Delta Airlines is a U.S. airline that services primarily domestic routes, in addition to some routes between the U.S. and other countries. Because of restrictions in the airline industry, airlines are barred from servicing domestic routes in foreign countries. Thus, the U.S. is effectively closed to non-U.S. airlines for travel between American cities, and Delta cannot expand to routes that do not include an American city. The socio-cultural context for Delta is therefore almost entirely related to the American market.
For the airline industry, there is actually little difference in the relationship that consumers have with airlines. Airlines provide a service that is highly standardized the world over. Where there are consumer differnces, these are reflected in the service-price dimension primarily. In some countries, consumers prefer to pay more to get a better in-flight experience. This is true of the focus country in this report, Japan. In the United States, the market is different. People prefer low cost above all else, and are willing to make substantial sacrifices to the flying expeirnce in order to lower the cost of flying. Whether this dimension affects Delta significantly or not has yet to be determined. In one sense, bcause most of the flights out of the company's Narita hub are international, and international flights usually have higher service levels to begin with, which is an interesting difference in the service offering between Delta's American and Japanese operations.
According to Hofstede's analysis (2015) is...
This manifests in a competitive business environment, and customers who wish to be expressive, and who are somewhat indulgent. The U.S. has low power distance, which has significant implications for management, in that managers are not placed on much of a pedestal above employees, and are expected to demonstrate competency in order to justify their positions. The time orientation is fairly short, which in business means that there is an emphasis on actions that lead to short-term result, rather than on building the business for the long-run at the expense of short-run profits. This is not to say that the long-run is irrelevant, but a company like Delta has to account for the quarterly results, because that is the concern of shareholders, who need to invest with the company over the long run.
In other countries, the characteristics can be quite different. Delta has three foreign hubs -- Amsterdam, Tokyo and Paris -- but two of those are in conjunction with foreign partners. Only Tokyo-Narita is a hub that Delta operates on its own, with flights to 11 different countries. The Hofstede analysis shows that Japanese culture is significantly different to that of the United States. Japan has a highly masculine culture, so is quite competitive in nature. However, Japan is nowhere near as individualistic, and has a higher power distance. This creates more of a managerial emphasis on hierarchy, but with room for greater individual expression. One key difference is with…
