Organizational Culture at Southwestern Airlines



Organizational Culture at Southwestern Airlines

Introduction

Southwestern Airlines is the oldest budget airline in the world and is known as a pioneer of the concept of low-budget (or low-cost) air. It should be noted that Southwest Airlines was not inventor of the concept (the primacy belongs to the California PSA - Pacific Southwest Airlines, disappeared in 1988). The merit of Southwest is that it is picked up and brought to the success of the revolutionary initiative. Today, Southwest business model is a classic, and all low cost airlines opening up to take her example.

Southwest Airlines has brought to the air transport industry is a lot of innovation. Many of the required attributes of a modern first budget airline have been tried and put it in the airline Southwest. It is the first in the world to abandon paper tickets, early booking sites via the Internet, was used only a single aircraft fleet type, and to land in the cabin on any free space (to shorten the time of parking the aircraft at the airport). Southwest Airlines to perfection brought a basic element of the concept, as the construction of the route network of short flights. At the same time for a quick turnover of aircraft the airline is trying to fly into airports. High productivity is ensured by a unique system of internal corporate culture and employee motivation (Southwest Airlines became the first major airline to have implemented a system of profit sharing between employees of the company).

Question 1

The corporate structure and corporate culture of the organization plays a crucial role in managing the organization and organizational behavior. Structure is the division of tasks among employees, decision-making authority and coordination among employees for achieving goals. There are two categories of structure; hierarchical and flat structure. In a hierarchical structure, there are various authority levels, indirect communication and top management takes decision such as CEO, this structure is a complex structure where there are divisional and matrix structures. Whereas flat structure is a horizontal and simple structure, where there are few management layers and direct communication. Besides this, culture is another aspect that has a direct influence on the employees. There are different cultures such as power culture where there is a single dominating authority. Role culture focus on division of tasks and each employee perform his own task. Person culture focuses on employees support. Task culture focuses on teamwork. Culture reflects the employee-employer relationship (Black 2003, 21).

The model of the southwest is one that empowers people in practice. "We run things by a rule book," Barrett concluded. "For me, it's a lifestyle - you just use common sense.”Success comes down to a few points made by Barrett:

"I do not understand why an employee should have a personality at work and the other outside of work. We hire you for your individuality and do not try to mold you spend six months in the corporate culture”.

"We do not think you should wear high heels and nylons to be ...