Managing Culture at British Airways: Hype, Hope and Reality

long range planning

Long Range Planning 35 (2002) 179-194 www.lrpjournal.com

Managing Culture at BritishAirways: Hype, Hope andReality

Irena Grugulis and Adrian Wilkinson

Nearly twenty years after the publication of the (in)famous In Search of Excellence, thenotion of ‘cultural change’ within organisations continues to excite attention. This isreadily understandable, since cultural interventions offer practitioners the hope of auniversal panacea to organisational ills and academics an explanatory framework thatenjoys the virtues of being both partially true and gloriously simple. Such acombination is apparent in the way that many attempts to shape organisational cultureare presented to the public: as simple stories with happy endings.1 This article attemptsto rescue a fairy-tale. The story of British Airways is one of the most widely usedinspirational accounts of changing culture. Throughout the 1980s and 1990s it wasused to demonstrate the necessary compatibility of pleasure and profits2 in celebratoryaccounts where culture change is presented as the only explanation for thetransformation that occurred. This corrective makes no attempt to deny the verysubstantial changes that took place in BA. Rather, it sets these in context noting theorganisation’s environment at the time of the transformation, the structural changesthat took place and observes the impact that such changes had over the long term.3–5

�c 2002 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.

Today, nearly twenty years after the publication of the(in)famous In Search of Excellence, the notion of ‘cultural change’within organisations continues to excite attention. This continu-ing attraction is readily understood, since cultural interventionsoffer practitioners the hope of a universal panacea to organis-ational ills and academics an explanatory framework that enjoysthe virtues of being both partially true and gloriously simple.Such a combination is apparent in the way that many attemptsto shape organisational culture are presented to the public: assimple stories with happy endings.

0024-6301/02/$ - see front matter �c 2002 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.PII: S 0 0 2 4 - 6 3 0 1 (0 2 ) 0 0 0 3 6 - 5

Dr Irena Grugulis is a Reader in

Employment Studies at the

University of Salford and an

associate fellow of SKOPE,

University of

Warwick/University of Oxford.

She sits in the ESRC’s MPLE

College, founded the

International Critical

Management Studies

Conference and has published

on NVQs, management

training, the nature of

managerial work and managing

cultureas well as a recent book

on Customer Service published

by Palgrave. University of

Salford, Salford M5 4WT. Tel:

0161-295 5804 E-mail:

[email protected]

Adrian Wilkinson is Professor

of Human Resource

Management and Research

Director at Loughborough

University Business School. He

has written extensively on

many aspects of Human

Resource Management and

Industrial Relations. Recent

research has encompassed

change initiatives, the

changing nature of Employee

Participation, and Employment

Relations in Financial Services.

He is on the editorial board of

several refereed journals and is

also a Consulting Editor for the

International Journal of

Management Reviews.

Loughborough University

Business School, Ashby Road,

Loughborough, Leics LE11 3TU.

Tel: 01509 228273 Fax: 01509

223960 Email:

[email protected]

Managing Culture at British Airways180

To a certain extent, of course, any form of narration encour-ages a story, an ending, and, as a result, a simplification—andstories may be used to shed light on attitudes and understandingsnot otherwise easily available to the researcher. But there is avery significant difference between listening to the accounts thatindividuals tell in order to make sense of their lives and allowingthe study of the workplace to become ‘fictionalised’. The formerinvolves engaging with the ‘subjects’ of the research, attemptingto understand their world view and allowing them a voice in theprocess they are participating in. The latter can mean a selectivereading of the data with examples chosen because they illustratepre-set conclusions.In management particularly the capacity ofwriters to turn case studies into celebratory fictions is worrying.As Marchington argues, too many texts focus on “fairy tales andmagic wands”.6 Such an emphasis encourages the belief that whatis important in the workplace is not context, structure, power,economics or industrial relations but whatever new initiativemanagement have chosen to introduce (the “magic wands”). Theform that this magic takes varies from intervention to inter-vention but the impact claimed for each is curiously similar, withunproductive workplaces turned around and reluctant employeestransformed into enthusiasts. Any changes that take place areseen to be a direct result of the magic and most are exaggerated.As a result, research into management becomes research into aseries of fads and fashions with Total Quality Management orBusiness Process Re-engineering or empowerment or culturevying for attention. Every intervention is presented as new, soacademic understanding of the workplace starts afresh each timea guru develops a new magic wand. Lessons cannot be carriedforward since BPR is not employee involvement and companyculture is not TQM. Elements of the workplace that might haveprovided a crucial element of continuity are ignored or dismissedas unimportant since only change is magical. As a result, by rely-ing on these accounts, we understand less and less about whyorganisations function in the way that they do and practitionersare encouraged to believe that each initiative starts with a blanksheet, entirely unconstrained by what has gone before.

