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Question: How does management and organisation theory enable us to examine, critique and interrogate the structures and practices of a real-life organisation? - RESEARCH PAPER EXAMPLE

30 Dec 2022,2:03 AM

 

How does management and organisation theory enable us to examine, critique and interrogate the structures and practices of a real-life organisation?

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Contents

1.0 Introduction. 3

2.0 Background to Organization. 4

3.0 Literature Review.. 4

3.1 Management and Organizational Culture. 4

3.1.1 Organizational Culture Background. 4

3.1.2 Roles of Employees in Organizational Culture and Edgar-Schein Model 4

3.1.3 Types of Organizational Culture. 5

3.2 Diversity in Organizational Management 6

3.2.1 Equality, Equity, and Justice. 6

3.2.2 Social Class and Unions. 6

3.2.3 Gender, Sex, Masculinity, Feminity, and LGBTQ+. 7

3.2.4 Race, Ethnicity, and Intersectionality. 8

4.0 Case Study Discussion. 9

4.2 Recommendations. 11

5.0 Conclusion. 12

6.0 Bibliography. 14

 

1.0 Introduction

The global business climate is becoming too competitive for conventional organizational management practices and strategies to remain efficient. Consequently, many multinationals are embracing new bodies of knowledge and adapting their operations to changing market dynamics. For example, the civil aviation industry in North America is very competitive, with hundreds of airlines competing for the same customers while offering similar customer experiences. Therefore, companies have had to innovate or expand continuously to remain afloat, especially since 2020, when Covid 19 disrupted the global aviation industry. 

American Airlines is the largest airline in the world, with more than 900 aircraft and more than 130,000 employees. The 80-year-old airline operates in more than 50 countries and is serviced by 6500 flights daily, reaching 350 destinations worldwide. However, the airline is plagued by constant employee complaints about unfair wages, discrimination, and inadequate training investment. Additionally, American Airlines needs a better track record regarding sustainability, revealing serious organizational culture and diversity issues that merit additional research and remedial actions. Therefore, American Airlines needs to revamp its organizational culture and diversity strategies through continuous learning and development through employee welfare investment, sustainability strategies, and diversity management. 

As current practitioners of management and organisation seek to identify and implement the best theoretical frameworks in industry and busines, there a dire need to realise effeciency, sustainability, and profitabity. Consequently, companies such as American Airlines operating in high-risk competitive industries will continue to innovate and apply tailor-made versions of management and organisation theories. Notably, this report relies on the troubled airline as a case study to investigate how organisational culture and diversity theories of management and organisation will provide usable solutions to the company’s current challenges and gaps.

2.0 Background to Organization

American Airlines is one of the largest civil aviation companies in the United States and the world, with a fleet of over 900 aircraft and more than 120,000 employees. Based in Fort Worth, Texas, the airline operates more than 6000 flights daily to more than 50 countries, shuttling more than half a million passengers to 350 destinations daily (Singh, 2018). Such statistics align perfectly with an airline that began operations in 1936 and has grown over the decades through strategic expansion of its routes and fleet and adopting proper management, technology, and cultural practices. 

3.0 Literature Review

3.1 Management and Organizational Culture

3.1.1 Organizational Culture Background

Alvesson (2016) reports that organizational culture emerged in the late 1970 and early-1980s as a response to market dynamics shifting from religious beliefs towards technical growth and service industry expansion. As a result, bodies of knowledge such as Theory X came up to support assumptions related to the workers' ambitions, level of responsibility towards organizational success, and general laziness emerged (Dewi & Wibowo, 2020). However, many organizations realized the impact employees had in creating and sustaining organizational growth, for example, in Japan, which became a global economic and industrial powerhouse just 5 decades after its defeat in World War Two.

3.1.2 Roles of Employees in Organizational Culture and Edgar-Schein Model

Organizational culture and control received increasing attention in the 1980s as management scholars sought to establish the role employees could play in enabling management to achieve market and industrial success (Elsbach & Stigliani, 2018). Consequently, several forms of organizational control, such as bureaucratic, direct, cultural, and output control, demonstrated how business organizations manage their employees' aspirations and contributions in the context of organizational operations. Dewi and Wibowo (2020) argue that the organizational culture theory began taking shape in aspects such as mission and vision, rewards and punishments, psychological contracts, authority and power relations, quality management, communication dynamics, and interactions with external stakeholders, all critical in solving American Airlines challenges. Eventually, organizational culture benefited from investment research and development, resulting in managerial-oriented and critical-oriented perspectives (Alvesson, 2016). Such developments were developed by scholars such as Smircich in 1983, Frost in 1985, Cooke and Rousseau in 1988, Drennan in 1992, and Alvesson in 2002. 

