WeWork co-founder Miguel McKelvey was concerned about the culture of his rapidly expanding global venture, as the scale and complexity of the organization increased. In particular, he wanted to ensure that WeWork continued to be a great place to work, both because he cared about WeWork's people and because a better experience of work was core to the company’s brand. In the summer of 2017, he had made a presentation to the company at an all-hands meeting. In it, he proposed the creation of a culture operations team, and that he announced that he would take the title of chief culture officer to lead it. In this case, which describes the founding and growth of WeWork from 2010, we encounter Miguel planning for his new role with co-founder Adam Neumann and envisioning a “culture OS” that he and Adam would use to lead the organization internally -- and to offer as a “product” to scaled enterprise externally.
Keywords: Organizational Culture; Employee Relationship Management; Working Conditions;
Citation:
Rayport, Jeffrey F., Sarah Gulick, and Matthew G. Preble. "WeWork." Harvard Business School Case 818-101, April 2018. View Details