Accordingly, in this article we attempt to rescue a fairy-tale.The story of British Airways is one of the most widely used inspi-rational accounts of changing culture. Throughout the 80s and90s it was used to demonstrate the necessary compatibility ofpleasure and profits. In such celebratory accounts, culture changeis presented as the only explanation for the transformation thatoccurred. This corrective makes no attempt to deny the very sub-stantial changes that took place in BA. Rather, it sets these incontext noting the organisation’s environment at the time of thetransformation, the structural changes that took place andobserving the impact that such changes had over the long term.7

Managing culture: promises and problemsIn many respects, the management of culture is peculiarly sus-ceptible to being presented as a corporate fiction. While other

[email protected]

[email protected]

management initiatives seek to promote positive attitudes byincreasing employees’ area of responsibility throughempowerment, aligning their financial interests with those of theorganisation through adjustments to the payment system ordemonstrating an organisational commitment to its ‘humanassets’ by investing in training, cultural change targets employeeattitudes directly and aims to secure ‘commitment’ rather than‘resigned behavioural compliance’8 with all employees sharing a‘common vision’ and working together for the good of theorganisation.

As a result, the managerial task becomes one that involvesestablishing control over the meaning of work, rather than itsexecution, of ‘converting’ employees to the corporate ‘faith’. Inthe words of Peters and Waterman,9 managers’ jobs becomemore fun. Instead of brain games in the sterile ivory tower, it’sshaping values and reinforcing through coaching and evangelismin the field—with the worker in support of the cherished pro-duct.

When the managerial task is to inspire and enthuse, it followsthat, if management academics are management’s advocates andapologists, their task is to provide prescriptions, exemplars andcelebrations. Such accounts exist to provoke an emotionalresponse and provide a spur to action and, to fulfil these func-tions, must necessarily describe productive interventions. In thisnarrative tradition management fads and fashions can only suc-ceed.

So, not only is culture as a topic particularly likely to be rep-resented as fiction, but also management writers may see theirrole as essentially celebratory. For those who read case studies tobe inspired and enthused this combination is probably welcome.Others, seeking to understand the way organisations function,assess the impact of interventions on employees, consider howstructural and strategic factors combine, or even (through theirwriting) contribute towards a wider, emancipatory agenda, pre-ferring accounts that do not automatically seek to report ‘tri-umphs’. In these, the management of culture is depicted as some-thing rather more complex than a ‘magic wand’, ‘successes’ aremore than counter-balanced by initiatives with mixed or negativeresults and interventions are not assumed to be permanent‘fixes’.10,11

Occasionally the failures of culture management programmesare comic. Collinson argues that many of the initiatives designedby one British factory’s (new, American) management servedonly to inspire shop-floor humour including stigmatising thecompany newsletter as ‘Goebel’s Gazette’.12 Hamper’s account ofhis time at General Motors included the story of the quality cat‘Howie Makem’ whose job was to patrol the factory exhortingworkers to produce higher quality. General Motors’ employeesreacted to this by producing their own ‘quantity cat’ who(fittingly) chased ‘Howie Makem’ off the factory floor.13 AndBritish employees of Gap, a US-owned clothes chain, produced

Long Range Planning, vol 35 2002 181

...the task... involves

establishing control

over the meaning of

work rather than its

execution

...the link between a

unitary culture and

corporate profits is

elusive


their own version of the organisation’s mission statements (seeTable 1).

Other accounts of cultural interventions are less amusing.Keenoy and Anthony note that shortly after the TSB launchedits culture change programme (which aimed to construct an‘achievement orientated culture’) it announced that some 5,000staff were to be made redundant;14 and Ogbonna and Wilkin-son’s research into culture change in supermarkets describespractices that are very stressful for the checkout operatorscharged with their implementation.15,16 In many organisations,it seems, cultural interventions are simply a form of work intensi-fication.

