...The purpose of this case analysis is to analyze the culture of Lincoln Electric Company. According to Harvard Case Study by Arthur Sharplin, this company is the world’s largest manufacturer of welding machines and electrodes. Let’s look at the Continuing Influence of the Founders of the Company. John C. Lincoln business was incorporated but in 1906 and he expanded his workforce to 30 and sales grew to over $50,000 a year. James F. Lincoln joined the company still small and he became the General Manager and Vice –President of the company. Employee morale and productivity remained with higher profits and bonuses and Lincoln’s market share is stable. When the advisory Board came into power, between 1915 and 1917, a paid-up life insurance policy was given by the company to the employee and a welding school was begun. In 1918, an employee bonus was attempted. In 1919, the Lincoln Electric Employees’ association was formed. In addition, the Board of Directors voted to start a suggestion system in 1929. The legendary Lincoln bonus plan was proposed by the Advisory Board and accepted on a trial basis by James Lincoln in 1934. The golden rule emphasizes on James Lincoln’s Christian ethics which he says “Treat People as you would like to be Treated” “In his words, he says if the Christian ethics control our acts, the savings in the cost of distribution will be tremendous.” In his view, the customer should always come first. Lincoln’s Incentive Management Plan was defined by the company’s...
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...Lincoln Electric Case Analysis Situation: Through the year 1974, the Lincoln Electric Company experienced rapid growth in net income and overall sales. Though a small company, Lincoln Electric was able to dominate the welding market by focusing on reducing costs and raising quality. These goals were achieved by rewarding employees with an innovative financial incentive program. Lincoln Electric paid their employees a base salary that was slightly lower than market. However, all employees were included in a merit-based profit sharing program. This program rewarded hard-working, efficient, and quality-conscious employees with big bonuses that could potentially equal up to 100% of their full-time salary. After having gone through an initial work probation period, all employees were guaranteed employment. One of the founders of the company, James F. Lincoln, believed that competition was a fundamental foundation of employee development. He set up a system that would reward the hardest working and most efficient workers with large financial prizes. The workers were encouraged to skip smoking breaks, take short lunches, and work as quickly as possible, while still paying attention to quality standards. Though challenging, the work environment was viewed favorably by the employees who were interviewed for this case. All respondents admitted that there were serious deficiencies in the system, but that it was generally favorable. The employees accepted that...
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...Home Page » Business and Management Lincoln Electric Case Analysis In: Business and Management Lincoln Electric Case Analysis Lincoln Electric case 1. Explain how the human resource (HR) policies of Lincoln Electric are linked to its overall corporate strategy. Would you say that HR is a source of competitive advantage at Lincoln Electric? Lincoln Electric’s competitive advantage is in manufacturing of quality products at a lower cost than their competitors. As stated in the case, their strategy was to concentrate on reducing costs and passing the savings through to the customer by continuously lowering prices. This resulted in expansion of both market share and primary demand for arc welding equipment, primary demand for arc welding equipment and supplies, and encouraged exit of major companies from the industry. The management system also incorporated an incentive compensation method. The reward system was premised on the belief that one’s fullest potential can be realized through an effective incentive system that is designed to build teamwork but at the same time encourage individual competition among team members. Through this system, the company is able to build employee loyalty but even more importantly match the HR policy with their overall strategy of high quality products produced at the lowest possible cost to the company. The company endeavors to share in the cost saving by the employee bonus system and low cost of the final products to the...
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...permission policies, is available at http://journals.informs.org/. Labor Market Institutions and Global Strategic Adaptation: Evidence from Lincoln Electric Jordan I. Siegel, Barbara Zepp Larson Harvard Business School, Harvard University, Boston, Massachusetts 02163 {jsiegel@hbs.edu, blarson@hbs.edu} A lthough one of the central questions in the global strategy field is how multinational firms successfully navigate multiple and often conflicting institutional environments, we know relatively little about the effect of conflicting labor market institutions on multinational firms’ strategic choice and operating performance. With its decision to invest in manufacturing operations in nearly every one of the world’s largest welding markets, Lincoln Electric offers us a quasi-experiment. We leverage a unique data set covering 1996–2006 that combines data on each host country’s labor market institutions with data on each subsidiary’s strategic choices and historical operating performance. We find that Lincoln Electric performed significantly better in countries with labor laws and regulations supporting manufacturers’ interests and in countries that allowed the free use of both piecework and a discretionary bonus. Furthermore, we find that in countries with labor market institutions unfriendly to manufacturers, Lincoln Electric was still able to overcome most (although not all) of the institutional distance by what we term flexible intermediate adaptation. Key words:...
