Lincoln Electric Company : Case Analysis On Company Culture

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.

The Lincoln Electric Employees' Association was formed in 1919 to provide hearth benefits and social activities.This organization continues today and has assumed several addittional functions over the years.

The Lincoln Electric Company was a legacy company from which the families ' personal values were incorporated in the beginning and continue to be the fundamental beliefs compromising the company 's culture. By creating and implementing a culture of service, respect, and loyalty, the Lincoln Electric Company has become an institutional leader in American business standards. Lincoln 's culture cannot be summarized by a single dimension of cultural analytics because of its multifaceted culture that is innovative, outcome-oriented, people-oriented, and team-oriented

The Lincoln Electric Company 's culture is a wonderful example of how to create an exceptional culture within your business. Lincoln Electric has been a leading manufacturer in welding machines and electrodes for over 100 years. During this impressive tenure, the Lincoln Electric Company has adhered to its founders’ philosophy that the customer always comes first, the employee always comes second, and stockholders come third. This philosophy is upheld throughout the entire organization, from the executive team down to its factory line workers and is evident in their daily business culture. Displayed through a plethora of initiatives; including employee compensations, a concentration on productivity, encouragement of management and supervisors to participate in active leadership and a general appreciation for its employees ' input and feedback; the working culture in this organization is the backbone of the company’s continued achievements. Through the demonstration of their philosophy, Lincoln 's founders and management team have created a culture that has become a timeless model of employee productivity for the world.

In this case analysis I will be analyzing and summarizing my understanding of the organizational culture of the Lincoln Electric Company, based on key pointers and a Harvard Case Study by Arthur Sharplin. In my analysis I will be using the framework from chapter eight of the textbook “Principles of Management” by Carpenter, Bauer and Erdogan to discern aspects of the company’s culture. The company is said to have a distinctive management culture and manufactures welding equipment. It is located near Cleveland, Ohio USA. Lincoln Electric Company is considered to be one of the best managed manufacturing companies in the world.

After taking the chance to read the Lincoln Electric Company Harvard study case, it is interesting how they viewed taking care of their employees throughout multiple decades, while business today focuses more on outcome-oriented cultures, where employees tend to not have that many benefits, or any benefits at all. The Lincoln Electric Company started poor, but as they took excellent care of their employees, they flourished into a successful entity in the world of business in America. With the enactment of a variety of programs such as health benefits, annual bonuses, paid vacation and a suggestion system that paid workers for great ideas, it is clear that their team-oriented system has paid off in the long run and kept their turnover rate at an all-time low.

The Lincoln Electric Company is one of the largest manufacturers of welding machines and electrons in the world today, with $1 billion in sales and 6000 workers worldwide. The company is also the pioneer in the development of the arc-welding industry and the originator of the innovative employee incentive system. “It was founded in 1895 by Engineer John C. Lincoln to manufacture an industrial motor of his own design. By 1909, it began to produce welding machines, and In 1914 James F.Lincoln his younger brother became the general manager, and actively promoted the welding industry, which expanded with the need to repair the navy vessels during the First World War”. Moley Raymond. (1962) The American century of John C. Lincoln. Retrieve

Lincoln Electric was founded by John C. Lincoln in 1895 in Cleveland, Ohio and has remained one of the most prominent and successful American manufacturing companies over a century later. Lincoln’s place in the world of welding machines and electrodes was not done by accident or attributed to luck. It was built by vision and design. John was more of the scientist, preferring to focus on being and engineer rather than managing a company. That’s when James, his brother took the reins (along with a typhoid illness that kept him away from the plant). James Lincoln had a vision for the company that reflected his Christian values, though those values were not imposed on his employees. He used his values as a guiding force as to how to encourage and empower the staff at Lincoln Electric to invest one hundred percent of their efforts into creating the strongest, and most stable manufacturing company in the world.

Even though John started the company, James Lincoln had the biggest impact on the management style and practices. He created an advisory board that still to this day meets twice a month in order to listen to employees who may have ideas or suggestions. The board is made up of each department in order to allow every person in the company to have a voice. He also helped start an in house welding school that still trains new employees to this day. He helped create the Employees’ Association to help provide health benefits and plan social events for employees. He helped create a pension plan and a revolutionary incentives plan that is still used as one of the best benefits of working for the company. He started allowing employees to buys stock in the company as to inspire them to work harder. Finally although he never publicly stated it or pushed religion he said believed a company should operate with Christian values, and that the priority in the business would go first customers, second employees, and third stockholders. These values and priorities still hold true in the company even today.

The continuing influence, employee benefits/incentives, and management styles initiated by company founder John C. Lincoln and James F. Lincoln have built a profitable business for shareholders and employees alike. Let’s, look at Mr. Author Sharplins Harvard Case study and The Lincoln Electric Company webpage to further delineate the styles of organizational culture and how they have established The Lincoln Electric Company as the foremost manufacturer of welding machines and electrodes. (Sharplin, 1989)

What is the right culture to choose for your business? Do you want to be team oriented, innovative, aggressive or outcome oriented? For a business, this decision, of choosing a work culture often dictates unforeseen outcomes. But why choose one? The Lincoln Electric Company decided to use many of the of the seven work culture profiles to create their own unique business culture. It will be the goal of this essay to understand the seven different work cultures and discover which work culture the Lincoln Electric Company resembles best. The seven different work cultures that will be reviewed are innovative, aggressive, outcome oriented, stable, people oriented, team oriented and detail oriented.

In 1989, Arthur Sharplin produced a case study, Sharplin (1989), outlining the organizational structure and culture of the Lincoln Electric Company. This report will be focused on analyzing Sharplin’s case study to discern aspects of the Lincoln Electric Company’s culture. First, we will discuss John & James Lincoln and their influence on the development of the culture of the company. We will discuss their Christian influence, and how applying the golden rule of doing to others as you would have them do to you, helped them shape their company. Additionally, we will discuss the company performance appraisal system, the way people communicate in the company, the merit pay plan, the bonus plan, and finally, the management style. After

Lincoln Electric Company was founded by John Lincoln and his brother James Lincoln. The company is now the world’s largest manufacturer of welding machines and electrodes (Sharplin, 1989). As stated previously, the founders’ values have a huge impact on what becomes of an organisation’s culture and James Lincoln (and his golden rule) is a good example. From early on he took a different approach to managing his company than others at the time. James Lincoln’s innovative

The Lincoln Electric Company is one of the largest manufacturers of welding machines and electrodes in the world. With about 2,400 employees in the USA and near 600 workers in other countries. The Lincoln management plan is well known for accomplishing the highest worker productivity. His founder Mr. James F. Lincoln died in 1965, leaving a profitable and reliable company. As a president of the business, he invigorated a committee that was confirmed by representatives elected by employees. This committee called the Advisory Board met with him twice a month to advise him on the company operations. The Advisory Board was the pioneer of personal policies to provide benefits to their employees including the reduction of hours from 55 hours to 50 hours a week. In 1915 the workers received a paid-up life insurance. Two years after, the company opened a welding school that is still operating today. In 1919 The Lincoln Electric Employees’ Association was created to offer Health benefits and social activities to their employees.