This report mainly evaluates the organizational culture and leadership style of Ryan with the management issue – poor customer service and in relation to management theories. As one of the best low cost airlines, Ryan consistently focus on cost-cutting but at the same time reveal many problems on its Human Resources which directly lower the quality of their customer services. O the aim Of this report is to identify the organizational culture and mind its leadership style. Therefore analyze the results with classic theories and finally give some recommendations. Key Issues -? poor customer services As everyone knows, Ryan is one of most successful airlines in Europe. Since established in 1985, it has kept a great financial performance annually. But by consistently lowering the cost and expanding their routes at the cost of ignoring the customer service, the management has appeared a big problem.
A news article (Africa, 201 3) reported that some customers were hitting by fines at the airport because of not print off the tickets and another news BBC, 2010) also wrote about an employee of Ryan tells a girl to buy a plane ticket for her violin. What is more, Ryan has been voted the worst UK brand for customer service in 2013(Management today, 2013). Things like that told us Ryan neglect the importance of customer service and cause disappointment of their customers, so we can apply management theories with this issue to analyze this distinctive company.
Identification of organizational culture Henry Integers once said “Culture is the soul of the organization, and structure is the skeleton inside it”. That means culture can give organizations spiritual support and life force. Every organization has its own distinctive culture which may have a positive or negative impact on many aspects of the business. To identify a company’s culture, Scheme (2004) give us three levels. Artifacts is the surface level, it is a visible culture that all the elements can be observed like the crew uniforms and blue and yellow trademark.
Besides, Michael O’Leary can be another artifact, his behavior and personality is the symbol of Ryan. Espoused beliefs and values is the second level. It can be beliefs which members hold about their work. Members improve their ideas about how to make decisions and how to perform better. The value for Ryan is the cost-efficiency and low fares. Basic underlying assumptions are ideas deeply held about the company, the environment and the sources of success. For Ryan, the basic assumptions are no matter where you are, the main goal is minimizing the costs.
By utilizing the (Slouch and Helloing, 2006) model (Appendix 1), the organizational culture can be classified by four aspects – The clan culture, the hierarchy culture, the autocracy culture and the market culture. Obviously, Ryan can be put into the market culture which is a results oriented organization. As a no- frill airline, they have a clear tragedy is to cut costs. To achieve this goal, their cabin crew, staff and pilots’ salary are all performance based. Under this culture staffs seldom pay attention to the external world and concentrate on their work.
Identification of leadership style The Traits Models (McCrae and John, 1 992) can offer us five typical traits of leaders which were known as the big five. There are many adjectives that describe each extreme position. For Michael O’Leary, we can identify his personality by two super traits – Conscientiousness and Agreeableness (Body, 2008). As the CEO of Rain, he is truly achievement oriented and his hilltop’s is to make profits. There is a news (AOL, 2012) reported that Ryan urged their cabin crew to lose weight so they can save the fuel cost.
Besides, he was strict with the staff by setting many kinds of rules including staff were not allow to charge their mobile phone at work. If things continue like this, it must negatively affect the behavior of staff and therefore lower the quality of customer service. The study in Ohio and Michigan Universities found that leadership has more than one dimension. The managerial grid (Appendix 2) developed by Blake and Mouton (1964, 1 979) can clearly illustrate the type of Ryan’s leadership.
This simple grid shows several combinations of initiating structure and consideration. Ryan is at around the lower right-hand corner (9, 1) which is a perish style of leadership shows low concern for people and chases its organizational objectives. Beyond that, employee’s personal needs are not considered by the managers, they just have to follow instructions. Conclusion By applying the theories of Chain’s components of cultures, Slouch and Hilliness’s model, the traits models and the managerial gird, the cause of Ryan poor customer service can be stated as below.
The CEO and senior management are focus on the performance of their company. The personality of the CEO is arbitrary and brusque, so it is hard to create an interaction and communication between O’Leary and his staff. Influenced by this organizational culture, staff will work with complaint, and treat badly to their customers. Regardless of how the public evaluate Ryan, the company still keep on its strategy However, the cheapest tickets not equal to the most customers, just like not all the consumers’ core consumption concept is price.
When people even the loyal customers lose confidence to a company, the company must face the large financial loss. Recommendations for future development Ryan has very apparent advantages and disadvantages. He is just like a typical businessman who knows how to make money but fails to concern for people. In order to change its bad situation, the company should improve its customer service and build better brand image. Because its poor customer service is limiting its room for growth.
