Fly-By-Night Aviation: Behavior Analysis

Fly-By-Night Aviation: Behavior Analysis of the Organization
September 30, 2013
Fly-By-Night Aviation: Behavior Analysis of the Organization Fly-By-Night Aviation is similar to other organizations and yet it is unlike any other organization. This organization has it very own special problems and sets of circumstances that make this organization very unique. The culture of the organization is similar to what the cultural makeup of other organization that exists in today’s global markets. Communication within the organization is a complex as a 1000 piece jigsaw puzzle. Through the technical advances made in communications the organization is able to function as a virtual organization with dispersed sections. Like other
organizations the authority is a top-down type of authority with some concession made to empower the employees. The Fly-By-Night Aviation motivates their employees in a standard way that is respected and normal around the globe. Increasing knowledge of emotional intelligence is defining the organization and paving the road for the future of the organization. Everything that the organization does as is fits together defining the behavior of the organization and is Fly-By-Night Aviation.
The Culture of Fly-By-Night Aviation
The Fly-By-Night Aviation organization is a “Salad Bowl” of cultures. The culture is comprised of a multitude of ethnicities. Ethical identity is a given within this organization and differences are encouraged and accepted as well as adopted in some instances. This organization is comprised of employees from all parts of the United States, Trinidad, Philippines, Russia, Thailand, and South Africa. The organization works together in close proximity to each other and even is housed in the same general area when not at the work place. This organization works and lives within a single square mile of each other, all the time. “Cultural differences in language, lifestyle, and religious practice, despite being the most obvious and, for the xenophobic, most disturbing characteristics of new groups in America society, were also the aspects of ethical life most quick to change” (Macias, 2003, P. 946).
In Fly-By-Night Aviation’s current organizational makeup, around 95 percent of the organizations members are former military members. As military members they all have received more training and experience adapting to different cultures than other non-military personal will ever experience in their life time. Actually most military members have received more classroom instruction about cultures and adapting to different cultures, than some students will ever receive. Integrating each employee the same exact way will make each of them feel that they belong to the organization. This integrating will make the employee feel comfortable within their surrounding and among the other employees of the organization (Baack, 2012). Along with the personal culture that Fly-By-Night Aviation is comprised of, the organization has its own dominant culture. The dominant culture of Fly-By-Night Aviation is a culture derived from the idea that there is no task that is too big or too small for the organization to undertake. As an organization they are willing and ready to accomplish exactly what is need or required to ensure task completion and mission accomplishment. This shared understanding of norms and values that are sometimes taken for granted, but remain beneath the surface of the organization and are affirmed, shared, and communicated through all of the organizational members is the organizational culture (Beyer & Trice, 1987).
If completion of certain tasks requires that a team makes sacrifices, than that team will make them. If task completion requires that corners need to be cut, than all aspects of these shortcuts are examined and the best possible path is them decided upon and taken. The dominant culture sets the core values that the organization posses (Baack, 2012). The Quality control section of the organization is the subculture of the organization. This subculture has to attempt to maintain the safety of the organization’s airplanes and helicopters. This is accomplished by determine what is safe to fly and what is not. These people are not necessarily the most popular people within the organizational workforce. They have to make some very unpopular decisions.
This culture of Fly-By-Night Aviation has both a positive and a negative effect on the organization. The “salad Bowl” culture that is the makeup of the organization is a positive for the organization. The mixture of personnel and values that each member of the organization brings into the fold of the organization makes the group stronger. On the negative side of the cultural equation is the dominate culture of the organization. With management of the organization more interested in the “Bottom Line”, decisions are being made at the management level that compromise the safety of the organizations customers and places the mechanics in a venerable position.
Organizational Communication Organizational life in the modern era uses a variety of communication channels to conduct the day to day business of the organization. In past time, the main communication was face-to-face (F2F) this has been expanded to different mediated channels of communication (Krebs, 2011; Weiss, 2011) including print media, telephonic media, computers, and mobile devices. Fly-By-Night Aviation has embraced this newer technology and incorporated these newer forms of communication into the organization and into the way that the organization operates. The technology-mediated channels of communication that the organization used include the internet and intranet. The organization communicates with their dispersed section through the use of intranet. Net meetings are accomplished on a published schedule. Net meetings, video conformances, and teleconferences allow organizational management to plan, schedule, and conduct the daily business of the organization regardless of the thousands of miles that separate the corporate headquarters, maintenance facilities, and the supply warehouses of the organization. The primary form of communication for the organization is verbal communication in a mix of both formal and non formal forms. Once the verbal communication is enacted, the communicator would then follow up the verbal communication with a form of written communication. This written form of communication is most likely in the form of an electronic communication. This organization uses very little in the way of printed messages, the bulk of the messages being in the electronic realm. Organizational communication at the corporate headquarters is accomplished through the use of mobile media. All department heads and managers at the corporate headquarters have an organization issued smart phone, enabling managers to remain connected and in-the-loop regardless of their location. However, one negative impact that this technology has on the organization is that this technology does nothing to help with the displaced managers that are thousands of miles away and in foreign countries. These managers rely primarily on electronic messages and internet based telephonic communications to remain in contact with corporate rather than smart phones.
Authority within the Organization Authority within the Fly-By-Night Aviation organization is the Top-Down type of authority.