Significantly each of these references differs from the cel-ebrations in their willingness to believe that the impact of cul-tural change on employees is not automatically positive. Thisis not to argue that cultural interventions are never welcomed.Kunda,17 Casey18 and Grugulis et al.19 all describe environmentsin which enthusiastic staff welcomed the management of culture(though in all three cases the impact was problematic). Watson’smanagers viewed ZCT’s corporate culture changes with a mixtureof hope and scepticism;20 and Storey notes that, while little sym-pathy was forthcoming from the shop floor, several line man-agers were supportive.21

Going beyond the prescriptive accounts to understand organ-isations also raises questions on the efficacy of cultural changein securing ‘bottom line’ benefits. This coaching, evangelism andconversion, that Reed describes as a shift from “control byrepression to control by seduction”,22 assumes that employeecommitment equates to higher profits. In part because employeeswill now invest their energy, enthusiasm and ideas without con-straint; and in part this is because work is being re-defined inemotional rather than productive terms.23 In practice, of course,the link between a unitary culture and corporate profits is elusive.Indeed, not only is the failure of organisations actively engagedin culture management and high commitment work practicesnotable, but also anti-managerial cultures seem just as capableof fostering high levels of output as more consensual ones.24

Nor are fairy stories particularly helpful to managers. They

Table 1. Gap, words to live by

Gap words to live by Gap words to live byStaff Contributions in Italics

Everyone counts Everyone counts the days until they leaveEvery difference makes a Every difference makes a difference apart

difference from indifference

Own it, do it, done it Own it, do it, done it EH?Less is more … simplify Our wages Less is more … simplify

Take the smart risk Take the smart risk and quit

Do it better every day Do it better every day and still feel shitDo the right thing Do the right thing and leave

may inspire and enthuse but, as the evidence shows, the productof this enthusiasm is rarely successful. Here, by exploring bothsuccess and failure realistically we hope to provide more achiev-able (or less ambitious) targets for ‘managing culture’.

The British Airways storyEven by the standards of modern management myths the BritishAirways transformation was impressive. In the late 70s and early80s BA was performing disastrously against almost every indi-cator. An old fleet made for uncomfortable journeys and contrib-uted significantly to the airline’s record for unpunctuality, itsproductivity was considerably below that of its main overseascompetitors, it was beset by industrial disputes—and it was rec-ording substantial financial losses (£140 million or some £200 aminute in 1981). It seemed that staff discontent was more thanmatched by customer dissatisfaction and in 1980 a survey by theInternational Airline Passengers’ Association put BA at the topof a list of airlines to be avoided at all costs By 1996 this picturewas reversed. Not only had BA become the world’s most profit-able carrier, it was also voted the company that most graduateswould like to work for and, by the year 2000, another surveydeclared it the second most admired company in Europe.25–28

Much of the management literature attributes this turnaroundto BA’s own cultural change which remodelled staff attitudes andset customer care as the primary focus of activity. As Doylenoted:29

In the 80s BA had been transformed from a disastrous loss-mak-ing state enterprise—the British Rail of the sky—into the world’slargest and most profitable international airline. It was a triumphfor management, showing that Britain could produce world-classcompanies that could beat the best of the competition. Its successwas the result of the process and strategy that management intro-duced. The process focused on creating a vision that wouldinspire the BA staff and gain their enthusiastic commitment.

It is certainly true that a great deal of effort and energy wentinto shaping BA’s culture. At the heart of this was the ‘PuttingPeople First’ training programme launched by Colin Marshall,the company’s new chief executive, in December 1983. Originallyintended for staff who had direct contact with customers, it was,in fact, attended by all 40,000 employees by 1986 and it aimedto revolutionise their attitudes. In a direct challenge to the hier-archical and militaristic culture that existing in BA at the time,staff were instructed not to attend in uniform and, once on thecourse, put into cross-functional and cross-grade groups. Thecourse itself was consciously designed to modify behaviour.Attendees were encouraged to take a more positive attitude tothemselves, taught how to set personal goals and cope with stressand instructed in confidence building and ‘getting what theywanted out of life’. Lapel badges inscribed with the motto “We’re


fairy stories... may

inspire and enthuse...

but... the product is

rarely successful

Each time he flew the

chief executive would

introduce himself to

staff and passengers

and discuss their

experience of BA


putting people first” provided a visible reminder of the cour-se’s message.

