For the past 31 years, South West Airlines has made enormous profits (Bird, 2011). In the airline sector, the corporation is renowned as a customer satisfaction leader. Furthermore, South West Airlines has been and continues to be the lowest cost airline when compared to its competitors in the airline business. Similarly, the corporation is a market leader in terms of job security and shareholder equity or profits.
People are the most crucial asset of any organization, hence South West Airlines places a high value on them. Basing on its mission statement four values act as a guideline of her operations and they include;friendliness, personal or individual pride, promoting company spirit with in the various team members and customers and finally ensuring that thereis a provision of services with a sense of warmth. The company also focuses on creating and maintaininga stable working environment that guarantees equal opportunities to all employees regardless of their status and background (Makovsky, 2013).
As an equal opportunity employer, south west airline ensures that that there is a safe environment that promotes employee growth and development. In addition the company focuses on research and innovation in her services as a way of promoting sustainability and enhancing effectiveness in her operations. Therefore the mission statement of south west airline has promoted respect, andexcellent attitude within the organisation hence leading to quality service delivery.Furthermore,south west airline focuses on both her internal and external clients. According to the company good employee treatment leads to improved customer care services.
According to the organisation, employee attitude and character are the most important not the skills ,therefore it puts less emphasis on individuals skills while hiring but rather puts strong emphasis on attitude and character. According to the organisation skills can be learnt and enhanced as compared to individual personality and attitude. South west airlines also focuses providing support services to both the employees and the surroundingcommunity. Forinstance it provide service and personnel to help the area if faced with challenges like damages. Moreso, the company sees her workers as priority in each and every undertaking.
Therefore because of her employee preference south west airline has limited cases of workers being laid off and also offers better rewords and compensations to her employees. It should be noted that south west airline offers the best compensations to her employees when compared to other companies in the airline industry. Moreover, thecompany uses slogans in order to capture the attention of the clients and the organisation employees themselves. Slogans have as significant impact in stimulating potential customers to try out south west airline travel services.
Finally south west airline ensures high level of prudency while hiring employees. According to the organisation culture of the company, it’s important that the company recruits workers who are able to operate within the organisation boundaries, add and compliment the available organisation culture and finally be able to cope up with the ever changing and challenging work. The organisation has been at its focal point in getting professionals with the right qualities of encouraging sustainable organisation performance.Therefore because of the excellent organisation culture, south west has been able to maintain alow employee turnover, limited cases of absenteeism and excellent customer care services thus making the leader in the industry (Klein, 2011).
Koch industries
Koch industries deal in investment and activities related to trade(Samide, 2013). As an organisation it aspires to be the leading industry in the provision of trading facilities, public sector services among others. The organisation aim at maximising present value of long term returns or profits. In order to attain her objectives it aims at buildinga strong competitive advantage through provision of better services to customers with less resources being employed, provide customer satisfaction services and obtaining a larger market share for purposes of obtaining higher levels of profits. The organisation values change as an important aspect and the better it’s prepared to embrace the higher chances of achieving her goals and objectives. It’s also an innovation based organisation that believes in continuous changing the different structures and operations of an organisations in order to achieve her goals and objectives.
The organisation also promotes a good working environment that enhances learning and skill development among the employees. The company also encourages integrity and compliance among the employees and other organisational stake holders in various operations. The organisation also put emphasis on rewarding her long term employees through offering retirement benefits and offering rewords to hard working workers. In addition Koch industries pursues an MBM method of management which promotes a better organisational culture. The market based management promotes value addition which encourages company growth
The two organisations have similar and different value that they follow to achieve their goals and objectives
Similarities
Both organisation aim at providing quality services that enhances customer satisfaction. In addition, Koch and south west airlines aim at providing better rewords to their employees in order to boost their morale and improve organisation performance .Similarly,both organisations aim at promoting a secure and conducive working environment for their employees which enhances employee growth and skills development in order to improve their ability to perform various organisation tasks.
Differences
During hiring, south west airlines focuses on employees who have the right attitude and character to enable the organisation attain her objectives (Whatley, 2013). It should be noted that south west organisation puts much emphasis on employee character and attitude than skills mainly because skills can be developed compared to an individual’spersonality. To work at south west air line the individual has to have a good attitude and character as the first priority before considering other factors .On the contrary, Koch industries focuses on the level of skills while hiring. According to the company high skilled employees lead to better quality service delivery which is her main objective. In addition southwest airline focuses on permanent employment to their works which is evidenced by low levels of employee layoffs. The company sees her employee as first priority before considering other factors. On the other hand, Koch Company is consumer satisfaction oriented. The company aims at providing better quality services to her customers as her first priority therefore all the strategies undertaken aims at achieving that objectives
Challenges in merging the two cultures
Culture clashes are unavoidable in mergers and acquisitions between the two companies because of the differences that exist in their organization cultures. The level of employ turnover is slightly higher in Koch industries compared to south west airline that has low employee turnover, secondly new south west airline focuses on employees as their first priority compared to Koch industries that focuses on customers. Finally the two companies have different levels of growth levels which is a key factor to consider during merging
Steps to overcome the challenges
To effectively conduct a merger or acquisition, it’s important the employee be provided training in order to prepare them for the dynamics. Thetrainings are supposed to be provided to all organisation employees at different levels ranging from the top manager to the bottom level. Such trainings are significant in helping employees identify the differences and thus be prepared to handle the consequences. Lastlyopenness and transparency is a vital aspect during merging and acquisition. It’s important that all stake holders in the organisation are involved before merging to avoid cultural clashes.
References
Klein, D. (2011). Creating cultures that lead to success: Lincoln Electric, Southwest Airlines, and SAS Institute. Organizational Dynamics 41(1), 35-39 [Available in Science Direct. Note: you only have to read the middle portion of the article concerning Southwest Airlines and not the whole article]
Bird, A. (2011). Southwest: Corporate culture combines work, play. The Post and Courier. [Proquest]
Whatley, H. (2013). Principles and dimensions of market-based management. Independent Journal of Management & Production, 4(1), 126-135. [Proquest]
Makovsky, (2013).Behind The Southwest Airlines Culture. Retrieved from https://www.forbes.com/sites/kenmakovsky/2013/11/21/behind-the-southwest-airlines-culture/#552fa7cf3798
Desiree Samide,(2013).Koch Industries: Corporate Culture. Retrieved from https://prezi.com/r4iaqxsjyblf/koch-industries-corporate-culture/
