is stringent, however, the culture of the company is greatly people-oriented. This company has a strong culture that is instilled in new employees from the beginning and continuously practiced by every member of every facet in the organizational structure.

3. Lincoln’s culture could not be imposed but must be nurtured. “Willis retained the existing managers of most of the acquired companies to take advantage of their local knowledge, but directed them to implement [underlined by author]Lincoln’s incentive and manufacturing systems [p 6].” While Willis appreciated the benefits of implementing Lincoln’s systems, he did not consider James Lincoln’s caveat that “All those involved must be satisfied that they are properly recognized or they will not cooperate – and

According to Mclean and Marshall (1993) organisational culture is defined as the collection of traditions, values, policies, beliefs and attitudes that contribute a pervasive context for everything we do and think in an organisation. (ie) this means that these factors actually determine how we think as well as act and react not only to people from within the same organisation but also to anybody on the outside who has some sort of interaction with the organisation. As can be seen with the part-structure in Figure 1, this organisation (WHD) has various levels of management. There is quite

Though, in reading the Lincoln Electric Company Harvard Case Study by Arthur Sharplin, add up to what I learned from chapter eight this week, I can realize the that the organizational culture is the cornerstone for the growth of any organization. The success of Lincoln Electric Company is due to the environment that is previously established by the Lincoln’s family. If we look at in the introductory of the Harvard case study, Arthur Sharplin states that “The Lincoln incentive management plan has been well known for many years. Many college management texts refer to the Lincoln plan as a model for achieving high worker productivity.” (pp. 1). This is to say that they have already set some policies to make the company what it has always been since its creation.

Lincoln Electric’s management practices an open door policy. They have never formally constructed an organizational chart. Management wants its employees to take their problems to the person who can solve them without regards to rank or the chain of command. Researchers

The case study for Lincoln Electric Company located near Cleveland, Ohio USA, shows a company with a distinctive organization culture of people oriented and team culture. The founder of welding products and equipment (machines and electrodes), with more than two thousand four hundred (2,400) workers in two us factories and six hundred (600) factories in three (3) global factories. It is considered to be one of the best managed manufacturing companies in the world.

All the founders of the company had a great deal of continues influence on the positioning of the company today, form John C. Lincoln to James F. Lincoln. John C. Lincoln started it all and James F. Lincoln, who is the younger brother of John, took over the company to another level. One of James Lincoln 's early actions as head of the firm was to ask the employees to elect representatives to a committee that would advise him on company operations. The Advisory Board has met with the chief executive officer twice monthly since that time. This was only the first of a series of innovative personnel policies that have, over the years, distinguished Lincoln Electric from its contemporaries.

Lincoln Electric’s foundations are based on values of trust, overt nature to management, self reliance, righteousness, commitment, answerability and inter-collaboration. These beliefs and moral code formed a powerful base of Lincoln’s culture and management regularly providing the rewards to deserving employees. Pride of workmanship and feelings of

Lincoln Electric Company has a very strong culture based on shared assumptions values and beliefs. This is evidenced by the attitudes of both the company management and employees towards the organization. The unchanged policies, practices and products point towards a very strong corporate culture. High employee performance and productivity over the many years of the company’s existence is also another indicator of a strong culture.

Before anyone can truly understand and respect Lincoln Electrics’ culture values (which has one of the finest corporate cultures), we must look at how the company has evolved to become what it is today. In the early 1900s, the company transitioned leadership from John Lincoln, the original founder, to his younger brother, James Lincoln. John turned management and leadership to James Lincoln in order to pursue his ingenuity through inventing for the company. One of the first orders as General Manger was to assemble and advisory group that would report to him. He did so by requesting the employees from various departments to elect a representative to be on the committee that would meet with management – to this day the advisory group meets two times per month.

There have been many examples of organizations that have maintained a competitive advantage as a result of their culture. One such example can be found in the Lincoln Electric Company. A case study on the Lincoln Electric Company, prepared by Arthur Sharplin (1989), gives us keen insights into the relation between culture and productivity, the influences that founders have on organizational culture, as well as how certain cultures manifest themselves in organizational policies, communication, and management styles.

The Lincoln Electric Company, a manufacturer of welding equipment and supplies, was founded in 1895 by John C. Lincoln as a manufacturer of electric motors. In the early years of the 20th century, James F. Lincoln joined his brother’s company and by 1914 replaced John as the company head, allowing the latter to concentrate his efforts on scientific investigations.

The atmosphere directly controls in part the behavior of the employee. The culture that has been created and cultivated at Lincoln Electric is very intentional. There are a variety of different company profiles that can be created. To use the language from our text book in my opinion this company profile has characteristics from two of the possible seven profiles from the text. Stable culture. Stable culture is described as a company culture that is not quick to change with the times and trends of every day, it has a centralized management system. Stable cultures can be desirable when a winning business model is chosen early on in the game. Investors seem to like them, in that they can often predict how the company will react to changes in the marketplace. Stable culture is only in part true, one of the main characteristics that is missing is large bureaucratic departments within Lincoln Electric.

The founders have played a major part in the culture of the company. Furthermore, a lot of the policies and procedures put in place by the founders are still core values and part of the organizational culture of the business today. From the case study, it would seem that the company has an innovative culture to some extent. There is a small hierarchy of management but employees are encouraged to bring their ideas to the advisory board who will then discuss these ideas with top management. This is furthermore encouraged by an open door policy.