Organizational Environment and Behavior of British Airways - Research Paper Example

Organizational environment and behavior of British AirwaysAbstract This case study highlights the company British Airways. A detail discussion of this organization and its background is mentioned here. The company started in 1974. With the merger of four other airline company have made British large. The company follows a particular organizational structure which has a huge impact on its growth. In this case detail knowledge of the organizational environment of the company is given. This case also highlights the strategies and process which the company follows for achieving its success. Introduction In the modern era of globalization Aviation industry is growing rapidly. This industry has many players with a strong competition among themselves. .British Airways is the largest airlines company of United Kingdom. The company was founded in 1974. Its headquarters is in London. Based on the Fleet size British Airways is the largest airlines. In 1972 British Airways Board was established by the government of UK for managing two nationalized airlines company. British European Airways, British Overseas Airways Corporation, Northeast Airlines and Cambrian Airways are the four airlines companies who merged together and formed the aviation company British Airways. Initially for thirteen years the company was owned by the state government. In 1987 the company was privatized. British Airways is the founding member of the third largest airlines alliance that is Oneworld. This company provides international flights to international destinations. It has flight service around 550 destinations in all over the world. It gives the customers excellent food service along with many other options for like games, TV, music, etc for satisfying its customers. The company is registered in London Stock Exchange. British Airways has established contract to combine itself with the Iberia Airlines. The company expanded its business through different acquisitions and mergers. Until 2008 this firm was the largest airline company by the number of passengers. The company has its strong presence in Gatwick Airport. BA CityFlyer is the subsidiary of British Airways and it is the largest operator in London. The success of the company depends largely on the commitment and motivation of its employees. Collaborative work environment British Airways is a large organization with a huge number of employees. It is one of the largest airline companies of the world. The company provides many benefits to its staffs which motivates them in their work. British Airways creates a sense of value among its employees which enrich the working environment of the company. The company trains the employee in multitasking jobs. The firm has a strong collaboration with its global team which helps to solve their problems and disputes. Team work is also an important part of the company. It influences the work structure of the company and increase the competence of the employees. British Airways creates a family like work environment which contributes a lot in the team building activities of the company. It helps in creating strong bonding among the workers. The organization has an approachable management system. The employee gets a good growth scope. The team leaders of the organization communicate with the team members in an effective way which helps to manage and overcome different risks of the company. All the departments and division of the company are interlinked. As a result a strong analysis of business risks and problems are done efficiently. Customer satisfaction is the most important thing in this business. Therefore British airways train all its employees in such a way so that the company’s work environment supports its customer’s satisfaction. The organization has many strategies which help to solve conflicts among the employees. It reduces the tensions in the work environment which helps British Airways to deliver productive work. The company also focuses on the health and well being of its employees for maintaining collaborative work environment. The British Airlines have different policies and strategies facilitating its employees. This helps them to feel valuable and increase their dedication toward the company. The organizational communication process of this airlines company is very strong and effective. Both upward and downward communications across the organizational level are done. It influences the working environment of the company in a positive way. Clear and effective communication creates transparency in the work process which helps the company to experience a peaceful work environment. The decision making process of British Airways is very participative. The employee contribution is very high which creates a collaborative working environment in British Airways. Approach in team-building and innovation The British Airway is an employee friendly company. It provides training to its employee and continuously develops their skills, capabilities and knowledge. These benefit the employees by building a strong ground of their career. The employee combines together in different teams and performs their work. The strong culture of the company influences the employees in building effective communication within the organization. British Airways training program enhance the business knowledge and excellence of the employees. It helps them to analyze the technical abilities. The formal training of the organization solves many issues of the business by providing effective team work. The team work of the company creates a positive impact on the organizational communication of British Airways. Employees working in a team are well trained which helps them to maintain organizational communication properly. In the decision making process of the company the team and its members participate a lot. They analyze the company policies and strategies before taking any decisions. Effective communication plays an important role in the decision making process. Often the British airways provide many training program focusing on a particular problem and its solutions. It motivates the employees in overcoming those issues. The company also provides training to its employees for satisfying its customers. Through various training programs British Airways shows a clear path to its employees. It includes their role in the organization, responsibilities, promotions, opportunities etc. The leaders of the team provide support to his team members and help them to become expertise in their role. It establishes a positive impact on British Airways to innovate many new things for developing their business with the help of their expert employees. The strong internal communication of this company deals with informing its employees about all the matters affecting the business and their team work. The company organizes major conferences and events for facilitating effective communication among all the team members. Exchanging their views initiate the development of new ideas within the team which helps to increase the productivity of the teams. The company promotes team communication by maintaining diversity and equality among its employees. British Airways spent a huge amount of money in the development of this employees and motivating them in their work. The team leaders always coordinate with its team members and upper levels of management for the progress of their work. Required changes in operations The organizational culture of British Airways has changes after privatization. The company has replaced its historical believes and values by introducing corporate culture. It has introduced new appraisal system and training programs to improve the company’s performance and accepting changes (Barjasic, 2010). The present corporate culture of the organization is features with informality. Innovation has become a major part of British Airways culture. Participative management is supported by this culture. It helps to promote profit oriented plans. The firm’s culture also influences the recruitment process of the company. The pilots and managers are recruited form specific organizations which creates an impact on company’s culture. The corporate culture of the company enables it to be in the competitive market and provide a good quality of services to its customers. By the three phase model of planned change British Airways can include three stages of changes in its organization. These changes include unfreezing, refreezing and movement. In the unfreezing change the company needs to change the present behavior pattern to manage the resistance