The approach was self-consciously “indoctrinative”.30 As ColinMarshall said:

We … have to ‘design’ our people and their service attitudejust as we design an aircraft seat, an in-flight entertainmentprogramme or an airport lounge to meet the needs and pref-erences of our customers. (cited in Barsoux and Manzoni31

emphasis added).

Colin Marshall’s own personal commitment is one of the mostwritten-about features of the PPF programme. He attended 95per cent of the PPF courses, setting out his vision for BA andparticipating in question and answer sessions with staff32 (thoughthis figure is reported as 40 per cent in Barsoux and Manzoni.)33

This involvement extended beyond the PPF programme. Eachtime he flew the chief executive would introduce himself to frontline staff and passengers and discuss their experience of BA.Once, when a queue formed at the launch of a new service hehelped to deliver breakfasts to customers.34 In his presence all ofthe symbols of the ‘new culture’ were expected to be in place—even down to the PPF lapel badges. Staff not wearing one ofthese had replacements pinned in place and Colin Marshall worehis own PPF badge for two years.

But the most impressive aspect of BA’s cultural change is notso much the sophistication of the PPF programme itself, nor thecommitment of executive time, but the extent to which otheremployment policies and practices were changed to fit the ‘new’culture and the continued emphasis on these practices and pro-grammes throughout the 80s and 90s. Three-quarters of the onehundred Customer First teams, formed to propagate the messageof PPF, survived into the 90s. Not only were team briefings andteam working introduced but these were developed and refinedwith TQM, autonomous team working and multi-skilling intro-duced in many areas. Direct contact with all staff was consideredso important that ‘down route’ briefings were developed toensure that mobile and isolated staff were not neglected and inMarch 1996 BA became the first company to make daily TVbroadcasts to its staff.

In addition to this, emotions were increasingly emphasised inthe work process. The way cabin crew were rostered was changed,creating ‘families’ of staff to work the same shift patterns. Thesewere intended to provide mutual support, make cabin crew feelhappier about their work environments and, as a result, facilitatethe production of emotional labour. A new role of ‘PassengerGroup Co-ordinator’ was introduced and staff appointed basedentirely on personal qualities. The importance of emotional pro-cesses was also reflected in the new appraisal and reward systemssuch that work was judged on the way in which it was performedas well as against harder targets.35 Managerial bonuses could beas much as 20 per cent of salary and were calculated on a straight

50:50 split between exhibiting desired behaviours and achievingquantitative goals. Awards for Excellence and an Employee Brain-waves programme encouraged staff input. The Personnel Depart-ment was renamed ‘Human Resources’ with many decisionsdevolved to line managers and, in the first few years of the pro-gramme at least, a commitment was made to job security.

Closely following these developments, a Managing People Firstprogramme targeted managerial employees and aimed to bringtheir behaviours into line with a list developed by two con-sultancy firms (see Table 2). As on PPF, the emphasis on thisfive-day course was on quasi-group therapy and experientialexercises. Outward bound courses were also intended to supportthe re-shaping of personality and the small groups formed onthese residential programmes were expected to act as mutualsupport vehicles once back in the workplace.

Other courses were developed to maintain the momentumcreated by Putting People First and Managing People First. Theseincluded Winning for Customers, A Day in the Life, To Be theBest, Leading in a Service Business and Leadership 2000 and, whileeach was different, they all shared a focus on shaping staff

Table 2. The four factor menu of practices used in British Airways in 1984–1985 (on which the ManagingPeople First programme was based)

