Lincoln Electric Inc Case Study

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According to Carpenter, Taylor and Erdogan (Principles of management,chapter 8)"culture is a system of shared assumptions, values and beliefs that show people what is approriate or inappropriate." One can safely say that the Lincoln Electric Company (LEC) has a strong corporate culture that is evident bythe almost zero staff turn over, high output and low cost of products. The company seems to have aspects of different organizational culture profiles. One can see evidence of an Outcome-oriented culture in the emphasis that both the manager and the worker are accountable for the success of the company. The employee stock ownership programme ensures that the gap between management and the employee is reduced as both want the company to succeed.…show more content…
Lastly, one can find evidence of a Team-oriented culture as cooperation between workers is encouraged. The rule is to take a problem to the person best able to solve it instead of going through different channels to get the problem solved.Top management is treated the same as the employees with no executive previledges supports a team-oriented culture. The founder of the company, John Lincoln, based his business on Christian values and ethics. His policy was that the customer gets value for the products and the worker gets paid for his labour.His values are the backborn of the company and even today LEC products are of quality yet costs lower than the same product on the market.The performance evaluation process means that a worker can earn almost his yearly wages as a bonus, if he scores high in the evaluation process. The company has a way of maintaining its culture through the recruitment and selection policy. This policy fits in the attraction-selection-attrition model. Recruitment is done in-house and education is not the major consideration unless one is applying to be an engineer or sales person.The supervisor is part of the process and makes the final…show more content…
Although the supervisors are there, one finds that rarely is the worker supervised,for responsibility is given to the worker. Thus there is a culture of working hard, working long, no idleness and each person does his part responsible. Through outboarding process, the company ensures that there is low staff turn over. Each worker is taught the culture of the company, hence the short induction trainig that is done. The benefits that LEC offers is a great incentive for workers not to leave the company. LEC pays double the industry rate, even though it is on a piece job rate. Wages are adjusted thrice yearly, according to the consumer price index, which means that workers wages are not eroded by inflation. The end of year bonus that is based on a merit-performance-rating score is another advantage for the workers. Other fringe benefits like medical aid,the retirement plan and of course, the stock ownership programme helps. The fact that none of the LEC workers have joined a union speaks volumes about job satisfaction on the part of the

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