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...interested in doing research on the company becauseresearcher wanted to learn more about control system especially managementcompensation, both theoretical and practical. Lincoln Electric Company one of companies has realize the method of control system especially managementcompensation in their company.In the Lincoln Electric Company, researcher get knowledge of control systemespecially management compensation, particularly its association with corporate profits. However, in its application is often the application of compensation hasexperienced various problems and constraints. So also happened in the LincolnElectric Company.Every company absolutely has a strategy to sustainable them company. The top priority of Lincoln is customer. Company always sensitive with consumer needs.Certainly, the firm’s customer wants to get the best price and the best quality. And, product of Lincoln fulfill it. Lincoln also concerns employee and stockholders needs.Management compensation always was determined by a wage survey of similar jobsin Cleveland area where the company do operational process. Lincoln ElectricCompany is a good example for other company which is concern to customer,employee and stockholders. Not all company like Lincoln Electric Company. So, because of that, we choose Lincoln Electric’s Case. 1.2 Motivation Researcher motivation to conduct research on issues of control systemespecially management compensation in the Lincoln Electric Company because 2 researcher wanted to know...
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...The Lincoln Electric Company An inventor by the name of John C. Lincoln designed and developed the electric motor in such a way that it could not be topped by any competitor; however, his passion for inventing kept him from wanting to manage the company he created. So in 1907 John hired his brother, James F. Lincoln, to manage the plant and this is when it all started, the success and growth of a billion dollar company. The Lincoln Electric Company, the world’s largest arc-welding manufacture and top producer of industrial electric motors, now employees over 4000 people and sales have topped $1 billion. But, how did they gain this overwhelming prosperity? Many have tried to figure it out, even studies have been conducted on Lincoln Electric’s organizational structure, James’ incentive management practices, and the keys to their success, and still no one has mastered it. They still operate today the same way they did year’s ago and it is working...for them. However, what does the future hold for Lincoln Electric? Will they be able to keep up with their high demand of productivity without lowering employee job satisfaction? We will examine different factors of Lincoln Electric such as the companies communication between employees, their problem solving techniques, and their conflicts, but the two most important factors we will analyze are: The incentive reward system - Its pro’s and con’s An effective organizational change process to position the firm’s incentives...
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...Lincoln Electric expansion to India Name Institution Affiliation Date Market entry strategy involves the essential requirement for a company to get into international level. The need of involving other companies whereby two companies join together is referred to as joint venture entry. They get into a similar market and make the same production with the aim of sharing risk and at the same time they share the profit according to their terms of agreement (Kretzberg, 2007). Therefore, Lincoln Electric Company has a chance to join with other company to venture in the Indian market. Through the joint venture strategy in Indian market, Lincoln Electric has a chance of attracting wider market share in the region. The major consideration is done through extensive study of the market situation through various considerations. Market environment has a wide consideration depending on the factors such as political, social and economic integration. The basic considerations that Lincoln Company has to consider are directed in achievement in the market increase (Hastings, 1995). Concerning the Indian market structure, introduction of welding company is essential in reference to the technological improvement. The factors concerning the technology in the region, it covers the different aspects especially in developing market. While considering joint venture strategy in international market, the major considerations are made depending on business environment. This involves political...
