The Story of Boeing’s Failed Corporate Culture

The CPA Journal ^ | 2025 | Steven Mintz, PhD and William F. Miller, EdD, CPA

[CondoleezzaProtege]

The Boeing case is a cautionary tale of what can go wrong when a company fails to develop and implement sound internal quality controls that protect operational processes and encourage a culture of safety. At Boeing, whistleblowers reported problems with operating processes that were ignored by management and weren’t always reported to the board of directors. The company did not use internal audits to identify and correct operational problems, relying instead on FAA inspections to point out safety issues in its 737 MAX aircraft. Whistleblower warnings were ignored. Ultimately, Boeing became the target of lawsuits by shareholders and the government, both of whom charged the company with failing to take required action when production flaws were identified. On July 8, 2024, Boeing agreed to plead guilty to fraud and pay up to $487 million to settle charges that it had defrauded the United States for its role in the two fatal crashes. On December 5, 2024, a federal judge rejected the plea because of the way the independent monitor that would oversee safety and quality improvement at Boeing would be selected.

The message that the authors draw from this case is that Boeing placed profits ahead of safety.

▪ the culture that created shortcuts in the production process,
▪ the failure of quality controls to identify and report the problems,
▪ the breakdown in corporate governance systems,
▪ the failure to heed whistleblower warnings,
▪ inspections by the FAA focused on failed quality controls and deficiencies in corporate governance systems,
▪ regulatory actions taken by Congress and the SEC, and
▪ lawsuits against Boeing by the U.S. government.

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TOPICS: Business/Economy
KEYWORDS: 737max; aviation; boeing; corruption; deepstate; planecrash

[Tell It Right]

They call it “Boeing” because that’s the sound they hope the plane makes when it hits the ground.

[dagunk]

1. Boeing became dysfunctional when “managers” started running the place instead of engineers.

2. Boeing lost control of production when “management” moved to Chicago.

Used to be when there was a problem the engineers running the place could just walk over to the production buildings and have a look. No more....

[mund1011]

2. Boeing lost control of production when “management” moved to Chicago.

++++++++

Moving corporate to Chicongo is the perfect shining example of how effing stupid a once awesome company can become. This happened when smart companies are / were barnstorming out of Chicongo and Hellinois.

[ClearCase_guy]

If someone wants to tell me that Boeing is the worst of the worst, I won’t argue.

But Boeing is definitely not unique. I know that some — and I’m guessing ALL — defense contractors are on the exact same path.

[PIF]

"They call it “Boeing” because that’s the sound they hope the plane makes when it hits the ground"


Gerald McBoing-Boing

[Bobbyvotes]

When Boeing hired a woman I knew for its corporate office, back in 1999, I had a hunch Boeing was downhill in future. This woman was biggest bull shixxer without any depth. But she was very friendly.

[pierrem15]

All public US corporations: the emphasis is always on "plumping" the quarterly profits to please investors and cash in on stock options and bonuses.

The "MBA" reflects this, as though there were a generic managerial skill that, by running a spreadsheet, magically lets you run everything from a missile manufacturer, to a furniture maker to a restaurant chain. Which is to say, all these companies are run by financial wolves who know nothing about production or services but only know how to squeeze as much short term profit as possible by cutting costs and quality (safety or the law be damned), selling tech to Chinese competitors, until the empty husk goes bankrupt and, like locusts, they move on to loot another company.

Take a look at the "entshittification curve":

https://www.oreilly.com/radar/where-is-ai-on-the-enshittification-curve/

[rdcbn1]

Boeing corporate culture was killed by militant unions, complacent lazy and entitled employees, an outsourcing plan that hollowed out Boeing's manufacturing capability, turned them into an integrator of parts made by others and that left them hostage to outside suppliers.

This was followed by a management team that should be selling laundry detergent instead of aircraft. Frankly the Boeing ship of was steered into the reef by

[Bonemaker]

The CEO alledgedly moved it to shitcago because his wife liked to shop on North Michigan avenue.

[zeestephen]

The ONLY problem at Boeing was bowing down to DEI cultural norms, and bad luck.

They had hundreds of planes, built inside the same time frames, that flew without any safety issues at all.

In my opinion, the Ethiopia crash and the Indonesia crash were caused by the negligence, or by the deliberate acts, of two, or more, of the four Muslim pilots.

The emergency door blow out in 2024 was bad luck, plus still unexplained negligence.

The cost to Boeing has been a financial catastrophe.

$20 billion in fines and law suits.

1,200 canceled plane orders.

[bigbob]

Who were Jack Welch protégées..and who changed the culture from one of quality to one of financial bullshit.

[kaktuskid]

We used to have another major producer of aircraft in this country...until somebody allowed Boeing to take them over.

[Campion]

They weren’t very good (cf the DC-10’s history) and a lot of their bad aspects got integrated into Boeing in the merger.

[Campion]

They need to take a few lessons from Toyota. They sound like they’re a long way from a TQM (”total quality management”) environment. I’m frankly surprised that they haven’t built that into every aspect of their corporate culture.

[Sequoyah101]

You have nailed the whole of MBAs precisely. I can’t add to it. Quarterly goals instead of legacy profits kill companies. They are simply a harvest process that goes until the company is too weak to recover. By then the guilty managers have moved on leaving the wreck to someone else.

Sounds a lot like politicians doesn’t it? Thune for example, does not give one whit about improvement or expedience. Time and timeliness do not matter to him, he gets the same result either way. He only cares about his power and money and Thune. Make no mistake, senior management is the same way and they are slick enough to keep their true agenda hidden for as long as they can. The board is clueless or in on the scam.

[pierrem15]

Exactly: the politicians are the same or come out of the same managerial class as the executives: their emphasis is also on short-term gain and personal profit, little else.

That's also why so little is new (look at Hollywood's "reboots"). They don't even look at the product or know how it's made: they look at their existing business and simply see where costs can be cut or current product can be recycled to avoid risk and garner profits.

Trump is shaking up this whole manure spreading operation that pretends to be a republican political regime and a first-rate economy, which is why they hate him.

[kaktuskid]

They need to take a few lessons from Toyota

Like making every vehicle they sell look like a robot anime?

[Bonemaker]

Was it Lockheed? I hate those corporate mergers...a lot of people always get the lavender shaft while others get filthy rich.

[Pelham]

McDonnell Douglas