Organizational Cultures of British Airways and Virgin Atlantic

This assignment compares the organizational cultures of two prominent airlines: British Airways and Virgin Atlantic. It examines their respective structures, employee autonomy levels, and cultural assimilation practices. The analysis delves into the roles of managers and self-evaluation in fostering personal development within these organizations. Additionally, it explores career plans, performance evaluation methods, and future development strategies based on identified strengths and weaknesses.

STUDENT NAME:
STUDENT ID:
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ASSIGNMENT TITLE: DEVELOPING, MANAGER
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Executive Summary
Here this report states about the principles and practices of management behavior, in this
project the different styles associated with it has been discussed and compared, the leadership
characteristics have been discussed. The communication processes and the change in the
organizational culture have been assessed and discussed.
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Table of Content
Introduction................................................................................................................................4
Overview of the two travel and tourism companies...................................................................4
Task 1 Principles and practices of management behavior.........................................................4
1.1 Comparison of the different management styles..................................................................4
1.2 Discussion on leadership characteristics..............................................................................5
1.3 Evaluation of the communication processes in the business...............................................7
1.4 Analysis on the organizational culture and change in the businesses..................................8
Task 2 Review on the potential of the prospective managers (Refer to PPT)...........................8
Task 3: Managerial skill within business and service context...................................................8
3.1 Providing motivation to a team to achieve an agreed goal or objective..............................8
3.2 Justification of the managerial decisions to support achievement of agreed goal and
objectives and recommending improvements..........................................................................10
Task 4 Career development plan for employment...................................................................11
4.1 Explanation of how own managerial and personal skills supports career development....11
4.2 Review of career and personal development needs, current performances and future needs
produce development plan.......................................................................................................11
Conclusion................................................................................................................................12
Reference List..........................................................................................................................13
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Introduction
Overview of the two travel and tourism companies
Virgin Atlantic of UK is a British airline company was founded in 1984 headquartered in
West Sussex in England. The parent company of this organization is The Virgin Atlantic
Limited. With the number of employees around 8875 in this company has earned around 45.6
million pounds in the financial year 2015 appropriately. Net income was around 22.5 billion
pound. The organization's frequent flyer program is flying club with the fleet size of 40 and
around 29 destinations respectively. Therefore it can be said that the management team of
this organization is very strong as the net income and revenue are upward rising effectively
and evaluation of this assignment for management leadership can be interpreted appropriately
through this company.
One of the largest tourism and travel companies of UK are British Airways was founded in
1974. It is the largest airline organization in the UK with the fleet size of around 268 and
destinations of around 183 respectively. Frequent flyer program of this organization is an
Executive Club with one world alliance. According to the2015 annual report, the revenue of
this company \was around 11421 million pounds from which it can be said that the company's
goodwill in the international market is very high with different management styles
effectively.
Task 1 Principles and practices of management behavior
1.1 Comparison of the different management styles
Every organization should have to understand and evaluate the principles and practices of
management behavior to successfully running of their business operations effectively and
efficiently. In this regard management leadership of travel and tourism companies should
have to be interpreted in this assignment properly through evaluating comparison between
different management styles with leadership features, communication process and
organizational culture between Virgin Atlantic and British Airways organizations.
The management team of an organization should have to be flexible in style to get an ultimate
outcome for production and performance of the employees effectively and efficiently. In this
regard, it has to be concerned that the leadership style must be depended on the job role of
employees, task, and situation of the organization. Implementation of management strategies
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and policies between different companies should have to be compared (Saunders and Lewis,
2014, p.116).
Virgin Atlantic: Virgin Atlantic Limited, UK-based airline organization is the creator of
around 300 companies internationally in 30 countries. The company has followed the
management style of employee motivation effectively to fulfill their goals. According to the
motivational theory of Abraham Maslow and hierarchy theory of Herzberg, it has been
considered as an important aspect to meet the requirements of employees to make them
motivate to their job role. In this way, the organizational goals can be fulfilled along with
maximum utilization of business resources in an appropriate manner. Based on the theory of
Herzberg hierarchy on Virgin Atlantic, to increase the employee motivation and satisfaction,
the organization has strictly followed employee motivation management style. To reduce the
time for data processing, the organization has Contracted to the capital consultancy capture
that will lead to achieving an arrangement of training and development programs for
employees to maximize their level of performance.
