The Legacy Of Lincoln Electric Company Culture

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.

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.

Established in 1895 and specialized in producing and selling electric motors, Lincoln Electric Company rapidly developed after the movement to welding equipment and consumable welding products in the USA. By 1995, this company first hit $1 billion in sales and became the world largest company in welding industry. With the differentiate strategy by providing premium -price -products , this company got 60% sales in the North American and expanded internationally since the period of 1986 and 1992. Although this company is facing problems in global expansions, its overall strategy as well as practices in human resources, marketing, technology development, and international expansions is a useful lesson for other businesses.

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 framework in chapter eight of the textbook “Principles of Management” proposes a system of categorizing organizational cultures according to different profiles. These profiles are divided into 7 separate groups based on a model that is called Dimensions of Organizational Culture Profile (OCP) (Carpenter, Bauer and Erdogan, 2009). The 7 groups are: Innovative cultures, Aggressive cultures, Outcome-Oriented Cultures, Stable Cultures, People-oriented cultures, Team-Oriented Cultures, and Detail-oriented cultures. I will try to decide to which of these groups the organizational culture of the Lincoln Electric Company belongs.

Over the decades and since it was first created, the ongoing guidance and encouragement of the management towards their employees made Lincoln’s expansion possible to a global level. The ideas and philosophy of the founders are still at the core of the organizational culture because they strongly supported the company in its initial stages and helped distinguish it from others. “Thus, by providing a competitive advantage, these values were retained as part of the corporate culture and were taught to new members as the right way to do business.”

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

The Lincoln Electric Company is a welding company that has been around since the late 1800’s. Not only are they known for their prospering business, but they also are known for their management plan. A company’s culture has so much to do with their success, and The Lincoln Electric Company is definitely a business to look up to in that regard. They are a company that succeeds through their sturdy history, their incentive plan for their employees, their management style, and much more.

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.

The Lincoln Electrical Company is situated near Cleveland in U.S.A. and it is considered to be one of the oldest companies as it was founded in 1895. It started out making electric motors and then expanded its products to welding machines and welding rods or electrodes.

The Lincoln Electric Company was created by John C. Lincoln in 1895 after being forced out of the Elliot-Lincoln Company. The Lincoln Electric company would go on to become the world’s largest manufacturer of welding products and machines. This all came to be due to the business culture instilled by the founders and continued up to the present. A Harvard case study done by Arthur Sharplin, shows the organizational culture within Lincoln Electric is unique to any single ordinary business culture. There is evidence that points to the use of all seven OCP (Organizational Culture Profile) principles, in order to maintain one of the world’s most successful and efficient companies.

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.

The Lincoln Electric Company Since 1895, located in Cleveland, Ohio, the Lincoln Electric Company “ the world’s largest manufacture of welding machines and electrodes” was able to create the ideal organization throughout several aspects of the company’s culture. Its founders, first John C Lincoln and James Lincoln, who later joined the company as the General Manager, had one duty to get done; to ask his employees to elect a committee that would give him advice in regards to the company’s operations. Since then, an organization structure was performed. Lincoln Electric Company separated itself from the competitors for its innovative policies.

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.