BRITISH AIRWAYS

British Airways

British Airways

Introduction

This paper presents a solution for the case study of British Airways. The story of British Airways is one of the most widely used inspirational accounts of changing culture. Throughout the 1980s and 1990s it was used to demonstrate the necessary compatibility of pleasure and profits in celebratory accounts where culture change is presented as the only explanation for the transformation that occurred. This corrective makes no attempt to deny the very substantial changes that took place in BA. Rather, it sets these in context noting the organisation's environment at the time of the transformation, the structural changes that took place and observes the impact that such changes had over the long term. (Legge, 1995)

Today, nearly twenty years after the publication of the (in)famous In Search of Excellence, the notion of 'cultural change' within organisations continues to excite attention. This continuing attraction is readily understood, since cultural interventions offer practitioners the hope of a universal panacea to organisational ills and academics an explanatory framework that enjoys the virtues of being both partially true and gloriously simple. Such a combination is apparent in the way that many attempts to shape organisational culture are presented to the public: as simple stories with happy endings. (Legge, 1995)

a) Contrast the changes in employment relations

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.  (Legge, 1995)

And this happened between the employees of the two merging industries (BOAC and BEA).  This problem can be described as acculturative stress or culture clash . The costly resulted from the differences of the personnel. For example, the employees of BOAC were described by BEA staff as aloof, and certainly ill-equipped with the knowledge of the intensively competitive airline industries.  On the other hand, BOAC were snobbish with the staff of BEA thinking that flights to the European mainland were for tradesmen while long haul air travel was for the province of the gentleman.  The opposing ideas and beliefs of each of the employee was the cause of the problems encountered by British Airways after the merging.

Another problem or issue faced by British Airways is in terms of its imposed management system. (Legge, 1995) The British Airways implement a very hierarchical, inflexible and preoccupied with status differences which can be seen in their staff uniforms. The company is also having a problem because of its being rules-oriented.  In addition, another problem that arises is the inability of the management of the new company to see and satisfy the needs ...