Organizational Culture at Lincoln Electric

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.

Organizational culture is the summation of the underlying organizational values manifesting as collective assumptions, attitudes, beliefs, expectations and norms.  Grounded in the customs and

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.

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.

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.

Lincoln Electric had a unique organizational strategy with numerous creative ideas. First, to keep and better motivate its employees, the company implemented a special incentives system which effectively distributed profits inside the firm. These incentive “were expressions of mutual respect for each person’s importance to the job to be done” (Lincoln, 1961, p. 11).

The idea that stuck out the most about the Lincoln Electric Company is that they obviously have a strong culture that all levels of employees are proud to be a part of. According to Carpenter, Taylor, and Erdogan (2010), “culture is a more powerful way of controlling and managing employee behaviors than organizational rules and regulations” (pg. 193, para. 2). The Lincoln Electric Company encompasses facets of multiple types of cultures instead of adhering to only one.

When discussing the organizational culture within a company such as GE, we can break management concepts down into three categories. According to Argenti (2002), organizational behavior in organizations is usually broken down into three main areas:

ORGANIZATIONAL CULTURE, or CORPORATE CULTURE, comprises the attitudes, experiences, beliefs and values of an organization. It has been defined as "the specific collection of values and norms that are shared by people and groups in an organization and that control the way they interact with each other and with stakeholders outside the organization.

Leaders forge the path for a culture, and culture isn’t created in a day. After the death of James F. Lincoln it was widely suspected that the company would falter. The opposite was true – due to the

The Lincoln Electric Company is indeed a success story. It remains the world’s leading welding machines and electrode manufacturer. Notably, estimates indicate that the company may be controlling about 40% of arc welding equipment market. It has two factories in US and 3 more factories abroad with a combined workforce about 3000 excluding field sales staff. However, the immense success the company has registered in its operations is tied to its long-standing management style. This essay discusses the Lincoln Electric Company’s culture and how impactful it has been in maintaining a motivated workforce.

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 success of a business is intimately tied to the success of its culture. To understand better how organisational culture is created and maintained we will examine one of America’s most successfully managed companies, the Lincoln Electric company. We will examine many aspects of the company that contribute to its culture, such as the influence of the company’s founders, the golden rule, the incentive management plan, the performance appraisal system, the merit pay plan, the bonus plan, the way people communicate within the company and the management style. In analysing these we will reveal a strong people oriented culture formed and maintained for over a century.

Chapter eight in our text talks about how “culture, or shared values within the organization, may be related to increased performance” (Carpenter, M., Taylor, B., Erdogan, B. (2009). Principles of Management. Nyack, NY: Flat World Knowledge, pdf page 192) and how those cultures can make or break a company. It is these shared values from those who lead that allow their employees to know acceptable and unacceptable behavior. There is also mention of how a leader’s style can motivate and inspire employees, or it can make employment uninventive, humdrum and cause the employee to be unimpressed and bored. The text also tells us how business culture is invisible, but it is extremely powerful. It sounds to me that James Lincoln, younger brother of John Lincoln who was the founder of Lincoln Electric Company, had the right culture for their business. Right from the start James Lincoln was determined to improve his older brothers small company and help it grow.

James F. Lincoln founded The Lincoln Electric company and he died in 1965. Based on