Organizational Culture And Culture: The Lincoln Electric Company

The Lincoln Electric Company is a great example of how founders shape the organizational culture and still remain in effect today. The personal values of the founder were mainly guided by Christian ethics; including ensuring all stakeholders are served well, such as customers, employees and stockholders, which will ultimately drive increase productivity and profit (Sharplin, n.d.). As these values continue to show benefits, especially profitability, for all parties involved, the organizational cultural remains largely unchanged and never depended on a specific religious orientation (Sharplin, n.d.), which is especially positive with globalization of past decades and a multi-religious population. This might against expectations given the time …show more content…
To begin, emphasizing flexibility of its staff and having innovative programs in place, shows its place as an innovative culture and levels of hierarchy is at a minimum (Sharplin, n.d.). Workers take great responsibility in their work and have the empowerment to solve issues and take discussion as appropriate to their level and includes not having to follow the chain in command if not effective (Sharplin, n.d.). Improvements in general are highly encouraged and reflected, for example, through the employee evaluation and the worker elected Advisory Board (Sharplin, n.d.). A quarter of the employee evaluation consists of ideas and cooperation, which contributes to a higher score earned and subsequently the bonus to be received (Sharplin, n.d.). Additionally as noted, the Advisory Board is open to every employee for improvement suggestions and to be presented on behalf to the executives in their frequent and recurring meetings (Sharplin, …show more content…
This is presented in the open-door policy and employees of various levels can cooperate as needed to function effectively, as discussed from an innovative perspective (Sharplin, n.d.). Also, the empowerment and accountability allows minimal supervision and micro management is not required (Sharplin, n.d.).

There is a great focus on detail as well and supports the great quality product that has only slightly changed from its beginning and this is also reflected in the employee evaluation to hold every employee accountable and also apparent with the fact that materials/components and tools are mainly manufactured in-house, which gives a control of cost and especially quality (Sharplin, n.d.).
In conclusion, all aspects support a strong culture with employees relating to its organizational culture and a great influence in the consistency since the beginning of the company. As this increases productivity and drives down cost, it has been rather challenging for competition to reach the same level and increase their market share more significantly (Sharplin,