Running Heading: CASE STUDY RESPONSE PAPER 1
Case Study Response Paper - BMAL 504-B02 LUO
Matthew A. Willson
Liberty University
CASE STUDY RESPONSE PAPER 2
Abstract
In this case response paper, we will be examining the transformation of British Airways
from 1980 – 1990. We will be addressing five main questions in this paper which are:
How was the accompanying reading, “Re-Energizing the Mature Organization,” germane
to the case on British Airways?
What was life like at the “old” British Airways? What was difficult about making a
change?
What were the critical factors in the successful transformation?
How did they transform themselves? (e.g., key steps and sequence, risks)
What would you have done differently?
The journey of transformation with British Airways to say the least is worthwhile study when
any company is dealing with change. You will find that although not everything can be translated
to every company in the same fashion, you will be able to take some keep parts of their
transformation and apply it to your possible need to change within your company.
CASE STUDY RESPONSE PAPER 3
How was the accompanying reading, “Re-Energizing the Mature Organization,” germane to the
case on British Airways?
Understanding the life cycle of companies is an essential part of knowing when to make
changes. As companies grow and transform in maturity as a company there comes a time that
change needs to happen in order to keep viable in the market or you will die as a company. Our
textbook outlines the life cycle of an organization as Entrepreneurial, Growth, Maturity, and
Decline (Jick & Peiperl, 2011). They also so how the change cycle happens in organizations as
Restructuring, Bureaucracy bashing, Employee involvement, Continuous improvement, and
Culture change (Jick & Peiperl, 2011). Our authors point out “One of the most difficult
challenges of renewal is the ability to recognize whether existing mindsets and practices are
inconsistent with current customer requirements” (Jick & Peiperl, 2011, p. 40).
In the life of a Christian we know that there is cycles in life that we should be aware of
Ecclesiastes 3 “There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens:
a time to be born and a time to die, a time to plant and a time to uproot, a time to kill and a time
to heal, a time to tear down and a time to build” (NIV). As life changes in our own lives as
Christians we need to look to the author of our faith Christ to lead the changes and seasons of our
lives Hebrews 12:2 “fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer, and perfecter of faith. For the joy set
before him, he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne
of God.” (NIV)
What was life like at the “old” British Airways? What was difficult about making a change?
British Airways was a divided culture with two competing mindsets that was driving the
company. In the early 1970s, the company was essentially the merge of two companies’ the
British European Airways (BEA) and British Overseas Airways Corporation (BOAC) (Jick &
CASE STUDY RESPONSE PAPER 4
Peiperl, 2011). For many years they each remained running separately with each having different
chairmen and board of directors. At this time the culture was very much operations driven which
at the time was focused on getting the aircraft in the air on time and to its destination on time
(Jick & Peiperl, 2011). Because of this strong sense of separation of the two parts that would lead
to uphill battles in making any kind of change for the company leadership. Both sides of the
company was riddled with inefficiency’s and redundancy’s that became the culture of the
company. The sharp division between the two parts and the bloated size of the company at the
time which was topping at 58,000 employees (Jick & Peiperl, 2011) proved the need for a new
chairman that could bring in a new change for British Airways and that person would be Sir John
King (Jick & Peiperl, 2011).
What were the critical factors in the successful transformation?
Critical factors to making the transformation at British Airways come from the
appointment of Sir John King who was appointed chairman in 1981 (Jick & Peiperl, 2011). This
appointment was the start of the transformation of BA. In his first year as chairman King
understood the need to make changes with the out of control loss of money, the company was
experiencing and reduced the staff by 20 percent from 52,000 employees to 43,000 (Jick &
Peiperl, 2011). In the second year, King made another staffing cut of 7,000 and brought the
company to about 35,000 total employee’s which helped them get to a stable financial footing to
begin making changes to the culture of the company. King did this with making two significant
decisions. The first was making a clear commitment to changing the image of the company. He
did this by replacing the long-held contract for marketing with Foote, Cone & Belding and going
with a new company Saatchi & Saatchi (Jick & Peiperl, 2011). The other major decision that
King made was hiring Colin Marshall as chief executive (Jick & Peiperl, 2011). Marshall would
CASE STUDY RESPONSE PAPER 5
be vital in creating the customer-focused culture at BA and implementing programs like Putting
People First 1 and 2 to help change the culture from operations to customer service (Jick &
Peiperl, 2011). Marshall also would put into place a program directed at managers which was
Managing People First program, each one of these programs where very successful in helping to
bring about a more customer-focused culture for the company (Jick & Peiperl, 2011). Finally,
one of the last significant factors was the privatizing of the company in 1986; this allowed King
and Marshall to make a significant thrust in the globalization market (Jick & Peiperl, 2011).
I think it is worth talking about here that the personality of leadership plays a factor in
making changes to any company. Research shows that certain leadership personality types can
contribute to making strategic changes in a company. Herrmann & Nadkarni (2014) in their
research article “Managing strategic change: The duality of CEO personality” discovered that
there are some dominant personality traits that many CEO’s have that effect change in
organizations they are Conscientiousness, Emotional stability, Extraversion, Agreeableness, and
Openness to experience (Herrmann & Nadkarni, 2014).
How did they transform themselves? (e.g., key steps and sequence, risks)
Some of the critical steps that BA made were cutting the staffing; changing the
company’s imaging campaign, and changing the culture of operations to the customer first. Other
key moves that BA made was hiring key individuals that had the right skill set to make changes
need for the company like King and Marshell.
What would you have done differently?
Not sure I would do anything different as far as making the major changes that King did.
However, as the company made the changes and became more customer focused I do think that
they could have incorporated more a concept called Design Think “Design Thinking is a process
CASE STUDY RESPONSE PAPER 6
where multidisciplinary teams work together by means of "radical collaboration" to tackle big
projects using prototyping to discover new solutions. Design thinking uses the values of
feasibility (is the solution practical), viability (can the solution be implemented in a practical and
useful way) and desirability (is it something people want to do and will recommend to others)”
(Swanson, 2015, p. 2). I think the advantage here is looking at problems first from the customer
perspective and then bringing together a team form a broad spectrum to solve or to innovate the
issue at hand.
CASE STUDY RESPONSE PAPER 7
Reference
Herrmann, P., & Nadkarni, S. (2014). Managing strategic change: The duality of CEO
personality. Strategic Management Journal, 35(9), 1318-1342. doi:10.1002/smj.2156
Jick, T. D., & Peiperl, M. A. (2011). Managing change: Cases and concepts (3rd ed.). New York,
NY: Irwin/McGraw-Hill. ISBN: 9780073102740.
Swanson, D. (2015). Changing behaviors at scale. Strategic HR Review, 14(6), 230-233.
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