British Airways: Leadership and management style of this company as per the last annual
report was found as weak as profitability and revenue along with market share have been
decreasing effectively, and the company have focused on increasing the profitability and
shareholder value, employee motivation towards working and customer relationship
management along with brand loyalty have been reduced. In 1996-2000 appointment of a
new leader in the organization with the organizational objective of increasing profitability by
reducing variable cost of workers lead to decrease in retainment of workers in the
organization effectively.
1.2 Discussion on leadership characteristics
In this assignment discussion on the leadership, characteristics should have to be heightened
to understand the leadership management of the companies such as Virgin Atlantic And
British Airways effectively and appropriately. Leadership in an organization over the
employees and managers should have to be flexible that can lead to achieving organizational
objectives resulting maximization of profitability and revenue by satisfying customer
requirements in an efficient manner (Nahavandi, 2016, p.118).
Leadership features can be described as follows-
Communication skills: In this aspect, it should have to be considered by every
organizational leader that a leader must possess a high level of communication skills
appropriately. Leaders should have to be communicated with workers to listen to their
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problems, ideas, visions and in this way, workers can be motivated to achieve their individual
goals.
Interpersonal skills: To earn trust and confidence from the workers and followers, a leader
should have good interpersonal skills resulting in the higher performance level of workers
with grievances and feedback that lead to right direction of the organization. Interpersonal
skills of leaders through difficult relationship can able to keep peace in the business
departments and working groups evaluating operational efficiency and effectiveness.
Consistency: Consistent leader in the company can earn respect, credibility from working
groups within the organisation for which the workers can lead to meet their targets by
working in the same way as their leader.
Decision making: Leader should have to implement decisions at a specific period based on
the information available in the company that can lead to speed in the workflow and
productivity.
Flexibility: It is the duty and responsibility of the leaders to take important decisions
according to the rules and regulations and market information that can meet organizational
objectives effectively. Leaders should have to be flexible at the time of changing the direction
process or dictions respectively.
Innovativeness: Innovativeness is considered as an important feature which should have to
be possessed by the leader to act as a problem solver or an innovator in the organization to
solve certain issue and problems. In this way through innovative solutions challenges must be
overcome.
Confidence: A good leader must be confident about taking various decisions to solve
problems during the emergency situations.
The leadership of Virgin Atlantic has been viewed as the company followed operational
business efficiency and effectiveness from the inside and from outside the company have
acted as passionate about their customers by creating brand loyalty with the incredible
diversity of people, departments, and teams. The company has strong orientation for
satisfying customers as per their requirements of services. On the other side, the British
Airways has followed the interpersonal and task-oriented leadership style. In this way, the
leaders can give liberties for free skills of communications. The leaders are very much
motivated to completion of tasks according to the customer demands related to performance
that leaders do not consider attention, thoughts, and ideas of others in the organization (Du et
al. 2016, p.162).
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1.3 Evaluation of the communication processes in the business
Communication process: Evaluation of communication process in the organization is
considered as an important aspect of management leadership effectively and efficiently that a
successful business operation depends on the effectiveness of the communication process. In
this regard, it should have to be considered that a successful retailer can develop the network
of the different communication channel to financial institutions, distributors, marketers,
customers and employees effectively. In this way transmission of data and information can be
possible that can lead to increase effectiveness communication with effective productivity in
the organization. In this context different forms of communication process for Virgin Atlantic
and British Airways have to be described as follows-
Oral and Written Communication: Oral communication is considered as the effective and
efficient form of communication process through using of words verbally to inform workers,
subordinates that can lead to making effective decision. On the other side written
communication is used in an organization for sending different documents, materials to their
stakeholders and can be stored for future purpose. Both Virgin Atlantic and British Airways
have used oral and written communication process effectively for faster communication.
Lines of communication: Evaluation of effective communication process can be interpreted
through line of communication as follows-
Line power - The line of power is the arrangement in which the employees are aware of the
fact how to report and whom to talk to in case they are communicating information.
Technology line - Technology plays an important role in communication in the present
scenario, in the world where telephonic communication and social media has improved a
great deal.
In-person communication- In person communication take forms of both verbal and
nonverbal communication among employees and other people in the company. This may in
the form of writing, talking and others. In this regard paying attention to the responses of the
people seems to be very important
Barriers of effective communication: The barriers to effective communication among the
different stakeholders of the company can mainly be attributed to the glitches among the
different individuals and agents. Also, linguistic barriers also hamper the communication
processes where one may not understand what the other person is trying to communicate.
The technological barriers also play a vital role in creating barriers in the communication
processes.
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1.4 Analysis on the organizational culture and change in the businesses
The organizational culture of the Virgin Atlantic Company, Generally an organizational
culture relates to values and the behavioral pattern that the company followed in its operation.
