Book Review: The Southwest Airlines Way

[This paper can also be found as part of the Journal of Knowledge Advancement & Integration at www.lulu.com/Journal-KAI]. Gittell's book synthesises an eight-year research work done by the author on four American airlines, although the focus is on Southwest Airlines as it showed distinctive practices which form the antecedent variables of a model of relational coordination. “The Southwest Airlines Way” is more than a case study on Southwest Airlines. It is also an important reference for future research on the topic of relational coordination beyond the airline’s sector, as the book already provides the tools for such future research (i.e. model, methodology and results). This future research, if respecting the methodology and procedures followed by Gittell, will inform further about the validity of the model and its importance for a wider range of organisations.