Elsbach and Stigliani (2018) stated how the Edgar-Schein model of organizational culture denotes that it is divided into two distinct portions; the visible and invisible processes, much like an iceberg submersed in water, would appear. The visible processes include an organization's artefacts, logo, languages, fixed assets, work equipment and apparel which are evident in a large company like American Airlines (Hai Nguyen & Watanabe, 2018). Notably, between the visible and invisible portions of organizational culture, a layer of espoused values influences organizational behaviour, such as agreed practices, rules and regulations, and ethical codes, but American Airlines seems to overlook the last value evidenced by constant quarrels with staff about welfare issues (Holtom & Sekiguchi, 2016). Finally, the invisible processes denote assumptions often unconsciously adopted and used, such as organizational mindsets and philosophies.

3.1.3 Types of Organizational Culture

Hai Nguyen and Watanabe (2018) reiterate that Charles Handy and Roger Harrison developed a model of differentiating types of organizational culture in 1978. Herein, organizational culture exists as a power culture focussing on the founder's input as a centralized unit with little room for negotiation and homogeneity of employees (Holtom & Sekiguchi, 2016). Secondly, role culture exists as a bureaucratic organizational setting where rules and procedures dominate the operations of defined units and departments, resulting in depersonalization and an extreme emphasis on rationality (Irwan et al., 2020). Third, the task culture focuses on project, personnel, organizational flexibility, client satisfaction, and managerial consultation, which could be useful in sorting American Airline’s issues. Finally, the person's culture fixates on key values, freedom, employee welfare, and shared power. 

3.2 Diversity in Organizational Management

3.2.1 Equality, Equity, and Justice

According to Campbell Quick (2021), equality refers to ignoring the differences and peculiarities among employees or professionals according to their benefits, rewards, punishments or consideration for welfare. Equity considers the differences among the same professionals and employees based on performance, merit, or experience (Gomez & Bernet, 2019). However, justice denotes the consideration that management invests in ensuring sustainability, equitable access to benefits and consideration for performance (Leslie, 2019). These considerations are key pillars in diversity management. 

3.2.2 Social Class and Unions

Gomez and Bernet (2019) suggested how cultural studies undertaken by Marx and Weber denoted that classification occurs in society and business domains based on cultural considerations, political affiliations, professional status, and economic ability. Social and cultural class considerations significantly influence business and organizational management, especially in diversity-related matters as demonstrated by the disparity in American Airlines’ employee composition (Holck, 2017). As the Industrial Revolution progressed into the late-1800s and early-1900s, many worker groups formed unions to improve their welfare (Campbell Quick, 2021). Such social and professional classes were keen to unite and discuss organizational and institutional factors related to their social and cultural interests. However, American and UK governments noticed their rise into political outfits, thus undermining them. The relationship between social class, unions and diversity management is characterized by the interface between welfare and institutional or organizational aspirations and objectives.

3.2.3 Gender, Sex, Masculinity, Feminity, and LGBTQ+

Holck (2017) reports that gender and sex are terms used in the organizational and management domains to differentiate between employees' biological and cultural components. Sex differentiates employees into women and men based on biological, physical, and material considerations, while gender does the same based on social, cultural, political, and historical factors (Lidya Lolowang et al., 2019). Diversity management also denotes the existence of major gaps in gender within management and organizational domains, especially in industris such as aviation traditionally regarded as male-dominated. Usually, women and other minority groups receive fewer wages, welfare consideration, and even appraisal compared to their male counterparts as is the case in American Airlines. Additionally, gender considerations have commonly been abused as grounds for abuse and harassment in many industries, such as civil aviation and healthcare. 

Roberson (2019) reports that masculinity in diversity and organizational management refers to the continued assumption that only men can perform better or are better suited to certain aspects of economic and organizational management functions. As a result, most of the technical, political, leadership, and management functions existent currently are staffed by men leaving out women struggling to break the glass ceiling (Walls & Wittner, 2022). In the civil aviation industry, for example, most pilots, engineers, and managers are men, even though women have continued to prove they can perform similarly well (Tan, 2018). Conversely, femininity refers to the misguided notion that women best handle certain aspects of the organizational management process and entire industries. Tan (2018) exemplifies the disparities by reporting that most teachers and nurses currently working globally are women due to feminist considerations in the greater diversity debate. However, the issue is further compounded by the emergence of LGBTQ+ welfare which counters the cultural and political underpinnings of most industries and countries. 