The culture of the Virgin Atlantic company lies in its cultural dimension of the organization.
The culture of the company can be stated as shared and socially learned knowledge and the
pattern of the behavior. The company uses motivational tools in tangible and intangible ways
to keep the organizational spirits high in the organization. On the other hand, the
organizational culture of British Airways lies in. The British airway follows a hierarchical
organizational structure and believes in rewarding the employees in maintaining the culture
thereof and following orders from the superior. Here in comparing the two firms, it has been
evident that the cultures of the two firm are different while one believes in cultural dynamism
while the other believes in a strict hierarchy and consistent business order. The difference in
the two businesses is that one has a flexible work culture and provides certain autonomy
while the other believes in an articulated format (Miller, 2014, p.172).
Task 2 Review on the potential of the prospective managers (Refer to PPT)
Task 3: Managerial skill within business and service context
The success of any business organization could be identified with the reasonable amount of
clarity to be inseparable from that of the professional and functional capabilities of a senior
managerial employee of the respective organization. This is a direct reflection of the logical
fact that just as every social activity, in the measure of the success or failure that it could
achieve, completely depends on the approaches, the values, the abilities and the behavioural
attitudes of the leadership element that guides such activity, the practical challenges
regarding the management and generation of solutions of any business undertaking and any
corporate organisation completely relies on the availability of the necessary qualitative
aspects of the corporate leadership, which is quite often provided by the involved senior
managerial employees (Nuttin, 2014, p.127).
3.1 Providing motivation to a team to achieve an agreed goal or objective
Provision of the necessary motivation to the employees and working team members is always
considered to be one of the most organizational responsibilities that any managerial
supervisor or any team leader has to undertake. The core issue of importance regarding the
significance of the aspect of motivation revolves around the fact that the entire probability of
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the achievement of the proposed organisational objectives regarding the provided job
responsibilities within the organisational architecture of any corporate business entity
completely relies upon the existence of the measure of work-related enthusiasm within the
ranks of the workers and employees (Nuttin, 2014, p.127). It is a universally acknowledged
fact that workers and employees require high level of motivation in their daily chores
regarding the organisational responsibilities and the proper level of motivation leads to the
increment in the efficiency quotient of the employees to the work practices performed within
the organisational superstructures which in turn gets translated into the enhancement of the
proportional value addition to the services provided by the organisation under consideration.
In this regard, the managerial staff of any business organisation such as the ones under
consideration, are the principal tools of such corporate organisations to impart the required
motivational value and infuse the enthusiasm for work appreciation in the involved
employees so as to transform the workers from regimented automatons into productive
individual contributors into the overall process of the business propagation by the respective
companies.
Figure 1: Process of Motivation
(Source: Helfat, 2015, p.36)
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3.2 Justification of the managerial decisions to support achievement of agreed
goal and objectives and recommending improvements
Every form of management decision, spawned by the manager in responsibility, involves the
necessary justification of such stipulations of decisional conclusions regarding the broader
and greater necessity of optimum achievement of the organisational goals and objectives
which had been pre-specified by the organizational executive body. This brings into effect the
realisation of the necessity to focus on the various aspects of the decision-making process that
could be identified as primary tools of provisioning of directions and supervision to the
necessary employee segments which have been entrusted to the various managerial staff of
different rank and designation (Awadh and Alyahya, 2013, p.168). Any business process
program manager is generally and readily identified by others as the figurehead who had been
vested with the formal authority of decision formulation regarding the work process of any
business organization. The various inter-organisational interactions and interpersonal
relations that such authoritative position could lead to within the ambit of the organization
become the primary sources of valuable information for the promulgation of the decisions
which is are vital for the success of the respective company. Any form of decisional
justification regarding the managerial staff could always be traced back to the core issue of
organizational and human resource management operational imperative that proper
management of both people and resources and company assets effectively within any
business and corporate organisation could only be observed through the possession of the
skill of prompt decision making that requires constant planning and development (Matthews,
2015, p.137).
Managerial decisions must be made in the context that it helps employees to reach self-goals
as well as attain organizational goals and needs. For this purpose, managers must entail in
acknowledging efforts of them who exhibit loyal support and dedication towards own job
role and identifies with the objectives of the organization. The managerial decisions should
also include lowering work stress and dividing the job according to the requirements and
individual potential so employees can put in their maximum efforts without being subjected
to increased work pressure and devoid of their ability to perform.
