Inside IBM: Lessons of a Corporate Culture in Action

IBM was the world’s leading provider of information technologies for much of the twentieth century. What made it so successful for such a long time, and what lessons can this iconic corporation teach present-day enterprises? James W. Cortada—a business historian who worked at IBM for many years—pinpoints the crucial role of IBM’s corporate culture. He provides an inside look at how this culture emerged and evolved over the course of nearly a century, bringing together the perspectives of employees, executives, and customers around the world. Through a series of case studies, Inside IBM explores the practices that built and reinforced organizational culture, including training of managers, employee benefits, company rituals, and the role of humor. It also considers the importance of material culture, such as coffee mugs and lapel pins. Cortada argues that IBM’s corporate culture aligned with its business imperatives for most of its history, allowing it to operate with a variety of stakeholders in mind and not simply prioritize stockholders. He identifies key lessons that managers can learn from IBM’s experience and apply in their own organizations today. This engaging and deeply researched book holds many insights for business historians, executives and managers concerned with stakeholder relations, professionals interested in corporate culture, and IBMers.

Table of Contents:
Preface Introduction 1. From Theories of Corporate Cultures to the Realities of Life inside a Global Enterprise Part I. Cases from The Larger Picture of IBM’s Corporate Culture 2. Role of Ethics in Corporate Culture: Enduring Beliefs at IBM 3. “The IBM Way”: Creating and Sustaining a Corporate Image and Reputation 4. Developing Managers in a Multinational Corporation 5. How IBM Prevented Unionization of its American Workforce 6. Corporate Benefits in Boom Periods: IBM’s American Experience 7. Managing A Nearly Invisible Corporate Community: “IBM Families” Part II: Cases from IBM’s Material Culture 8. From Lapel Pins to Coffee Cups: Links Between Corporate and Material Culture 9. Role of Postcards in Supporting IBM’s Image, Marketing, and Information Ecosystem 10. Humor and Corporate Culture: IBM, Cartoons and the Good Laugh 11. Gray Literature in IBM’s Information Ecosystem Part III: How IBM’s Culture Went Global and Endured 12. The Essential Strategy for Corporate Success Author’s Note: In the Spirit of Transparency Notes Index

About the Author :
James W. Cortada is a senior research fellow at the Charles Babbage Institute, University of Minnesota–Twin Cities. He spent nearly forty years at IBM in various sales, consulting, management, and executive positions. His many books include IBM: The Rise and Fall and Reinvention of a Global Icon (2019) and Birth of Modern Facts: How the Information Revolution Transformed Academic Research, Governments, and Business (2023).

Review :
This splendid scholarship—rooted in Cortada’s four decades at IBM and his astute analysis as a historian—offers insights on how everything from market abundances, training, and social events to lapel pins, humor, and coffee mugs shaped and sustained IBM’s corporate culture. Cortada is without question the world’s foremost IBM historian. Inside IBM is a testament to his incredible perceptive skills. Responding to corporate America’s rekindled interest in stakeholder capitalism, this important and timely book shows how, beginning in the early 1900s, the IBM Corporation embodied respect for all of its stakeholders—workers, customers, suppliers, and investors. These values enabled the firm to survive the depression of the 1930s and then dominate the computer industry after World War II. IBM was and remains a hugely successful enterprise. James W. Cortada is a leading historian of the information technology industries and the foremost writer on IBM.