3.2.4 Race, Ethnicity, and Intersectionality

In the context of diversity, race to differences in physical appearance, geographical orientation, and historical patterns of oppression that organizational and industrial stakeholders use to abuse employees (Vranjes & Lyubykh, 2021). Ethnicity may be related to race, but it focuses more on cultural attributes than physical ones. Unfortunately, white people or Caucasians benefit from such racial and ethnic differentiations based on historical patterns of oppression and systemic racism in all industries. African Americans, Africans, Asians, and Hispanics are considered minorities politically and culturally, exposing them to welfare issues and even abuse in organizational management domains (Gomez & Bernet, 2019). Consequently, most middle-level management comprises lesser minorities, such as Asians and Hispanics, while Caucasians take up the top-level and executive roles. Hancock and Tyler’s study of flight attendants in 2000 demonstrated how flight attendants are expected to look, talk, and even dress in a certain way while these skills are ignored and unremunerated (Roberson, 2019). Similarly, African Americans and Africans are relegated to the lowest cadres in almost all industries. Critical race and post-colonial race theories enable management personnel to understand the underpinnings of such diversity concerns. 

Intersectionality refers to the intersections of oppression and bias in the professional, social, or political domains. Herein, feminists may argue that single African American women are the most oppressed demographic in the United States job market (Vranjes & Lyubykh, 2021). Concurrently, labour unionists may report that physically disabled Hispanic women are vulnerable in certain industries. Notably, gay African American army cadets are ostracized during training and deployment in many army units (Gomez & Bernet, 2019). The concept denotes the interaction of various forms of oppression such as racism, gender bias, LGBTQ+, physically disabled, and ageism.

4.0 Case Study Discussion

4.1 Challenges

            American Airlines is different from the bastion of managerial diversity and cultural inclusivity one would expect from one of the largest and oldest airlines globally (Thakur et al., 2021). As of 2019, only 20 per cent of the flight crew were female, and just 15 per cent of its technicians are women compared to more than 70% of its flight attendants being female (Zippia.com, 2022). While the airline touts itself as a leader in LGBTQ+ welfare, it focuses on the impact employing professionals from such social groups has on its PR and market image. Notably, the large airline has an average score in LGBTQ+ employment rates in the American civil aviation industry. Additionally, the management culture is somewhat hybridized along market and control cultures. Therefore, the company is more fixated on market domination and managerial control at the expense of its people, their welfare, and task culture considerations.

American Airlines ignores the organizational culture bodies of knowledge in its structural and operational aspects. According to the literature, various types of organizational culture impact the operational aspect of a business organization (Ahmed, 2021). The airline has adopted a hybridized market and control organizational cultures. These organizational cultures align with output control and psychological control, both forms of management control (Yilmaz et al., 2019). The market culture seeks to establish an organization in its market environment with little consideration for the employees, their aspirations, or contributions (Payne et al., 2018). Therefore, American Airlines has made the mistake of adopting a market culture which ignores its employees, as evidenced by the serious discrepancies in its diversity and employee welfare performance metrics (Alkhatib & Migdadi, 2018). American Airlines is also fixated on its control culture, evidenced by output control in the form of flights executed daily, the number of pilots hired, and balance sheet results while ignoring employee fatigue, retraining requirements, and other welfare considerations. 

Organizational culture also includes mission and goals, rewards and punishments, and ways of dealing with the outside world. For example, American Airlines' mission statement mentions a commitment to providing every citizen with the best air travel experience. Notably, there is no mention of the employees involved in the process once more exposing its market and control cultures (Seo, 2020). Additionally, the airline needs help with negotiations with its pilots and flight attendants about payment, which denotes minimal consideration by the management of organizational culture aspects related to rewards and punishments (Brown & Kline, 2020). Finally, American Airlines is also an operator of more than 900 aircraft, none of which have the most modern ecological technologies, such as biofuel. The airline has orders with Boeing and Airbus for more than 100 more aircraft. However, its commitment and investment in environmental conservation are minimal, considering how harmful civil aviation is to the environment.

Using the Edgar-Schein model of organizational culture, American Airlines is in contravention of at least two visible and invisible processes. The visible processes related to the airline include behaviour and logos. The airline has remained unchanged as its European rivals seek more flexible relationships with stakeholders such as the government, the environment, and employees (Gould et al., 2020). American Airlines has a hard stance with its pilots and flight attendants, who regularly complain about discrimination, overwork, and unfair wages. The invisible processes related to American Airlines include its aged industrial mindset of expansion without consideration for ecological factors, which other airlines have adopted, thus buying aircraft using biofuel technology. 

