HP's Learning Organization: The HP Way Redefined
This paper examines Hewlett-Packard's organizational evolution through the lens of learning organization theory, adhocracy, and strategic reframing. Drawing on Peter Senge's five disciplines, Henry Mintzberg's taxonomy of organizational structures, and Bolman and Deal's four-frame model, the paper traces HP's transformation from an entrepreneurial, flat-structured start-up to a multinational conglomerate. It contrasts HP's organizational culture with rigidly hierarchical models, considers the impact of shareholder influence on company values, and argues that employee ownership and empowerment — as demonstrated by companies such as Southwest Airlines and Patagonia — are key drivers of genuine learning organizations. The paper ultimately challenges the case study's implied inevitability of cultural erosion as companies scale.
- Introduction: HP's Organizational Journey: HP's evolution from startup to multinational conglomerate
- Hewlett-Packard as an Adhocracy: Mintzberg's adhocracy framework applied to early HP
- Contrasting Models: Hierarchy vs. Learning Organization: The Firm as counterpoint to HP's culture
- Senge's Five Disciplines and HP: HP evaluated through Senge's learning organization theory
- Bolman and Deal's Four Frames Applied to HP: Four-frame reframing model for HP's strategic planning
- Conclusion: Shareholder Influence and the High Road: Shareholder pressure vs. employee-centered organizational values
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What makes this paper effective
- It integrates multiple theoretical frameworks — Mintzberg's adhocracy, Senge's five disciplines, and Bolman and Deal's four frames — coherently around a single case, demonstrating conceptual range without losing focus.
- The use of a contrasting example (the law firm in The Firm) sharpens the definition of a learning organization by illustrating what one is not, a technique that strengthens analytical clarity.
- The conclusion moves beyond description to take a position, arguing that companies can maintain strong employee values while remaining competitive, and supporting it with real-world examples like Southwest Airlines and Patagonia.
Key academic technique demonstrated
The paper demonstrates effective use of conceptual contrast as an analytical tool. Rather than simply applying theoretical frameworks to HP in isolation, the author pairs each framework with a counterexample — Bendini, Lambert & Lock for learning organization theory, and publicly traded firms for ownership-culture arguments — making the theoretical claims more persuasive and the analysis more dynamic.
Structure breakdown
The paper opens with a contextual introduction situating HP's evolution, then applies Mintzberg's adhocracy framework to HP's formative years. A mid-section contrast using The Firm sets up the learning organization discussion, which draws directly on Senge. Bolman and Deal's reframing model is then applied to HP's strategic planning context. The conclusion pivots to a normative argument about shareholder influence and employee ownership, grounding abstract theory in observable corporate examples.
Introduction: HP's Organizational Journey
"Coming together is a beginning; keeping together is progress; working together is success." — Henry Ford
The case study Human Resources at Hewlett-Packard presents a portrait of an evolving organization that moved from its earliest base as a small privately owned company with a single manufacturing focus to a multinational conglomerate with multiple lines of business. Like many start-ups, in its early years the company ethos exemplified that of its entrepreneurial founders. Entrepreneurs are often characterized by their capacity to have a hand in all facets of the organization, including human resources, and this was the situation at Hewlett-Packard for several decades.
The case study presents a scenario in which the new CEO must address task force findings and questions about the viability of "the HP Way" and its role in employee engagement, strategic planning for the multinational context in which Hewlett-Packard now competes, and the evolution of a mature company in a mature industry. That Hewlett-Packard has changed over the years, morphing into an organizational structure that bears little resemblance to its original form, is not surprising. Nor is the distress that long-time employees feel with regard to these changes.
The case study moves in the direction of communicating the inevitability of the company's evolution, given the degree of change in the competitive landscape. After all, the case study seems to implore, how could Hewlett-Packard remain the same when it has gone through so many iterations that it is not even in the same business? Moreover, the case study provides a thorough summary of Hewlett-Packard's corporate history, in which those iterations stand out against a background of technological changes that acted as catalysts for the company's successive redefinitions.
Hewlett-Packard as an Adhocracy
In its early years — specifically during the period when the company focused on electronic test and measurement instruments — Hewlett-Packard could well be described as an adhocracy. Alvin Toffler first popularized the term in 1970, and it is now commonly used to refer to the management structure of particular organizations. According to Robert H. Waterman, Jr., an adhocracy is "any form of organization that cuts across normal bureaucratic lines to capture opportunities, solve problems, and get results" (Waterman, 1990, p. 42).
