Abstract

The case discusses the corporate culture of the Canada-based airline, WestJet Airlines Ltd. (WestJet). When WestJet was incorporated in 1996, the founders were of the view that culture was the one element of an organization that could not be duplicated and that it was a way of differentiating WestJet from the competitors. WestJet encouraged a culture of participation and commitment and gave prime importance to empowered and happy employees, as it believed that these employees would provide customers with a good experience. At WestJet every employee was a shareholder in the company. The highly empowered employees were free to take any decision that would help them provide the best service to customers. WestJet’s culture helped it remain profitable in an industry as highly volatile as the airline industry. However, WestJet’s culture began to face a few threats. Venturing into the regional market through WestJet Encore and expanding internationally to various European destinations, made it difficult for WestJet to maintain the culture it was known for. At the same time, some of the employees were fueling unionization in the company, which could have a major impact on its culture in times to come.

Learning Objectives

The case is structured to achieve the following Learning Objectives:

• Define organizational culture and understand how it is manifests in an organization
• Understand the evolution of corporate culture.
• Understand the challenges in maintaining culture as organizations grow in scale
• Realize the importance of organizational culture and its impact on organizational behavior
• Study how culture impacts performance

Keywords

Organizational Culture, Corporate Culture, Employee Engagement, People Centric Culture, Empowered Employees, Customer-Centric Culture, Airlines