Southwest Airlines and Koch Industries are both known for

their distinctive organizational cultures, and both have been

highly successful and profitable companies. Southwest
Airlines is known as a fun place to work where socialization
and humor in the workplace are strongly encouraged. Koch
Industries, on the other hand, has a culture defined by the
principles of market-based management where
performance and revenue growth is emphasized.
Do some background reading on the cultures behind
Southwest Airlines and Koch Industries. While doing your
research, keep strongly in mind the characteristics of
organizational cultures discussed in the background
materials such as team-oriented, people-oriented, outcomeoriented, etc. Here are some articles to get you started on
your research that will give you some background about the
cultures at these two organizations:
Klein, D. (2011). Creating cultures that lead to success:
Lincoln Electric, Southwest Airlines, and SAS
Institute. Organizational Dynamics 41(1), 35-39 [Available in
Science Direct. Note: you only have to read the middle
portion of the article concerning Southwest Airlines and not
the whole article]
Bird, A. (Mar. 13, 2011). Southwest: Corporate culture
combines work, play. The Post and Courier.[Proquest]
Whatley, H. (2013). Principles and dimensions of marketbased management. Independent Journal of Management &
Production, 4(1), 126-135. [Proquest]
Dissecting the Kochtopus. (Jun. 7, 2014). The Economist,
411, 76. [Proquest]

When you are finished with your research, write a four to five
page paper addressing the following issues:
1. Describe the organizational culture of Southwest Airlines the best you can
using the characteristics of organizational culture discussed in Rao (2010)

and Piccolo and Bardes (2011). These include but are not limited to
detail-oriented, team-oriented, innovative, aggressive, outcome-oriented,
and people-oriented. Be specific as you can regarding which
characteristics of organizational culture that you read about in the
background materials apply to Southwest and which ones do not.
2. Describe the organizational culture of Koch Industries the best you can
using the characteristics of organizational culture discussed in Rao (2010)
and Piccolo and Bardes (2011).
3. Now suppose Koch Industries decided to purchase Southwest Airlines.
Compare and contrast the two cultures, and explain what kind of
challenges do you think they would face in merging the two cultures.
Also, explain what steps you think would need to be taken in order to
prevent culture clashes between the two organizations. Use concepts
from Rao (2010) or Piccolo and Bardes (2011) as part of your
recommendations on steps to take to avoid culture clashes.