A Case Analysis Of The Culture Of The Lincoln Electric Company

The founders of the Lincoln Electric Company left a legacy of an organization culture that promotes high productivity through sound management policies which have stood the test of time. The exponential growth of the company after the death of James F. Lincoln was a direct result of the establishment of a rich culture mix based on values that were widely shared and accepted by the members of the organization. Management empowered employees to become part of the decision making process through the contribution of ideas through the Advisory Board which was elected by the employees from amongst themselves. Reward management systems and all the other artifacts of the Lincoln Electric’s distinguished strong organizational culture will be analyzed in greater detail in this essay.

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.

10. Be complacent in the roll of leadership/management and never allow anyone to undermine you or allow them to lead you into a false sense of security by corrupting you into submission through bad dealings or wrongful ideologies, that would jeopardise your position with the organisation that you are associated

While reviewing the results of all of my self-assessment, the management areas where I would need to improve is to learn to be more team-oriented and to place my trust in the actions of others. As I reflect these self-assessments back at my life with the new insights in the exercise conducted, I’ve considered becoming more attentive to the needs of others by either expressing my emotions more often and taking other people consideration and ideas respectably. I hope to improve the areas to gain a better key relationship with others in the future.

Besides, managers in Lincoln Electric Company were not high in the sky, they worked and lived with workers in daily life, they had free atmosphere at work and they strengthened the feeling that workers were managing themselves.

After analyzing the story of Lincoln Electric Company I’ve come to the Conclusion that their organizational culture they practicing is People-oriented culture. Because the company values fairness, supportiveness and they respect individual rights. There is a greater emphasis on expectation of treating people with respect and dignity.

Customer satisfaction is the main mission for the company. The company also has to learn from the field failures. They have to know why they failed so that they can improve on that. The company also has to meet the need of the key suppliers and vendors and keep a constant check that whether these supplier are following the standard strictly in selecting the product for the company. The company holds the meeting which takes place either once a year or twice a year as planned by the company. The company also has to meet the media and inform them about everything that the company is doing. If they keep the media happy then the company would do fine because the people would believe whatever the media writes. Therefore, it is important to keep the media happy. Along with all employees are the key assets for the company as they are the main people who are directly link with company in day to day activities. The company has to meet the employees and see whether they are with the management. If they are happy then the company will do well and if they are not happy then the company has to make sure that they resolve the problem as soon as possible in order to avoid problems in future. All the above mentioned people plays very important role in the company so are regarded as key players for the company though they have low power in the stake holder analysis but posses very high

Create constancy of purpose toward improvement of product and service. Always aiming to remain competitive, stay in business and provide jobs. Strive towards being Excellent.

From the beginning, James Lincoln took a deep interest in ways to improve his and his brother 's company and their employees work related functions. He instituted an “Advisory Board” made up of elected representatives from within the workforce. Since its creation sometime around 1915, actions directly benefiting employees were instituted. Among them, reduction in working hours, completely paid life insurance, and in 1917, a welding school was instituted.

This paper summarizes the culture of The Lincoln Eclectic Company. First we take a look at the influence of the company founders and how their beliefs/values exits today. Then we will review various topics such as, the companies golden rule, the performance appraisal system, the way people communicate in the company, and bonus plan, to name a few, all of which make up and highlight the companies culture.

These tough beginnings draw deeply the formation of Lincoln’s no-frills approach to how a company should be ran. John C. Lincoln was an engineer at heart and left the company to his younger brother, James F. Lincoln, who took the company onwards keeping the company family run and true to his brothers’ values. Not just an engineer, James philosophies were marked in Christian values, which contributed to the deeply engrained nature of the culture. Further, James possessed a deep sense of business acumen that fed the company’s general philosophies. One example is his customer

Lincoln Electric was founded at the end of the 19-th century by John C. Lincoln. He was a talented engineer who invested 200 dollars in his product electrical motors. Soon he was replaced by his younger brother James F. Lincoln, and the founder of Lincoln Electric dedicated his time to engineering activities and inventions. James F. Lincoln was a different type of inventor. He was a good manager with the nice strategic point of view over manufacturing. At the beginning of the 20th century, the company started manufacturing welding machines which become their iconic product. That is not the only thing Lincoln electric became famous for. The incentive management plan was one of a kind at that time and was the first step of creating company culture with a high focus on the employees, something unheard among the other manufacturers at that time of the century. Both Lincoln brothers were inventors and this was crucial for the earlier company development. Both were pioneers and the vision and the mission that was integrated especially from James Lincoln played a major role in the dramatic company development during the World War II.

The continued influence of founder James Lincoln’s values and belief system is visible throughout every aspect of the organizational culture at the Lincoln Electric Company. Although James Lincoln believed that businesses should follow Christian morality, he did not impose religion on any of the employees. Instead, his beliefs are reflected in the company’s policy of always placing the customer first, and its view that this practice is not only morally correct, but also beneficial to the company’s economic success -- which has been proven true.

James Lincoln had a vision, he understood how to give and get the most and the best out of people. Lincoln Electric’s success is a direct result of the investment of James Lincolns’ belief and vision that ultimately produced a well established highly productive organizational culture. We’ve now seen examples of what I deem as an exceptional organizational culture, but it is best written by Charles G. Herbruck, found in the Prologue of James F. Lincoln’s last book, he wrote “they were expressions of mutual respect for each person’s importance to the job to be done” (Sharplin 1989)

There are plenty of reasons why Lincoln Electric Company (LEC) is successful, and a big one that people usually credit the success to is the way it’s managed. While reading the Lincoln Electric Company Harvard Case Study by Arthur Sharplin, we learned a lot about the echo of the founder’s philosophies still very present in the company, we looked at the highly rewarding merit pay plan, and we learned about LEC’s authoritarian management style. There are plenty more reasons why LEC has been so successful over the years but these three are mostly responsible for the productivity, efficiency, morale, and overall satisfaction of the factory level employees and all the way up to the President’s office.