Henry Mintzberg subsequently refined the idea and developed a taxonomy of organizational management structures. According to Mintzberg, an adhocracy is a counterpoint to bureaucracy — a complex and dynamic organizational form that would increasingly be found in the future (1994). Mintzberg argued that, as an organizational form, an adhocracy fosters problem solving and innovation, thriving in a diverse environment. He further suggested that the characteristics of an adhocracy were unique to the form and included, among others, the following attributes:
(1) A highly organic structure; (2) little formalization of behavior; (3) job specialization based on formal training; (4) a tendency to group specialists in functional units for administrative purposes but to deploy them in small, market-based project teams to do their work; (5) a reliance on liaison devices to encourage mutual adjustment within and between these teams; (6) low standardization of procedures; (7) roles not clearly defined; (8) selective decentralization; (9) work organization resting on specialized teams; (10) power shifting to specialized teams; and (11) horizontal job specialization (Mintzberg, 1994).
As with Hewlett-Packard in its formative years, there is an absence of rigid hierarchy, with all members of the organization having the authority and responsibility within their areas of specialization to make decisions in a coordinated and collaborative fashion, and to assume responsibility for taking actions that would affect the future success of the organization (Mintzberg, 1994).
Contrasting Models: Hierarchy vs. Learning Organization
As difficult as things must have seemed to Hewlett-Packard employees watching their culture erode into a leaner, meaner, and more impersonal conglomerate, the situation was significantly worse for Mitch McDeere in his junior position at Bendini, Lambert & Lock in the film The Firm. The movie illustrates a number of important contrasts with the adhocracy model, the most prominent of which is a rigid hierarchy — an attribute of any large law firm. Junior-level employees in law firms typically toil long hours for little compensation, the carrot being the promise of eventually becoming a partner. The firm has no incentive to change any of its time-tested and lucrative practices, nor is it interested in participatory management. Nonetheless, the partners at Bendini, Lambert & Lock do encourage McDeere to be creative — one might read that as innovative — in his efforts at tax loophole creation for major clients (Metzger et al., 1993). Bendini, Lambert & Lock stands as a direct counterpoint to Hewlett-Packard. If there is anything that firm is not, it is a learning organization.
Conclusion: Shareholder Influence and the High Road
The most fundamental relevance of the HP situation described in the case study is the impact that shareholders can have on a company's ethos. Whether a company is privately held or publicly traded, shareholders can wield an inordinate influence on how the company is operated. When profits become the primary focus, the values truly held by the company — as evidenced by its practices — are typically not the values the company claims to espouse. Nor does shareholder influence promote a foundation for a learning organization, in which leadership is critical to effective alignment between vision and the manner in which the company achieves that vision.
Having studied the relevant literature, I oppose the direction the case study takes, and I assert that a company can take the high road with regard to employee relations and still be competitive. My argument is based largely on awareness of a number of prominent companies that are doing precisely that. Those companies that most effectively exhibit the generally accepted attributes of a learning organization tend to be those in which employees have meaningful ownership stakes or strong cultural investment — companies such as Patagonia, Zappos, and Southwest Airlines. This is not to say that these organizations do everything right — they are as fallible as their leaders — but the dynamic of employees feeling genuine ownership over the company for which they work has a crucial impact on the way employees are viewed and treated.
Southwest Airlines is one of the most studied examples of the learning organization type. Through the leadership of Herb Kelleher, Southwest thrived where other airlines did not. Many of Kelleher's tenets carry a familiar ring: (1) Create a culture that nurtures and affords constant change; (2) interact with employees on a level playing field to ensure humility; (3) make work fun; and (4) empower employees to make decisions and continually inspire an entrepreneurial spirit (Darling et al., 2007).
References
Bolman, L. G., & Deal, T. E. (2008). Reframing organizations: Artistry, choice and leadership. Jossey-Bass.
Darling, J., Gabrielsson, M., & Seristo, H. (2007). Enhancing contemporary entrepreneurship: A focus on management leadership. European Business Review, 19(1), 4–22.
Metzger, M. B., Dalton, D., & Hill, J. W. (1993). The organization of ethics and the ethics of organizations: The case for expanded organizational ethics audits. Business Ethics Quarterly, 27(3).
Mintzberg, H. (1994). The rise and fall of strategic planning: Reconceiving the roles for planning, plans, planners. Free Press.
Senge, P. (1990). The fifth discipline: The art & practice of the learning organization. Doubleday.
Waterman, R. H. (1990). Adhocracy: The power to change. Whittle Direct Books.
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