CASE STUDY 3-1 The Merger of Airtran by Southwest Airlines

CASE STUDY 3-1 The Merger of Airtran by Southwest Airlines

Week 4: Discussion: CASE STUDY 3-1 The Merger of Airtran by Southwest Airlines: Will the Organizational Cultures Merge?

Go to pages 72 to 73 of your recommended textbook and familiarize yourself with the CASE STUDY 3-1. You can thereafter discuss and give answers to the following questions based on the case study:

1. Discuss the layers of culture that are evident in this case. Why do you think Southwest has preferred to grow organically over its history?

2. What are the similarities and dissimilarities between the cultures, values, and beliefs of Southwest and AirTran airlines? Where would you expect the differences to be most difficult to manage? Why?

3. What problem could arise due to the different perspectives of both airlines toward online reservation systems? What do you recommend the managers do to solve these problems?

4. What would you recommend managers to do to ensure a smooth integration of the information systems given the cultural differences?

I am aware that all students have a Grammarly account. I, therefore, request you all to use Grammarly to check your paper before you upload to iLearn, failing to do so will cause you to lose some points. The essence of doing this is to ensure that your paper is free from grammatical errors, conjugation, and spellings.

A quality post is more than stating, “I agree with you.” Maybe you should state why you agree with your classmate’s post. Additionally, post some examples or find a related topic on the Internet or University’s library and comment on it in the discussion post.

Reference: Pearlson, K., Saunders, C., Galletta, D. Managing and Using Information Systems: A Strategic Approach, 6th Edition. Burlington, MA. Wiley, 2016

ISBN: 978-1-119-24807-1 (EVALC)

20161016002530southwest_case_study

Solution Preview

1. Discuss the layers of culture that are evident in this case. Why do you think the Southwest Airways preferred to grow organically over history?
The ongoing merger exhibits several layers of culture from which similarities and differences can be extracted between the two airlines. The first layer is that of customer satisfaction through employee brilliance where a good public image of company employees is the culture to attract customers.

(549 words)