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...CASE ANALYSIS LINCOLN ELECTRIC: VENTURING ABROAD First of all, Indonesia has a huge population and its economy has been growing rapidly over the years with a great deal construction going on. And, the market for welding products is large, but unsophisticated. Generally, the consumers use hand held stick welders rather than the semiautomatic or fully automatic machines, but Lincoln electric could break this trend with its expansion all around the country. There could be variety of entry methods. Ownership of a manufacturing venture and establishing a joint venture are the leading ones. Ownership of a manufacturing venture seems to be problematical if you are entering a market which is quite different from your original culture. If you don’t have a local expertise and relationships with the key people in the business and the government, you will probably have difficult times while setting up your business. And, Lincoln Electric has failed before in the 90’s due to the ignorance of other cultures, so the company should not make the same mistake one more time. At this point, joint venture seems to be a great idea for entering Indonesian market. It would provide access to partner’s local expertise and strong relationships within the business and the government. These would be crucial during the process of constructing the factory and for operations and distribution. As it is given in the case possible joint venture partners are Lincoln’s two local distributors: Tira Austenite...
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...562 P AR T 6 C ONTROLLING with prosecuting everyone.” Every time he pressed charges against a shoplifter who’d made off with a $10 item, Westwind lost money. The company had to engage a lawyer and pay employees overtime for their court appearances. In addition, Chris was looking at hiring more security guards to keep up with the workload. Westwind was already in a battle it was losing at the moment with the mass retailers who were competing all too successfully on price, so passing on the costs of its zero-tolerance policy to customers wasn’t really an option. “Let’s concentrate on catching dishonest employees and those organized theft rings. They’re the ones who are really hurting us,” Chris concluded. There was a long pause after Chris finished his carefully prepared speech. Ross thought about his recently deceased father, both an astute businessman and a person for whom honesty was a key guiding principle. If he were sitting here today, he’d no doubt say that theft was theft, that setting a minimum was tantamount to saying that stealing was acceptable just as long as you don’t steal too much. He looked at Chris. “You know, we’ve both got teenagers. Is this really a message you want to send out, especially to kids? You know as well as I do that there’s nothing they like better than testing limits. It’s almost an invitation to see if you can beat the system.” But then Ross faltered as he found himself glancing at the latest financial figures on his desk—another in a...
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...9-707-445 REV: AUGUST 25, 2008 JORDAN SIEGEL Lincoln Electric Introduction John Stropki, CEO of Lincoln Electric, returned home from Mumbai to company headquarters in Cleveland, having sampled the local Maharashtran delicacies while studying opportunities in the Indian market. From his vantage point in 2006, Stropki looked back on his company’s more than 100 years in the welding equipment and consumables industry with pride, wondering whether a strong push into India should be the next step in his company’s globalization. An India expansion had been considered for several years, but thus far the company had focused on growing its operations in China and elsewhere around the globe. If Stropki were to approve a significant allocation of resources toward an India expansion, he wondered what would be the best way to enter. He had a wealth of company lessons and experiences to apply to the India investment decision, as his company had had international operations since the 1940s, had struggled internationally in the late 1980s and early 1990s, and had gone on to regain its global competitive advantage in the late 1990s and early 2000s. During Stropki’s tenure as CEO since 2004, the company had further expanded globally and by 2006 owned manufacturing operations in 19 countries across five continents. Most recently, the company had enjoyed increasing success in China as a result of its aggressive expansion through both a joint venture and set of majority-owned...
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...1. What is Lincoln Electric’s strategy? Lincoln Electric’s strategy relies on its low cost to manufacture and low overhead. The company has been able to achieve this by continually improving its labor productivity. Its innovative management style and incentive based pay system has been at the core of Lincoln’s strategy. The company’s success relied heavily on the culture in which it created. The founder was focused on erasing any heirarchical distinctions and creating an environment that fostered production and innovation through trust, openness and shared control. To gain the employees trust, Lincoln sought to gurantee the workers employment by instituting policy prohibiting lay-offs. They did this by producing invnetory and if demand didn’t pick-up would scale back employee hours. This was not only an efficient model, but reduced overhead costs otherwise endured by competitors. Lincoln was not faced with the costs associated to recruiting and the retraining of its workers. The company fostered creativity with its open-door policy by allowing its experienced production workers to openly share complaints and ideas for improvement with management. An Advisory Board elected employee representatives to share feedback, which was later posted on bulletin boards throughout the facility. Many of the company’s workers are hired straight from high school and trained to perform in many roles. To further gain loyalty from its workforce, many of Lincoln’s executives were employees...