regarding the change. This will improve the company performance. In the movement stage British Airway will make change which will develop the organizational program and the tactics. It will help to bring a clear vision to all the management levels and the employees. The organization in its refreezing stage can stabilize the changes by implementing systems which will create behavioral pattern. Leadership is an important factor of the British Airways. The company has done many improvement programs for implementing strong leadership (Punzel, 2013). The leaders of British Airways gives emphasis on different experiments related to managing the workforce and the work process. The company’s advanced leadership website delivers training and information to the employees. The organization’s main focus on the expansion of leadership and the training has contributed a lot in its development. The efficient and effective leadership’s support helps to promote different innovative ideas of the employees. Strong leadership unites all the employee of the British Airways and creates a strong organizational culture. The innovation process of the company largely depends on the organizational communication and on the team work (Allen, 1995). The employees receive proper training which helps them to enhance their skills and abilities. They work in a team under the guidance of their specific leaders. Effective communication with all the team members initiate in producing innovative ideas through the process of exchanging views which is only possible by strong communications. British Airways need to some of its managerial systems and official actions which create negative effects on the moral of its employees. This can lead to the rise of conflict among them which will reduce the growth of the company. Rise of these negative feelings will damage the working environment of the company. Rational persuasion of the employee by the management and the leaders will help to implement this change British Airways can face resistance from the employees who gains advantage from the conflicts. Mission statement, code of ethics, and organizational chart The mission of British Airways is to provide service at in an affordable price which will enable its customers receive better value of services. Its mission statement also includes that the company want to deliver a consistent high quality of superior services which will help to establish its strengths. Cost reduction is also an important mission of this organization. Therefore the objective of the company is to provide excellent service to its customer. British Airways wants to lead the competition by acquiring more and more customers by improving its product and services. The company’s mission of focusing on the innovation objects on its development of new and creative techniques of satisfying its customers (Sosnizkij, 2004). By cutting its extra cost British Airways objects to train its employees more efficiently so that they can contribute more in the development process of the company. The organization also has the objective of to go beyond its functional duty and compete on the basis of experience. It wants to make its service best among its competitors. This airline company wants to remove the hassles which a passenger faces while travelling through flights. The company wants to make their passengers’ journey easier. Another objective of this firm is to grown their presence in the major places of the world by offering exceptional service. Figure 1 Organizational structure of British Airways The organizational structure of British Airways is flat. It has many small numbers of managerial levels with a vast span of control. The divisional structure of this airline company focuses on its nature of its business. The company is customer focused. This divisional structure helps the company to established definite job roles among its employees. It helps to perform the work in a less time (Jarvis, 2014). Decision making process becomes very easy in this structure. It becomes easy for the managers to supervise the works in different departments. Divisional structure helps in efficient management of all the employees and increases the productivity of British Airways. The company follows mechanistic organizational structure. It helps in effective strategy formulation as all the departments of British Airways are under the strong control of management. Organization's environment British Airways current strategies help in advancement of the company. The organization focuses on its expansion and improvement of its services. Therefore the company implements strategies regarding the experience of the customer by introducing the service of mobile application in its business class. The firm is also involved in experimenting in innovating strategies for starting texting service in its business class. It is focusing on the strategies of modernizing the fleet of flights by proving new services. Its strategies for managing cost effective operations contribute in the growth of the company. All these strategies help in maintaining the proper organizational design of British Airways. These strategies divide the task among the different departments of the organization which makes initiates a smooth workflow process. It helps to increase the responsibility of the organizational divisions. The organizational design which the company follows creates a positive impact on its position in the competitive market. Its divisional structure helps in maintain the proper workflow within the company. It distributes the task according to the job role of the employee which helps them to become excellent on their work. This increase the job satisfaction and motivation among the employees. The combine effect of all these things helps in the overall growth of the British Airways which contributes a lot to hold its position in the competition (Gaskell, 2005). British Airways supports technological innovations. It provides superior quality of technological to its passengers while travelling. The company facilitates the customer by providing technological facilities like listing to music, watching TV, surfing net within the flight. The aspect of maintaining proper organizational environment is the most important thing in the growth and success of the British Airways. The company has maintained a friendly working environment which stimulates the employees in their works. Motivated and stimulated employees perform their work effectively which helps this company to be a successful one. Conclusion British Airways is one of the largest airline companies of the world. It coves many international destinations and is present in the various countries. This case study show different aspects of this company for maintaining its organizational behavior and environment. British Airways is associated with aviation industry for a long time. The company has done many alliances, mergers and acquisitions for building its strengths. It has expanded its business operations to many countries. This huge company has a collaborative work environment. British Airways spends a lot on the employee development. Extensive trainings are provided to the employees for making them efficient and effective. It also provides various benefits to its employees. The company believes in motivating the employees and creating an interactive working environment. It follows corporate work culture. The staffs of this organization work in different teams which help to grow the productivity of the company. The effective organizational communication helps in the smooth flow of the work. This increases the competency of the workers. Leadership is also an important part in the organizational structure of British Airway. Under the strong guidance of the leaders the company experiences growth. The organization is based on divisional structure which facilitates its management in establishing simple and effective work process. British Airways has implemented many strategies which contribute a lot in its organizational environment and behavior. References Allen, M., (1995). Analysing the Organisational Environment. London: Select Knowledge Limited. Barjasic, I., (2010). Drivers of Change and how Leadership can affect the Organisation: A case study of British. Germany: GRIN Verlag. Gaskell, K., (2005). British Airways. London: Crowood Press UK. Jarvis, P., (2014). British Airways. Gloucestershire: Amberley Publishing Limited. Punzel, T., (2013). Risks and Decision Making. Germany: GRIN Verlag. Sosnizkij, B., (2004). How the organisational environment influences rational strategy processes. Germany: GRIN Verlag. Read More