General Electric Company (doing business as GE Aerospace) has an organizational culture that ensures business relevance in the aerospace industry. The company’s organizational culture or corporate culture establishes the customs, traditions, and core values that influence employee behaviors and managerial decision-making. GE’s company culture affects success in managing strategic change in all aspects of the business. Occasionally, General Electric adjusts its cultural characteristics to suit current business needs and industry trends. The resulting organizational culture facilitates business agility in responding to challenges in the market, such as external forces from competitors, like Rolls-Royce and Pratt & Whitney, as shown in the Five Forces analysis of General Electric Company. As a leading aerospace company in the global market, General Electric is an example of a work culture that supports long-term success.
General Electric’s corporate culture is a decision-making factor among employees. For example, in addressing on-the-job problems, management personnel consider how potential solutions for the commercial airline market align with GE’s work culture. This cultural alignment determines the success rate of implementing business solutions. General Electric’s organizational culture relates to external business conditions, while supporting decision-making processes.
General Electric’s Organizational Culture Type & Traits
General Electric has a customer-centric organizational culture. This work culture is based on changes in the aerospace business and its environment. GE’s customer-centric company culture addresses customer needs and preferences, disruptive technologies, and industry trends. The following are the main characteristics of General Electric Company’s organizational culture:
- Customer centricity (highest priority)
- Leanness
- Learning and adaptation
- Empowerment and inspiration
- Results orientation
Customer Centricity. This characteristic of General Electric’s organizational culture addresses customer satisfaction as a critical success factor. Better outcomes for customers are emphasized through this cultural trait. For example, customer centricity supports GE in ensuring accuracy and precision for customers in the avionics market. The company has human resource management programs that train employees in identifying customers’ expectations and in developing business solutions to satisfy such expectations. This trait of the corporate culture contributes to the effectiveness of General Electric’s generic competitive strategy and intensive growth strategies. For instance, customer centricity encourages personnel in GE’s turbojet engine operations to integrate differentiation in product development.
Leanness. General Electric Company maintains cultural support for lean processes, with the objective of rapidly responding to business needs and simplifying processes. This characteristic of the organizational culture addresses the company’s need for operational excellence and simplification for effective management. For example, through lean management, GE minimizes costs and maximizes operational efficiency. This cultural trait increases the company’s strengths against competitors, such as Rolls-Royce and Pratt & Whitney. Leanness affects General Electric’s operations management approach in process and capacity design, supply chain management, and inventory management. This trait of the corporate culture is implemented through HR programs that promote efficiency in employee behavior. Performance evaluations recognize and reward high efficiency among individuals and teams in General Electric’s human resources.
Learning and Adaptation. This cultural trait is based on the HR management objective of enabling employees to improve their capabilities to remain competitive. In this regard, General Electric’s company culture promotes flexibility. For example, as employees learn and adapt to new transportation technologies, GE ensures its workforce flexibility in responding to changes in the transportation industry. This characteristic of the organizational culture contributes to the fulfillment of General Electric’s vision statement and mission statement. Learning and adaptation enable GE to develop capabilities to achieve the envisioned target of being the world’s premier aerospace company.
Empowerment and Inspiration. General Electric’s corporate culture encourages mutually beneficial empowerment and inspiration among employees. For example, GE managers empower employees to become enablers of their colleagues. In addition, GE provides considerable flexibility and autonomy to promote inspirational initiatives among workers. This cultural trait extends beyond the company. For instance, General Electric’s corporate social responsibility (CSR) and ESG strategy for stakeholders involves employees to inspire and empower communities. In this way, the organizational culture promotes the GE brand to target markets around the world.
Results Orientation. High effectiveness in satisfying business needs and customer expectations is a criterion that General Electric managers use in evaluating business performance. In this regard, GE’s organizational culture is results oriented, with emphasis on programs for developing the company’s human resources. For example, this cultural characteristic prompts and rewards General Electric employees for solutions for market and customers’ needs identified through research in the commercial aviation industry. This feature of the business culture ensures GE’s competitiveness in retaining customers. Such a benefit of the organizational culture is significant in highly competitive markets. Results orientation helps General Electric withstand the competitive forces of other aircraft engine manufacturers.
General Electric’s Culture: Advantages & Disadvantages, Recommendations
An advantage of General Electric’s organizational culture is the emphasis on customer satisfaction. This cultural trait helps attract and retain customers and maintain the company’s customer base. In addition, an advantage of GE’s work culture is its support for flexibility through learning and adaptation. This cultural trait is essential in today’s business environment. Learning and adaptation contributes to the business strengths shown in the SWOT analysis of General Electric Company, and to business responsiveness to the rise of disruptive technologies in industries, such as the advancement of digital technologies in the transportation sector.
A disadvantage of General Electric’s corporate culture is its limited prioritization of results orientation. Other cultural characteristics are significant in supporting GE’s business competitive advantages. However, results orientation also determines the company’s ability to fulfill business requirements and customers’ needs. For example, results-oriented management optimizes General Electric’s competitiveness in the aviation market, where speed and effectiveness are crucial to customers’ satisfaction. It is recommended that GE enhance its organizational culture by combining customer orientation with results orientation. This recommendation requires General Electric to implement human resource management programs that support a customer-centric approach to achieving better results.
References
- GE Aerospace Careers.
- GE Aerospace Workforce.
- General Electric Company Form 10-K.
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