ORGANIZATION CULTURE
Organizational culture includes principles and behaviors that contribute to the distinctive social and psychological surroundings of an institute. It is viewed as the way in which the organizations employees relate with each other and with the outside world and with other organizations. This involves also the company’s prospects, experience, philosophy and standards that help to enhance togetherness in the organization (Schein 2010). The organization culture ensures that the organization has shared mind-set, beliefs, way of life, written and unwritten rules over time but still measured as valid. Organization culture is witnessed in the way the organization conducts its operations, how they treat their workers, customers as well as the entire society. This is also witnessed in the extent to which the organization allows liberty in making decisions, inventing of new ideas and individual expression. The flow of information and authority through the hierarchy and the way in which all the employees maintains their collective objectivity in the organization is still portrayed in the organizational culture. Organizational culture is therefore important as it affects the productivity and the performance of the organization and it offers guidelines on customer care services, quality of services, safety measures, punctuality of the employees and the concern for all that surrounds the organization. It also ensures that the production methods, innovation methods, marketing and advertising activities are well coordinated in the organization (Schein 2010). This paper therefore will major its argument on the organizational culture of Air Canada company which has its unique organizational culture. The paper will further discuss on the background of the company and some of its unique characteristics and the management theory implemented in the company and the rationale behind its adoption.
Air Canada is basically the biggest airline in the state of Canada and it carries along the flag of Canada. The airline was established in the year 1937 with an aim of providing scheduled and charter air travel for passengers as well as the cargo to one hundred and eighty two destinations globally. This airline happens to be in the tenth position in the world amongst the largest passenger airlines in terms of fleet size. Its headquarters are based in Montreal ion Quebec. They operate operations such as the air Canada express regionally, the air Canada rouge and air Canada cargo. It has some other supplementary operations such as the air Canada vacations to over ninety destinations. A combination of the regional partners and the international ones, the airline registers an estimate of more than 1530 scheduled flights on a daily basis. The airline is well respected as it is safe travelling with them and they occupy position four in the airline safety records. The airline employs over 28000 employees and it is currently expanding with the increment of international destinations (Pigott 2014).
The airline stands out in their operations as they currently are the newest and only airlines who have been able to offer WI-FI connectivity together with international business class and premium economy. The company is working on installing of the satellite technology on its wide body fleet so as to ensure the access of WI-FI while travelling. This investment has helped to build on the latest strategy to develop the newest business class and premium economy seating for enhanced comfort and service rendering. Air rouge is another wonderful feature of this airline as it offers leisure services to the passengers. In most cases during summer season the airline offers new leisure destinations in their network for the passengers to enjoy their travels. Online services are also quite exclusive features of the airline. This is because, it allows smart phone users to be able to book and to access other self service activities such as the managing their booking.
Their website is active and available all over the world with different languages to suite different potential passengers. The daily outlook is also available at the website and it helps to keep t5he passengers updated on the weather and irregular operations of the company. The various kiosks that are available at the airport helps to provide self services to customers such as allowing them to check in, seat selection process, e-upgrades as well as extra luggage fee.
So as to build a coherent culture, the air Canada Company has employees who shares in their main values and are willing and capable to embrace those principles. Employees in this airline are not only talented but they are as well best suited to enhance a corporate culture within the organization. As the company employees’ people they ensure that they have certain beliefs and values that are in line with the business hence they are able to reinforce the already existing culture in the organization (Sultan et al 2000). The employees in air Canada Company are subjected to follow a code of conduct where they are supposed to sign off the code of conduct annually. The code of conduct expects the employees to report any case of violation and it sets out the anti-corruption policies. The company also ensures that the employees do offer the best customer services. The policy of the company is to ensure that they carry out the performance measure so as to ensure that they are able to measure the level of customer satisfaction ranging from the flight satisfaction in relation to the value of money charged. This helps to identify the area of correction and improvement within the management and the employees so as to ensure that quality services are offered in the company as it is one of the core goals of the airline.
Just like so many other airlines, air Canada’s culture revolved around the captains’ command and control. However, in the present day the pilots recognizes the error chain of command as they follows the standard operating steps as they reduce the errors hence resulting to increase in safety thus they now understand and accept the invention of the cockpit resource management (CRM) (Kanki et al 2010).
Management theories are important as they help to increase the productivity and the quality of services in the company. Different management theories are implemented differently by the managers but the adoption of a combination of various theories heavily depends on the kind of organization, the purpose of the organization and its employees. In this case the air Canada has basically accepted and adopted the chaos management theory. This is because changes are always constant (Fox 2006). In as much as the company may look forward to control some of these changes, they cannot be able to fully control others. With the expansion that air Canada has been experiencing over the years, the organization has become so complex and the vulnerability of events has also increased. This has resulted to the increase in the efforts by the entire company to be able to sustain and cope with the increased complexity. However as there is so much energy that is required, the organizational structure of the company has to change so as to be able to maintain stability as the environment surrounding the company continues to change and evolve. This has therefore called for the company’s management to continually motivate their customers as well as their employees so as to achieve their shared values, mission and visions.
In conclusion it is important to note that Air Canada is one of the service industries in Canada which has shown greater potential in all their operations. As the airline is globalizing so much changes have been witnessed in the organization but all these changes are important as they have enhanced the organization to achieve their success. The company has shown greater concern to the citizens of Canada and has offered so many job opportunities to the society and hence resulting to development of the state. With the increasing technological advancement, the airline has also tried all they can to ensure that they cope with these technological changes and hence the increment in invention and innovation in the airline. The organization culture of the company has proven to have good and well organized management and also have ensured that there is cohesion and collaboration among all stakeholders involved in ensuring that the airline has attained its objectives towards its customers, employees, society and the government and the rest of the world.
References
Fox, W. (2006). Managing organisational behaviour. Cape Town, South Africa: Juta.
Kanki, B. G., Helmreich, R. L., & Anca, J. M. (2010). Crew Resource Management. Burlington: Elsevier.
Pigott, P. (2014). Air Canada: The history.
Schein, E. H. (2010). Organizational culture and leadership. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Sultan, F., & Simpson Jr, M. C. (2000). International service variants: airline passenger expectations and perceptions of service quality. Journal of services marketing, 14(3), 188-216.
