Southwest Airlines Corp. Culture
The topic chosen was Southwest Airlines because of its prevalent and lengthy history of successful entrepreneurship and presence in the airline industry. It has been successful in its ability to attain success in many facets of the economy. From implementing an innovative marketing structure to effectively managing its workforce, Southwest has been the pioneer in many forms of creativity and innovation in the industry. In addition, it is an excellent topic for the theme of the assignment: Assessing Corporate Culture. Southwest has implemented, enforced and practiced all 11 points of the discussion of this assignment.
Mission Statement
A company hoping to instill a goal or direction should begin with a sound and well rounded statement of the company vision. The mission statement helps reinforce the goals, desires and foresight of the company and Southwest is no exception. Since its inception 32 years ago, its goal was to assure prompt flights at the lowest possible fares while assuring the customer had a wonderful experience in the interim. Since that time, Southwest has remained on that course and included their formalized mission statement that is "dedicated to the highest quality of customer service with a sense of warmth, friendliness, individual pride and company spirit" (http://www.southwestairlines.com).
The organization has a clear focus on its market with respect to knowledge management. It has implemented its statement in order to secure and retain its market share.
Work Environment
At Southwest, the employee is the greatest asset of the company. The employee is above that of the customer. A common tune in the company is "customers come second... and still get great service"(Czaplewski, Ferguson & Millima, 2001, p. 2). This statement speaks for itself, in fact, Southwest encourages personality openness among its workforce in the form of communication, ideas and opinions. It accomplishes this by...
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