Lincoln Electric Case Study

Lincoln Electric Case Study

The Lincoln Electric Company is the world’s largest manufacturer of arc welding products and a leading producer of industrial electric motors. Their key competency is achieving higher worker productivity. Every year the company has seen high profits and bonuses. Employee morale and productivity remains very good and employees are very loyal to the company. The company also puts customers goals as top priority.

Organization Structure

This is a very organic organization. They do not have a formal organization chart in this company because they want to ensure maximum flexibility. They have an open-door policy in which employees take problems to the people that are most capable of solving them. Routine supervision is almost nonexistent. Lincoln has a fairly flat organization in which there are usually two or three levels of supervision between production workers and the president. Employees are evaluated on quality, dependability, ideas and cooperation, and output. They also have great job security, while also being able to participate in decision-making.

Problem identification

Lincoln Electric does not really seem to have any big problems in their current operations while working under an organic structure, but one problem seems to be the lack of attention that the stockholders get. At Lincoln, the stockholders are given last priority. The whole philosophy behind this is that they think that it will be more profitable than investing money in any other way.

Alternatives considered

Alternatives for this company is to work towards making some of their activities mechanistic while keeping some functions organic. The other alternative is to keep the company going as is with no change. If there is no problem to be fixed, than don’t try fixing it, since it will result in more problems. Once some Harvard Business School researchers made up an organization chart for the company and the management felt that it had a disruptive effect. One big item that they want to consider is to pay a little more attention to the stockholders, which are financing the company.

Alternatives selected and rationale

The alternative selected is to keep the company going like it is with the organic structure.