Haier: A Maker’s Culture

An organization is defined by its structures and its culture. The behavior and the productivity of the people working within it, and the satisfaction and loyalty of those whom the organization serves, depend on both. Here, I want to describe the Haier “Makers Culture” that underpins that company’s particular way of implementing RenDanHeyi. The driving passion behind Zhang Ruimin’s conception of the RenDanHeyi business model, resulting from a formative experience as very young man, was a desire to set himself and others free. He values “the autonomous individual” and feels that only such individuals can fully develop themselves and realize their best potential. Zhang also feels that these autonomous individuals have a responsibility to others, and that the means necessary to best serve those others (his customers) have radically changed with twenty-first-century technology. Everything about the structural organization of Haier and the emergence of its culture follows from these three premises.