Case Study

Case Study

Case Study

Summary

After the merging of British Overseas Airways Corporation and British European Airways which formed British Airways, the company had faced many issues and problems. One of the problems encountered by the company is in terms of cultural context. The consequences of culture become particularly apparent in cross national operations, mergers, and acquisitions, where not only different organizational cultures but also organizational cultures rooted in different national cultures meet (1996; 1991). When organizational members from diverse cultures interact and, especially, when one culture is required to adopt the methods and practices of the other culture, disruptive tensions emerge. This summary discusses the issues of BA from 1980's till now.

Employee Relations

These problems and conflicts had a negative effect on the new company. British Airways has been considered as the most notorious company because of its poor service. Furthermore, the company's operation has been affected and in 1980 the company had been regarded to have the worst punctuality record all over European carriers flying from UK and voted as the airline to avoid. This also results in substantial loss of the company.

In order to change its reputation of being an industry with poor services, British Airways had considered major management changes. Known as change management, companies, businesses and working organizations are integrating change into their work system so as to be competitive and be more efficient in satisfying clients or customer needs. According to (Blyton 1998, 2004: 45) change may be referred as the implementation of an innovation, in which the vital role is to improve output through an adaptation of practices. Realizing the value of changing management system of British Airways to become competitive, the Conservative Prime Minister was appointed in 1981 to be the Chairman of British Airways. Under the management of, he imposed changes including the closure of several routes as well as selling off the cargo service and planes. The company also lay off 20,000 staff as part of the change.

New Management

The main objective of the changes imposed by British Airways is to make the company survive in the marketplace and become competitive in the airline industry. The changes imposed by the company had helped the industry to become more customer-oriented by providing quality and excellent services. Through these changes, the company has also been able to improve the relationship of the employees as well as the employee-customer relations. (Thackray 1998:44).The time-consuming and expensive investments as part of the changes also paid off when BA won the prestigious Business Traveler “World's Best Airline award in 1989. The management changes imposed within BA had made the company become more competitive in the UK market. The strategies imposed as well as the human resources management technique has been the key factors why the company had achieved so much and became a strong competitor in the airline industry. Although the management change had been able to enhance the competitiveness of the British Airways, this does not mean that the company is free from any other problems and ...