Top-Down authority as defined by Max Weber (1922) that start or originates at the top person and flows downward to the lower levels and is derived from tradition, charisma, and law (Baack, 2012). Fly-By-Night Aviation is like thousands of other organizations that are constructed of the same Top-Down authority based leadership. This leadership directs organizational members to conduct activities and operations that may not be pleasing to all personnel affected by these processes. There is some leeway incorporated into this organizations Top-Down authority approach to leadership. Members of the organization can at any time file a safety concern through official channels and they have the authority to call “knock it off”, putting a stop to any activity that has the possibility of causing the loss of life to any person of the loss of organizational equipment (aircraft). In this sense of the “knock it off” statement, the organization has granted authority to the lower level of employees. Thus, the organization is also of the bottom-up authority in some instances (Baack, 2012). One positive aspect of this combined approach to authority is that the employees have become empowered and feel that what they say and do matters to
management.
Motivation Used by Flt-By-Night Aviation The five basic needs that a person has as described by Abraham Maslow’s (1943) hierarchy of needs theory which are physiological needs, safety needs, social needs, esteem needs, and self-actualization needs (Baack, 2012). The Fly-By-Night Aviation organization motivates their employees with simplistic plan. The employee’s are compensated with a monetary reward structure. Simply put, the employees that choose to service the organization in their overseas setting do so for monetary reasons. Employee’s who works for the organization in their Afghanistan based maintenance arena are motivated by the extra pay and incentives that they receive. An employee in the organization’s state side will make approximately one fifth the amount of an employee in Afghanistan. Maslow’s needs theory applies to both types of employees, just the overseas employees have chosen to ignore the safety needs in order to produce more pay and increase their self-actualizing needs. The organization required little else in motivating the employees that have chosen to work in the overseas locations. Other ideas that help motivate the organizations overseas employees is that their work schedule is one of 60 days of work and 30 day on vacation. This 60/30 rotation is agreeable to most of the employees that work in these remote locations regardless of the hazardous work conditions that they face on a daily bases. The employees in these conditions has chosen to work their partly because of the pay rewards and also their individual attributes and their self-concept have help them determine for themselves the best way that they can serve the soldiers and citizen of the United States (Arnolds & Boshoff, 2002) to fulfill their self-esteem and self-efficacy needs.
Emotional Intelligence Self-awareness, self-regulation, motivation, empathy, and social skill are the five areas that Daniel Goleman laid out in his theory of emotional intelligence (EI) (Goleman, 1998). These five areas define what EI is and that this type of intelligence requires more knowledge than technical skills or know-how and this EI is not just for leaders (Weiss, 2012). Both leaders and followers need EI to help motivate the diverse workforce and to sustain change in the future. EI is a new kind of intelligence that can be learned (Goleman, 1998) and this trait is more than a personality trait, it’s the ability to know and control your own emotions and the emotions of others (Weiss, 2012). EI is essential to effective team interaction and productivity and the EI of the leader is important to the effective functioning of the team or group (Sadri, 2012). Fly-By-Night Aviation is moving into the area of EI. Not all of the leaders understand this concept, while others grasp the true function of EI. The same could be said of the employees of the organization. Some understand the importance of EI and are working towards enlightening of the others. If the organization as a whole all understood this concept and practiced this concept, difficulties that are currently being experienced could all but be eliminated.
Fly-By-Night Aviation as a Virtual Organization Fly-By-Night Aviation is a geographically distributed organization. The corporate headquarters is based in Melbourne Florida with the bulk of the employees are based and work in Afghanistan. The majority of the corporation’s aircraft are also maintained in the different collation forces Forward Operation Bases (FOB’s) located throughout Afghanistan. The definition of a virtual organization is an organization that is “geographically distributed organization whose members are bound by a long term common interest or goal, and who communicate and coordinate their work through information technology” (Baack, 2012, para. 10.2).
Fly-By-Night Aviation is just a small portion of the total of the Fly-By-Night conglomerate. The Fly-By-Night conglomerate contains around 9000 members with approximately 900 employees belonging to the Fly-By-Night Aviation section. All of the coordination is conduction through the use of technology. Video and teleconferences are the primary means for conducting coordination meetings. As a virtual organization, Fly-By-Night Aviation is flexible and can adapt to any changes that may arise in the external environment or internal environment with little or no interruption in service. This allows the organization to utilize their resources in an effective manner. One way that these virtual organizations utilize their recourses in an efficient manner is that they tend to be centralized and are able to use either formal or informal communication (Baack, 2012). One drawback to being a virtual organization is that depending on what products or services the organization provides, outsourcing may be required to fulfill orders and demands placed on the virtual organization. Fly-By-Night Aviation does not have this problem, they have different aviation asset and programs that belong to the conglomerate that have the ability to fulfill the requirements that would normally be outsourced.
Conclusion
Fly-By-Night Aviation is unique in itself and yet it is similar to other organizations. This organization has it very own special problems and has developed programs and solutions to handle these problems in a manner that clearly set an example for other organization to emulate. The culture of the organization is also unique in that the mixture of personnel from all different location of the globe and the variety of cultures that each person brings to the organization has all mixed together to make the culture of Fly-By-Night Aviation as special as the people who are employed by the organization. With the advent of advanced technologies in communication the organization has become a truly virtual organization able to function in any area on the globe. Not only function, but excel in giving the support and services that are rendered to the customers of the organization. The authority that exists within the organization is truly special in that the lowest employee has a say so in regards to safety all the while retaining a traditional top-down authority system. The truly special item that this organization brings to the employee is the ability for the employee to earn and be compensated for their work at a rate that cannot be equaled by employees performing this same type of function within the United States.

References
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