Pernille Fjeld-Hansen

In 2011, Hewlett-Packard announced that Meg Whitman would be the company’s new CEO, the fourth in only six years. This turnover has affected the company’s consistency and performance and has led to costumers, employees and investors to question Hewlett-Packard’s viability and proliferation.

William Hewlett and David Packard’s company soon became famous for their products, but also because of their extraordinary corporate culture.  Employees were empowered and allowed to work flexible hours and encouraged to share their opinion on company issues and policies. This employee-orientated leadership created trust and is what made the employees loyal to the company. William and David were respected leaders and the “HP-way” soon became a guiding principle for many entrepreneurs and managers.

The company has had to adapt to the rapid growth of technology. Mark Hurd tried to change the culture to one of execution and cost control. In addition, one of the inflection points of change was the merge with Compaq in 2002, which brought a more aggressive and competitive culture to the company. However, changing the organizational culture in respond to changes in the environment is not easy in a strong culture. In order to become a successful business again, HP is encouraged to set a stable spectrum of objectives, goals and projects established to take part in the long run in order to restore the stable leadership and culture’s organization.