The menu of practices

FACTOR I: CLARITY AND HELPFULNESS FACTOR II: PROMOTING ACHIEVEMENT

Establishing clear, specific objectives for subordinates Emphasising and demonstrating commitment to

achieving goalsHelping subordinates to understand how their jobs Giving subordinates feedback on how they are doing

contribute to the overall performance of the

organisationClearly defining standards of excellence required for Communicating your views to others honestly and

job performance directly about their performance

Providing help, training and guidance for subordinates Recognising people more often than criticising themGiving subordinates a clear-cut decision when they Recognising subordinates for innovation and calculated

need one risk taking

FACTOR III: INFLUENCING THROUGH FACTOR IV: CARE AND TRUST

PERSONAL EXCELLENCE AND TEAMWORKING

Knowing and being able to explain to others the Behaving in a way that leads others to trust you

mission of the organisation and how it relates to theirjobs

Communicating high personal standards informally Building warm, friendly relationships

through appearance and dedicationNoticing and showing appreciation for extra effort Paying close attention to what people are saying

Sharing power in the interest of achieving overall Responding non-defensively when others disagree with

organisation objectives your viewsWilling to make tough decisions in implementing Making sure that there is a frank and open exchange

corporate strategy at work group meetings

Source: Georgiades and Macdonnell [2], p. 174.


Existence of cultural

factors does not

negate material

ones... there were

structural reasons for

BA’s success


emotional attitudes to work. The most dramatic form of this wasprobably the ‘love bath’ exercise in one of the early courses inwhich delegates took it in turns to sit in the centre of a circlewhile their colleagues complimented them (see 36 for an accountof participants’ reactions to this process). Nearly twenty yearsafter the launch of PPF, BA managers attending a training coursewere still being told about understanding themselves and tak-ing responsibility:

understanding self is our starting point …. That means thatto make a change within the airline we need to start withyou—what can you do differently.

In 1995, Bob Ayling, newly taken over from Colin Marshallas chief executive, continued this active management of companyculture and said of his staff:

I want them to feel inspired, I want them to feel optimistic,I want them to feel that this is a good place to be.37

Such substantive change certainly seems to justify the plauditsheaped on it. But this kind of fairy tale suffers from a numberof flaws. Most significantly, as Anthony notes,38 together withother prescriptive presentations of culture change, it neglectsstructure. Yet the existence of cultural factors does not negate theeffects of more material ones and there were certainly structuralreasons for BA’s success. Colin Marshall’s emphasis on puttingpeople first and caring for one another had been preceded by arule of fear. BA’s first response to its problems had been a mass-ive series of redundancies, the largest in British history at thetime, with staff numbers reduced by 40 per cent between 1981and 1983 (albeit with generous severance). Senior staff were notexempt from this process, with 161 being ‘removed’ overnighton one memorable occasion in 1983.

More fundamentally, the company was well provided withslots in Britain’s prestigious Heathrow airport and faced littlecompetition on many of the routes that it served. European mar-kets were still tightly regulated and market share often dependedon negotiation skills rather than competitive success. In 1987 justbefore privatisation, BA controlled some 60 per cent of the UKdomestic market and only experienced competition on 9 per centof its routes into and out of the UK.39 Post privatisation its pos-ition was actually strengthened when it gained a 75 per cent shareof domestic routes. Such was BA’s dominance during this periodthat it could almost charge what it liked. Moreover, BA built upa series of alliances and mergers to consolidate this position.

While staff numbers were being drastically cut the infrastruc-ture was dramatically improved. The fact that new uniforms wereprovided is well covered in the human resource and marketingliterature. Less commonly noted is that BA invested in controlsystems, terminal facilities and aircraft: between 1980 and 1985BA replaced over half its fleet.40 Computer reservations were

introduced, a series of hub and spoke routes through firstHeathrow and then Gatwick networked flights, and selectivelyfocused competitive pricing served to limit what little compe-tition the airline faced.41 Nor was this the only strategy deployedagainst competitors. In 1993 BA used shared booking infor-mation to persuade Virgin customers to transfer to BA,informing them (incorrectly) that Virgin flights were no longeravailable. The subsequent court case cost BA £610,000 in dam-ages and £3 million in costs, and raised questions about theextent of knowledge and involvement of the chairman (LordKing), the chief executive (Sir Colin Marshall) and Bob Ayling,the head of marketing, as well as criticising the impact of the BAculture itself.