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Task 4 Career development plan for employment
4.1 Explanation of how own managerial and personal skills supports career
development
Managerial and personal skill affects career development in multiple ways. The ways in
which the career development is affected by managerial and personal skill is if a person has
the good managerial skill he or she would manage the task in an appropriate manner so that
the task is done in the best possible way this would create efficiency and appreciation of the
person in the organization. Here it could be stated that if the managerial skills then the task
would not be allocated in an efficient manner and would result in the loss for the organization
and depreciate the value of the person to the company and others in the organization (Patton
and McMahon, 2014, p.271). Here in this regard, it appears that the personal skills are the
essential and basic units of career development. Here it has been felt that if a person lacks
person lack personal skills the output of the firm is affected similarly in the same sense if a
person has personal skills then the production of the firm increases. The managerial ways act
as fine tuning mechanism which could further improve performance. It is mostly seen in
cases that if a person lacks personal skills also lack managerial skill. It is seldom seen that a
person lacking in personal skills has good managerial outlook. But it has often been cited in
various studies that good managerial skills have led to the development of personal ability for
workers and development in the potential for the mentioned persons (Noe et al. 2014, p.162).
Therefore from here, it could be stated that managerial skill help in the development of
personal skills and turn the potential for the person increases as well. This leads to career
development for the individual or the person. Therefore from here, it is evident that personal
skill leads to the development of managerial skills and managerial skills lead to the
development of personal skill and both, in turn, leads to career development.
4.2 Review of career and personal development needs, current performances
and future needs produce development plan
Here from it has been evident that development in a career is required for all otherwise the
person losses optimism and which leads to falling in performance and work effort for very
individual working in the companies. Here from it becomes evident that personal
development is needed to carry on with the process of career development. The personal
development can be carried in various ways, and the managerial techniques could play a
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better part it. Therefore from here, it could be stated that the evaluation of current
performances is required, it could be a self evaluation or evaluation by a second or a third
party. This can enable the person to develop in specific areas which would lead to an overall
personal development, or it would encourage the person to carry on with the additional work
(Mueller and Anderson, 2014, p.503). Here from the deficiencies could be identified from
which rectification and development are possible. This enables in evaluating the future need
for overall development for the firms, the managers and the organization as a whole as the
future need is established in this part a possibility for formulating a plan becomes established.
The establishment of the plan is by the requirement and needs that have been established and
deficiencies faced till date in bettering the future situation.
Conclusion
Here in this project, an endeavor had been made to evaluate the organizational cultures of the
two companies’ namely British Airways and Virgin Atlantic Airways. In evaluating the two
cultures, it has been evident that one follows the strict hierarchical structure and while the
other believes in providing autonomy to its workforce and in cultural assimilation. Here
special emphasis has been provided on the role of personal development and role of managers
in the process. Here the role of self-evaluation has also been made evident for the purpose. In
the final section of the process the review on career plans, personal development, current
performances in the method and betterment of the entire process.
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Reference List
Awadh, A.M. and Alyahya, M.S., 2013. The impact of organizational culture on employee
performance. International Review of Management and Business Research, 2(1), p.168.
Du, S., Swaen, V., Lindgreen, A. and Sen, S., 2013. The roles of leadership styles in
corporate social responsibility. Journal of business ethics, 114(1), pp.155-169.
Helfat, C.E. and Peteraf, M.A., 2015. Managerial cognitive capabilities and the
microfoundations of dynamic capabilities. Strategic Management Journal, 36(6), pp
Miller, K., 2014. Organizational communication: Approaches and processes. Nelson
Education.
Mueller, S. and Anderson, A.R., 2014. Understanding the entrepreneurial learning process
and its impact on students' personal development: A European perspective. The International
Journal of Management Education, 12(3), pp.500-511.
Nahavandi, A., 2016. The Art and Science of Leadership -Global Edition. Pearson.
Noe, R.A., Wilk, S.L., Mullen, E.J. and Wanek, J.E., 2014. Employee Development: Issues in
Construct Definition and Investigation ofAntecedents. Improving Training Effectiveness in
WorkOrganizations, ed. JK Ford, SWJ Kozlowski, K. Kraiger, E. Salas, and MS Teachout
(Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum, 1997), pp.153-189.
Nuttin, J., 2014. Future time perspective and motivation: Theory and research method.
Psychology Press.
Patton, W. and McMahon, M., 2014. Career development and systems theory: Connecting
theory and practice (Vol. 2). Springer.
Saunders, M.N. and Lewis, P., 2014. Doing research in business and management: An
essential guide to planning your project. Pearson Higher Ed.
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