According to Handy's theoretical framework, American Airlines must adopt person and task cultures. Herein, person culture denotes a commitment to employee welfare and including them in management decision-making. Performance-based remuneration would also sort the labour problems plaguing the company, where pilots and technicians are constantly threatened with industrial action (Sangster & Smith, 2019). Additionally, the airline could consider a task culture whereby adopting organizational flexibility and customer-oriented operations in coordination with employees promise better operations. 

Unfortunately, American Airlines does not have the best performance metrics regarding diversity. Only 3% of the airline's pilots are African American (Zippia.com, 2022). Additionally, only 5% are women. More than 56% of the company's workforce is Caucasian. Only 20% of American Airlines' employees are Hispanic (Zippia.com, 2022). Overall, the airline has employed only 12% as people of colour, denoting serious ethnicity and racism issues (Singh, 2018). The airline also faces several issues related to LGBTQ+ welfare, with allegations that it shuns employing gay flight attendants and avoids businesses run or owned by members of the LGBTQ+ community.

4.2 Recommendations

The first recommendation American Airlines needs to adopt is a clear change in its organizational culture towards person-oriented practices. Herein, the company would consider the welfare of its entire workforce, thus avoiding ethnicity and welfare problems (Košťálová et al., 2021). Additionally, American Airlines management would invest more in retraining and employee welfare instead of buying more than 100 new aircraft, thus reaping more benefits in the long run. 

Secondly, the airline needs to consider improving its task culture to make additional considerations for organizational flexibility, customer welfare, and sustainability. For example, the airline operates an output-centred firm which focuses more on flight metrics, passenger numbers, fuel savings, and market dominance at the expense of employee and customer satisfaction (Larroulet & Ardiles, 2018). Additionally, adopting sustainability mindsets as part of the company's invisible organizational culture could enable it to invest more in fuel-saving and environmentally-friendly equipment and strategies. 

Third, American Airlines needs to engage the services of a reputable diversity management firm to enable it to upgrade its employee diversity metrics. As the largest airline in the world, American Airlines could employ more members of the minority, such as African Americans, Native Americans, Hispanics, and Asian Americans (Merkert & Webber, 2018). The airline also needs to consider employing more women and members of the LGBTQ+ community to uplift its diversity performance. Such considerations could enable the airline to attract more customers in the lucrative American civil aviation industry. 

Finally, the mission statement at American Airlines needs to be changed to accommodate more stakeholder interests and welfare. Instead of focusing on just the customers, the company could mention the interests and contributions of its employees towards enabling it to remain competitive and sustainable while fulfilling the needs and aspirations of its customer groups (Palma & Tafuri, 2017). Organizational culture is a critical consideration in the cutthroat American civil aviation industry; therefore, American Airlines must change its entire organizational culture and management practice to optimize its market position and performance. 

5.0 Conclusion

The civil aviation industry in North America is very competitive, with hundreds of airlines competing for the same customers while offering similar customer experiences. Therefore, companies have had to innovate or expand continuously to remain afloat, especially since 2020, when Covid 19 disrupted the global aviation industry. Unfortunately, American Airlines is plagued by constant employee complaints about unfair wages, discrimination, and inadequate training investment. Additionally, American Airlines has a poor track record regarding sustainability, revealing serious organizational culture and diversity issues that merit additional research and remedial actions. However, the airline could reverse its current challenges through the adoption of people and task organizational cultures, consultation with a renowned diversity management firm to uplift minority staff levels and general employee welfare, and adoption of a new sustainability-oriented organizational culture.

 

 

6.0 Bibliography

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Alkhatib, S.F. and Migdadi, Y.K. (2018) “Operational determinants of airline service quality: Worldwide cross-regional analysis,” Quality Management Journal, 25(4), pp. 186–200. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1080/10686967.2018.1515525.

Alvesson, M. (2016) Organizational culture. Los Angeles: SAGE.

Brown, R.S. and Kline, W.A. (2020) “Exogenous shocks and managerial preparedness: A study of U.S. airlines’ environmental scanning before the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic,” Journal of Air Transport Management, 89, p. 101899. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jairtraman.2020.101899.

Campbell Quick, J. (2021) “Workplace Stress and Wellbeing: Pathways for Future Research Advances,” A Research Agenda for Workplace Stress and Wellbeing, pp. 15–32. Available at: https://doi.org/10.4337/9781789905021.00009.

Dewi, N.N. and Wibowo, R. (2020) “The effect of leadership style, organizational culture and motivation on employee performance,” Management Science Letters, pp. 2037–2044. Available at: https://doi.org/10.5267/j.msl.2020.2.008.