Not only can much of the BA turnaround be attributed tostructural factors, but also the extent of the company’s culturaltransformation itself is open to question. There is little doubtthat, in theory, cultural change interventions are both manipulat-ive and totalitarian,42 seeking as they do influence and controlover the thoughts, values, attitudes and norms of others. Yet suchhegemony is easier to describe than it is to secure. Employeesare not cultural dupes. Co-operation may reflect ambition orpride in work as much as (or instead of) a belief in the organis-ation itself.43,44 And Hopfl’s account of British Airways managersin the ‘new’ culture reveals hostility and uncertainty as well asenthusiasm. Further, despite the claims of the prescriptive litera-ture, the existence of ‘culture management’ does not ensureeither that employees trust management, or that managementtrusts employees. So, in BA, ‘new’ management practices variedin the extent to which they were introduced in departments, andconflict between employees and management did not cease. Evenat the point at which the company’s unified culture was beingheralded as a success at least one bargaining group a year endedup in dispute with it.45

Nor was the much vaunted job security quite as robust as itseemed. Alliances, mergers and franchising agreements withother airlines already supported what was, in effect a ‘tiered’ sys-tem of terms and conditions with employees based at Heathrowprivileged over those in the regional airports. This emphasis onpart-time, seasonal and sub-contracted work was extended tomost aspects of BA’s operations. Its engine overhaul plant wassold off to GEC, data processing work was moved to Bombay,and job security for existing staff questioned. And all this at atime when BA was making record profits.

So, to re-cast our fairy-tale in rather more prosaic terms, BA,while clearly putting a great deal of effort into encouraging (or‘designing’) certain staff behaviours, did not base its employmentpolicies and practices around the new culture in the way thatmany accounts suggest. Their array of ‘soft’ human resourcemanagement techniques was certainly impressive but not every-one benefited from them and those employed in partner, associ-ate, merged or taken-over firms often experienced very differentterms and conditions to the ‘core’ BA staff.


...cultural change

interventions are both

manipulative and

totalitarian

There was enthusiasm

and acceptance... and

was also doubt,

concern, opposition

and open cynicism


Nor is it fair to conclude, as many accounts do, with optimismabout staff reactions to ‘culture change’. There was enthusiasmand acceptance certainly, but there was also doubt, concern,opposition and open cynicism. Such individual reactions weremirrored by the collective representations and the persistence ofdisputes even at the height of the cultural success. As Collingargues

“The relatively high incidence of conflict throughout theperiod fuels doubts about a transformation in the cultureof the company towards the mutual commitment model”.46

The 1997 dispute: change or continuity?By the end of the 1990s many of the structural factors that hadprovided the basis for the company’s success were under threat.The newly-emerged low cost carriers such as Easyjet and Ryanairwere undercutting BA’s prices and, elsewhere, alliances betweenrivals Lufthansa and United Airlines ensured that cross nationaltraffic would be less likely to transfer to BA. The company’s holdon Heathrow was also loosening under double pressure fromEurope and the USA. In response, Ayling claimed BA needed asecond revolution. BA sought its own alliance with AmericanAirlines, which came under the (unhurried) scrutiny of regu-lators in both Brussels and the USA, as well as proposing £1billion of cost savings from within the organisation, with the aimof doubling profits by the year 2000. Much of this was to comefrom staff savings including 5,000 voluntary redundancies withstaff to be replaced by newly hired employees on lower pay.47 Inaddition, BA established links with a charter airline called FlyingColours intending to continue its policy of outsourcing toother operators.

This policy of reducing labour costs was also extended to ‘core’BA staff. In early 1997, BA attempted to change the structure ofpayments to cabin crew. It was proposed that the existingemployees would be ‘bought out’ of their series of allowances(petrol, overnight stay etc.) by receiving a higher basic wage. BAoffered a three-year guarantee that no crew member would earnless under the new system but nothing beyond that and it wasclear to cabin crew staff that the measure was launched with theexplicit aim of saving money. When these negotiations failed,one union, the TGWU, threatened strike action (Cabin Crew 89,a small breakaway union, had already accepted management’soffer). Despite fourteen years of ‘indoctrination’ into caring forone another and putting people first, the tactics deployed by BA’smanagement were described by two such different sources as theTUC and The Economist as bullying.48,49 Members of the cabincrew were warned not to strike and BA managers were instructedto tell discontented staff that anyone taking industrial actionwould be summarily sacked, then sued for damages. Any whosimply stayed away would face disciplinary action, be denied pro-motion, and lose both pension rights and staff discounts onflights for three years. BA was also reported to be filming pickets.

