Company Background
Delta Airlines is a major airline in the United States. It has its headquarters in Atlanta, Georgia. Delta Airlines together with its regional affiliates and subsidiaries operate more than 5200 flights every day and serves both domestic and international travelers covering 320 destinations in six continents and 54 countries. Delta Airlines is the biggest airline in terms of fleet size, passengers carried and kilometers flown ( Elsbach and Stigliani, 2018) . In the year 2018, the company ranked position 75 in the list of the Fortune 500 of the largest corporations in the United States by total revenue.
Delta Airlines started through a crop-dusting operation that was referred to as Huff Daland Dusters, the organizations were started in May of 1924, and this was in Georgia. The company later moved to Monroe, Louisiana the next year. The company operated the first crop duster, which was initially created to combat weevil infestation of cotton crops. The organization has four founders, and this includes; Travis Oliver, Collett, E. Woolman, Malcolm S. Biedenham and C. H. McHenry. The company shifted its headquarters to its current position in Atlanta, and it also continued to develop based on the added routes and the acquisition of other additional airlines ( Bacharach and Lawler, 2017) . One thing about this company is that it replaced the propeller planes with jets and it later entered a global competition to Europe.
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Company Leadership
The organizational structure for Delta Airline includes the Board of Directors who consists of ten voting people. This consists of the CEO Richard Anderson, with other leaders of the organization. According to the report of the organization, the existing Board Chairperson is Daniel Carp. Consequently, there is also the presence of a non-voting member who assists to ensure the input from the pilots at Delta, and this was to provide that they had a place in the board. The current representative is Kenneth Rogers, who represents a former pilot. Under the organizational structure, there is the element of Machinery Bureaucracy. Even though the organization initially operated as a simple structure, the current machine bureaucracy is required to push the company to a position where the standardization of the work as a means of both coordination and organization technostructure, and this is with the legal and financial staff. This is an aspect that is viewed as a critical place of the company (Miner, 2015). The organization has four important committees that assist the board of directors, and this is an aspect that is run by the outside directors of the organization. All year round, the committee meets up and comes up with all possible recommendations concerning key Delta Air Line organization.
Organizational Culture
Organizational culture is defined as a system of beliefs, values, and assumptions that are shared and govern the behavior of individuals in an organization. The shared beliefs and values influence the way people in an organization perform jobs, act and even dress ( Uhl-Bien et al., 2014) . All organizations have a unique culture that they have developed and maintained that gives them boundaries and guidelines on how the organization members should behave.
The organization culture of Delta Airlines is made of a number of characteristics which can be arranged in priority from low to high. Innovation is one of the characteristics of the culture of the organization. The company has a culture that values innovation which encourages workers to be innovative and take risks in the performance of their tasks. Attention to detail is another characteristic ( Elsbach and Stigliani, 2018) . This is a characteristic which dictates the extent to which workers are expected to maintain accuracy in their jobs. A culture which value details so much expects the employees to do their jobs with precision. The other characteristic is an emphasis on people. This focuses on how decisions are likely to affect members of the organization. They treat their workers with dignity and respect. Teamwork is another characteristic of organizational culture whereby Delta Airlines assigns job tasks around teams rather than around an individual. These organizations tend to achieve positive relationships between colleagues and managers. The other one is aggressiveness. This one dictates whether the employees of the organization should be easygoing or assertive when competing with other organizations in the market ( Elsbach and Stigliani, 2018) . The company focuses more on competitiveness and ensures it outperforms competition from other companies in all ways. The factors which influence culture formation include experiences, philosophy, expectations, values, habits and many others.
Organizational Change
Delta Airlines embraces change when necessary. However, the company uses various models to ensure the process of change is effective. One Model that the company uses is Lewin’s model. Lewin assumes the process of change to be similar to that of changing the shape of a block of ice. Lewin believes that the best way to go through change, it has to go through three steps which include unfreezing, changing and refreezing or reinforcing. In the unfreezing step, the goal of a company is creating awareness for those involved in how the current state of the organization is affecting the organization in a negative way. The idea behind this is to make the members more aware of the organization so as they are ready to accept the change. The second step is the changing step which comes after people are aware of the challenge. They are now ready to go to the phase of implementation (Anderson, 2016). This is where the people will lean the new process, manner of thinking and behaviors. The last stage of Lewin’s model is the refreezing stage that includes stabilizing, reinforcing and solidifying the organization’s new state after the change has taken place. This includes finding the policies, structures, and mechanisms that will support the change in the organization.
The Lewin’s model of change is important because it gives a visual summary of all the factors which oppose and support the change. It also provides all the information that has been collected about both the positive and negative impacts that may result from the change. This model is important also as it provides a step by step procedure that a company can use to achieve change.
Innovation
The innovation embraced by Delta Airlines is proactive innovation. Proactive innovations foresee the changes that are likely to occur in the market, the company remains competitive by preparing for those changes using innovative ideas at every level. Being proactive allows the company to develop programs that can help them to identify needful changes before problems arise. Innovation systems that are developed include interrelationships at all levels and between every stakeholder (Anderson, 2016). Proactive innovation also helps the company to identify the structure that is needed to support these innovation systems such as proper communication channels, proper decision making and access to resources.