Elsbach, K.D. and Stigliani, I. (2018) “Design thinking and organizational culture: A review and framework for Future Research,” Journal of Management, 44(6), pp. 2274–2306. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1177/0149206317744252.

Gomez, L.E. and Bernet, P. (2019) “Diversity improves performance and outcomes,” Journal of the National Medical Association, 111(4), pp. 383–392. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jnma.2019.01.006.

Gould, R. et al. (2020) “Disability, diversity, and Corporate Social Responsibility: Learning from recognized leaders in inclusion,” Journal of Vocational Rehabilitation, 52(1), pp. 29–42. Available at: https://doi.org/10.3233/jvr-191058.

Hai Nguyen, L. and Watanabe, T. (2018) “Project Organizational Culture Framework in Construction Industry,” Organizational Culture [Preprint]. Available at: https://doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.78628.

Holck, L. (2017) “Unequal by structure: Exploring the structural embeddedness of organizational diversity,” Organization, 25(2), pp. 242–259. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1177/1350508417721337.

Holtom, B.C. and Sekiguchi, T. (2016) “Exploring the relationship between job embeddedness and organizational citizenship behavior,” Oxford Handbooks Online [Preprint]. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190219000.013.28.

Irwan, A. et al. (2020) “The effect of leadership style, work motivation and organizational culture on employee performance mediated by job satisfaction,” International Journal of Multicultural and Multireligious Understanding, 7(8), p. 642. Available at: https://doi.org/10.18415/ijmmu.v7i8.2007.

Košťálová, J. et al. (2021) Diversity management. Pardubice: Univerzita Pardubice.

Larroulet, C. and Ardiles, J. (2018) “LATAM Airlines Group: From the end of the Earth to no. 10 in the world,” Business Despite Borders, pp. 151–164. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-76306-4_11.

Leslie, L.M. (2019) “Diversity Initiative Effectiveness: A typological theory of unintended consequences,” Academy of Management Review, 44(3), pp. 538–563. Available at: https://doi.org/10.5465/amr.2017.0087.

Lidya Lolowang, N. et al. (2019) “The effect of leadership and organizational culture on employee performance that is educated by motivation (study on the implementation empowerment programs in Jayapura City),” Problems and Perspectives in Management, 17(1), pp. 268–277. Available at: https://doi.org/10.21511/ppm.17(1).2019.23.

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Palma, D.D. and Tafuri, D. (2017) Diversity management. Napoli: Idelson-Gnocchi.

Payne, G., Cruz-Suarez, A. and Prado-Román, A. (2018) “Legitimacy as competitive advantage: A US airline case study,” Organizational Legitimacy, pp. 121–140. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-75990-6_8.

Roberson, Q.M. (2019) “Diversity in the workplace: A review, synthesis, and future research agenda,” Annual Review of Organizational Psychology and Organizational Behavior, 6(1), pp. 69–88. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-orgpsych-012218-015243.

Sangster, J. and Smith, J. (2019) “From career girl to sexy stewardess: Popular culture and women’s work in the Canadian and American Airline Industries,” Women: A Cultural Review, 30(2), pp. 141–161. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1080/09574042.2019.1600310.

Seo, G.-H. (2020) “A content analysis of International Airline Alliances Mission Statements,” Business Systems Research Journal, 11(1), pp. 89–105. Available at: https://doi.org/10.2478/bsrj-2020-0007.

Singh, R. (2018) Aviation management: Global and national perspectives. New Delhi: Kanishka Publishers, Distributors.

Tan, K.Y. (2018) “Singapore’s smart nation initiative: Can we future-proof ourselves?,” Unintended Consequences in Singapore, pp. 51–57. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1142/9789813231740_0004.

Thakur, P., Khoo, C. and Pyar, W.Y. (2021) “Diversity training: Where are we, and where should we be heading? A systematic literature review,” Tourism Recreation Research, pp. 1–24. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1080/02508281.2021.1965369.

Vranjes, I. and Lyubykh, Z. (2021) “Workplace mistreatment: A review and agenda for research,” Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Business and Management [Preprint]. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780190224851.013.119.

Walls, J. and Wittner, A. (2022) Sustainable aviation: A management perspective. Cham (CH): Springer.

Yilmaz, K.A., Flouris, T.G. and Sener, M.S. (2019) Values, ergonomics and risk management in aviation business strategy. Singapore: Springer.

Zippia.com (2022) American Airlines number of employees, Statistics, diversity, demographics, and facts, Zippia. Zippia. Available at: https://www.zippia.com/american-airlines-careers-525/demographics/ (Accessed: December 24, 2022).

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