The subsequent strike ballot had an 80 per cent turnout with73 per cent of employees voting in favour of strike action. TheTGWU called a series of 72-hour strikes with the first actionscheduled for 9 July 1997. In response, temporary staff and analternative workforce of ‘volunteer managers’ were given a(probably inadequate) training to perform the key tasks of theground handling staff and BA threatened to take legal action overclaimed discrepancies in the ballot. On the eve of the first dayof action airline cabin crew were telephoned at home and warnedthat ‘they had a duty to co-operate with their employer’.

These managerial actions certainly influenced the impact ofthe strike. On the first scheduled day of action less than threehundred workers declared themselves officially on strike butmore than 2,000 called in sick. The company’s threats and‘replacement workers’ notwithstanding more than 70 per cent offlights from Heathrow were cancelled. It seemed that BA’s machoapproach had ensured only that collective action took the formof collective illness.

Ironically this ‘mass sickie’ served to make things worse forBA. Not only did the pre-strike ballots (conducted to complywith legislation designed to discourage union activities) com-pound the effects of the strike by providing customers withadvance notice of it; but also those employees who had called insick tended to stay away longer than the official 72-hour strike.BA insisted that sick employees provide a doctor’s note within48 hours instead of the normal seven days but many employeesstill stayed off for the full two weeks that their sick notes allowedand, throughout this period, services were cancelled and passen-gers turned away. The strike was costly. Airline seats are a parti-cularly perishable form of consumer good and aircraft schedulingis easily disrupted. When Bill Morris, the General Secretary ofthe TGWU announced that he had written to Bob Ayling, sug-gesting that they resume negotiations, Ayling agreed before evenreceiving the letter.

The TGWU promised to save £42 million over three years.Catering was sold off but existing staff kept earnings and BA staffdiscounts, while sanctions against strikers were withdrawn andthe TGWU increased its membership by 50 per cent to over10,000. BA’s management fared less well, despite Bob Ayling’sclaim that this agreement marked a ‘new beginning and spirit ofa co-operation’. The gulf between the managerial rhetoric onculture and official actions during the strike had a predictableeffect on employee morale. One undercover employee publi-cation, aptly named Chaos advised on ways of maximising pay-ments by delaying aircraft. These included throwing duvet fea-thers into the engine, superglueing down the toilet seat andpoisoning the pilot: “a particularly obnoxious captain can bemade to suffer all the symptoms of violent food poisoning byemptying eye drops from the aircraft medical kit into his salador drink”.

Moreover, the agreement itself fostered further dissent. 4,000staff left by the end of 1997 but 4,500 more were recruited


The gulf between

managerial rhetoric

and official actions

had a predictable

effect on employee

morale

Employees are more

than capable of

noting discrepancies

between managerial

promises and

organisational

practice


including 2,000 in 1998. By the terms of the agreement, thesenew staff were employed on different contracts to existingemployees. As a result, cabin crew working the same shifts onthe same aircraft were (increasingly) on different pay scales. Theimpact of this on both labour relations and BA’s much prizedteam-working was problematic and problems were fuelled bysuggestions that BA favoured employees on new contracts forpromotion to purser (first line manager).

Bob Ayling attempted to salvage the situation by placing moreemphasis on managing the company’s culture. Following ColinMarshall he addressed staff training sessions and held questionand answer forums with groups of employees. This time therewere few positive reactions. The strike cost BA £125 million;morale never entirely recovered and profits suffered. Between1998 and 1999 they fell by 61 per cent and in 2000 British Air-ways announced losses of £244 million on its main business.While gains from disposals succeeded in keeping the companyout of the red this was its worst performance (and first loss)since privatisation. The new logo Bob Ayling had launched (atgreat expense) during the 1997 dispute was unpopular and hadto be withdrawn. These failures so coloured the public perceptionof the chief executive that even his attempts to refocus BA ontoprofitable routes and introduce a new seat for business class longhaul passengers were not entirely welcomed. On 10 March 2000,Bob Ayling resigned as chief executive.