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...Ford Motor Company (Case Analysis) Group #6- TGAA TTH 1:00 Member 1- Taylor O’Neill Member 2- Knyra Ratcliff Member 3- Alex Perkins Member 4- Xu Han Member 5- Kevin Carter Member 6- Alex Dundon/ Nick Tran Presentation Date: 11/17/15 Introduction Our group has chosen Ford Motor Company as our case analysis subject. Ford is an American multinational automaker and was founded by Henry Ford in 1903. Ford Motor Company is the second largest automaker in the United States and is also the fifth largest automaker in the world. Throughout the paper we will be sharing background information of the company such as the vision statement, mission statement, company history, the industry, and our company’s strategy. We will also be sharing the elements of Ford’s internal and external environment (includes historical and competitor financial information), problem statements, possible alternative solutions to those problems, and our recommendations as to which alternative solutions would be best used in response to the problems at hand. Towards the end of our case analysis on Ford Motor Company there is a visual present for both the SWOT analysis and the grand strategy matrix. We have provided appropriate and significant content in completion of this case analysis. Background Vision Statement “To become the world's leading Consumer Company for automotive products and services. (Homepage, 2015)” Mission Statement “One Team. People working together as a lean, global enterprise...
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...Business Analysis Part III MGT 521 June 18, 2012 Business Analysis Part III The focus of this paper will be to review recent economic trends and how these trends have and influencing the company. How strategic initiatives taken by Ford pertain to both operational and organizational revisions, as well as, tactics that have been or could be implemented by the Ford to reach their strategic goals. Conversely, a review of the role human resource management plays in aiding the company in the achievement of its business goals, concluding with a review of the salient points. Economic Trends and Strategies In 2009, Ford’s sales and revenues (in millions) were at $103,868 for automotive sales and $12,415 for financial service, for a total of $116,283. However, global economic trends influencing the Ford Motor company for 2010 did show increased sales and revenues by $12.671 (OneFord - Ford Motor Company, 2010). Nevertheless, in the most recent annual report from 2011, it has been shown that while the total returns to shareholders for the 2010 fiscal year were slightly higher than those in 2011, Ford has continued to show an increase in total company sales and revenues, in the automotive sector, sales were also up by $8,888. That being said, the year-end sector balance sheet data shows Fords 2011 total assets at being $179.248 (Ford Motor Company, 2011). Decline in sales from previous years was in part due declining product sales...
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...TAX TREATMENT OF PRIVATE JET EXPENSES Facts: Alex Jones owns a small software company, Find Donuts, Inc in Michigan. A patent on a smartphone application named Find Donuts which is designed to locate donuts shops, is the only asset of Find Donuts, Inc. With the intention of promoting the sales of the Find Donuts smartphone app and increasing company revenue, Alex Jones attended a computer conference in June 2010, in San Francisco. Alex also owns a Christmas tree farm in Oregon. Primary purpose of this farm being profit but not leisure, it qualifies as a business to be reported in Schedule C of Alex’s federal income tax return. In December 2010, Alex paid a visit to this farm to oversee the sales of trees. In July 2010, Alex flew to Honolulu, Hawaii to supervise the construction of two additional bedrooms to a house he owns there. He leases this house to a couple, and they operate the house as bed and breakfast (B&B). Those two newly constructed bedrooms were an addition to their B&B. For the above trips he made to San Francisco, Oregon and Hawaii in 2010, Alex used his Lear jet that he purchased in 2000 for 1 million. Each trip cost him $ 100,000. Issues: Does the operational cost for Alex Jones’ jet for the above three trips qualify to be deducted as a necessary or ordinary business expense incurred in conducting a trade or business under IRC Sec. 162? Conclusions: Alex Jones’s expense of $300,000 made in using his Lear jet to travel to three...
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