Conclusions and discussionRe-presenting our fairy story in case study format shows thecompany’s turnaround in a different light with internationalagreements, competition with other airlines, the state of the fleetand the network of links between flights making a contributionto improved performance that was as least as significant as thecultural change programme itself. It is difficult to believe that,without these structural interventions BA’s profits would haverisen in the way that they did.50 Equally, the structural improve-ments may have served to enhance the cultural messages just asBob Ayling’s “Chicago-style union busting macho manage-ment”51 made him seem hypocritical. As Grugulis et al. argue intheir study of a consultancy firm, it is naıve to assume that prac-tices which are effective when companies are successful will beequally welcome at other times.52 Employees do not ‘react’ to themanagement of culture in isolation, nor does a ‘positive’ culturalrhetoric negate problematic experiences of job design, dis-empowerment, payment systems or control mechanisms. Rather,responses will be influenced by a person’s experience of work asa whole and employees are more than capable of noting discrep-ancies between managerial promises and organisational practice.

This is not to suggest that BA’s cultural change was unimport-ant. Indeed, the move to ‘design’ employees, to shape the waythey think and feel about their work rather than simply controlwhat they produce is a new development. A growing service sec-

tor and an increasing focus on customer service in all industrieshas resulted in an emphasis on the service process (of which theemployee is an integral part) rather than a manufactured pro-duct. Clearly such a development has and will lead to fundamen-tal changes in the way work is shaped. But these changes are notattempts to make work “more fun”. They represent a new meansof management control targeted on staff emotions—personalitiesand individuals are valued only within pre-determined limits.

Here, BA’s programme of culture change was not anexpression of mutual trust and reciprocal emotional obligationsbetween the company’s employees and its management. Rather,it was an alternative control mechanism and should be under-stood as such. The way that this form of control mechanism isimplemented and the consequences that it has differ from othermethods of personal, technical or bureaucratic control; but man-agement by culture is not automatically either better or worsethan other forms of regulation, and may inspire varied responses.Employees may feel genuine pride in a culture management pro-gramme, or may desire to use it towards their own ends. Equallythey may feel embarrassment or cynicism, set up active oppo-sition or use the culture change as a vehicle for misbehaviour—and structural factors may influence and inform these responses.The ‘successes’ and ‘failures’ of these interventions are not magi-cal, nor do they occur in environments that have no legacy ofemployee relations. But this point is clearest when case studiesare extended beyond anecdote and prescription, a developmentwhich might encourage better management practice as well asbetter academic study.

The end of the fairy tale: lessons for managersPresenting an account of cultural change in realistic terms doesnot necessarily mean that culture management should not beattempted, rather, it is a condemnation of rhetorical flourishesunaccompanied by substantive change and of seeking to usepeople as a means to an end. The notion of mutual trust betweenemployer and employees underlies both the ideal type of culturemanagement and most forms of high commitment humanresource management. In practice this process is rarely reciprocaland employees may find themselves required to change theirpractices and beliefs to order while senior management observeand monitor. This is not a recipe for increasing trust, no matterhow well it is packaged.

Accordingly, the recommendations for manager include:

� Practice what you preach. The success of Novotel’s culturechange53 and Colin Marshall’s popularity in British Airwaysmay have been because the management of culture did notstop at the shopfloor. If the corporate message is ‘puttingpeople first’ (and this is a valuable message for any society)then the full implications of this should be appreciated andenacted.


Employees’ interests

naturally differ from

those of employers...

no culture

management

programme can

correct the asymetry

of power that exists


� A culture is not a religion. However evangelically presented,and insisting on one true dogma will lead only to heresy andschism. Diversity and dissent are signs of a healthy society.

� Culture and structure influence each other. Internally thismeans that employment policies and practices should becoherent and support central message conveyed by the cul-ture. Inconsistencies here will provoke (justified) accusationsof hypocrisy and (at best) the new culture will become thebutt of employee humour. Externally, the competitiveenvironment will affect the way that ‘cultural messages’ areinterpreted and enacted.

There are always structural tensions in the employmentrelationship. Employees’ interests naturally differ from those ofemployers and no culture management programme can entirelyeliminate these or correct the asymetry of power that exists.However, well designed employment practices, introduced in anenvironment of trust, can materially improve employmentrelations, and that must be a welcome development.

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Documents

Managing Culture at British Airways: Hype, Hope and Reality