Proactive innovation enables the company to anticipate upcoming changes and design a process that enables the company to remain competitive in the market. The company is able to take control rather than being randomly affected by the change. At the same time, proactive innovation also ensures that the company has a system in place that offers training to all employees at all levels and is able to use the available innovations.
Forms of Power
Power is an aspect that is significant for any company. Delta Airlines implements the appropriate power to ensure it addresses any challenges it faces associated with employees and enhance performance. The first type of power that is implemented by Delta Airlines is reward power. The managers of Delta Airlines delegate to employees the tasks which they cannot accomplish then reward them as per their performance ( Bacharach and Lawler, 2017) . This increases the chances of better performance by the employees and employee retention since they know that they are provided a reward in return. The company ensures that every employee gets a reward that they value as it is likely to become a form of power which is weakened if the reward is not valued.
Delta Airlines also embraces referent power. Leaders of the company are expected to make sure they gain loyalty and trust from employees. The leaders, therefore, handle situations in a manner that is likely to earn them trust and respect. For instance, Delta Airlines’ department of human resource ensures that employees are treated fairly and equally (Luthans et al., 2015). With this type of power, the leaders are considered to be role models to the other employees. Having trust in the leaders makes the company’s employees to easily disclose any challenges they are facing and as a result, solutions to the challenges are provided.
Politics
Just as any other organization, Delta Airlines is affected by organization politics. The company’s politics originate from the allocation of tasks that do not fit the interests of individuals, outcome disparities that result from popularity and job insecurity. Other sources of politics in the company are the importance that is attached to job positions and titles and many other systems that provide employees with incentives to be involved in organization politics.
There are different strategies that Delta Airlines employs to reduce the politics effects. Hiring selectively and honestly, firing appropriately and growing slowly are some of the strategies. Delta Airlines hires only the individuals that are ready to trust the company with full autonomy concerning their time and be confident in the company. The organization also realizes that is not effective for a business to grow so rapidly that the employees feel like they are in a different company each week ( Bacharach and Lawler, 2017) . Therefore the company ensures that it is honesty when it comes to issues related to culture and their hiring process culture. In addition, the organization does not cold-fire. As much as the company fires some employee, it does give them generous severance which can assist them in getting the next job. The company does this by providing the employees with the right of presenting themselves as employed and good reference. The severance packages have enhanced the reputation of Delta Airlines as an organization that treats their employees greatly.
Organizational design
Delta Airlines has a Bureaucratic organizational design. The company possesses a pyramidal structure whereby the boards of directors possess the level of authority that is highest. In addition, the chain of command passes through virus departments and employees. Delta Airlines has got a tall structure f organization which means that there are several hierarchy levels which show the authority of personnel and equal status ( Uhl-Bien et al., 2014) . Since the company possesses an organizational design that is narrow, the managing director of the company possess a big span of control and is put under pressure to manage the several departments under the control of the director. As much as he does all this, he, however, is not the individual with the highest authority level on the command chain. The board of directors comes higher in terms of authority and chain of command than the managing director. The board of directors also are more delegated to pass instructions and authority down through the whole organizational design.
Decision Making Process
Because of its bureaucratic design, most of the company decisions are made by the managers and leaders of every department at Delta Airlines. These leaders get instructions from the managing director and the board of directors. With the centralized style of decision making, the company has particular individuals it relies on making decisions. The decisions are mostly handled at the executive and top level of the organization. The board of directors can make decisions which affect other members of the organization without having to consult them (Miner, 2015). Delta Airlines prefers this type of decision-making style because it utilizes the skills of the experts. The board of directors and top managers are people who have passed the preferred characteristics of leadership and have got the ability to listen, inspire, communicate, judge and employ the suitable leadership styles on specific situations to come up with the best decisions. They have got a broad range of experience and knowledge in their specialization area which makes it easy for the organization to rely on them.
Negotiation Process
At Delta Airlines, there is a standardized negotiation process of solving conflicts. The negotiation process involves six steps. The first that every negotiator should take is seeking clarification concerning the disagreement. This involves getting the two sides to agree on what the disagreement is about. The second step involves establishing a common goal for the two individuals or parties. Knowing that they are working towards a similar goal will make them commit fully in the negotiation process. The third step in this process is discussing the methods of reaching the goal. This is where the company explores several options to come up with the most suitable method. The fits step that Delta Airlines uses in the negotiation process is determining if there are any obstacles to achieving the same goal (Miner, 2015). This helps to find solutions and prepare to handle any issues that may arise. Agreeing on the best method to solve the conflict is the last step the negotiator helps the parties to arrive at a common group in this step. The negotiator then discusses the responsibilities of each of the parties in maintaining the solution.
Communication Network
Delta Airlines applies a formal communication network. Information is only passed via official channels of communication like intranet, bulletins, and memos. The management creates the channel of communication using an organizational chart. At Delta Airlines, information flows through three directions including horizontally, downward and upward. For upward communication, information flows from the subordinates to the managers. This happens when suggestions are being given for improvement, discussion of problems related to work and sharing feelings regarding co-workers and the job itself. For downward communication, information flows from the managers to the subordinates (Luthans et al., 2015). This happens when the managers want to provide job instructions, giving an explanation of procedures, policies, and rules and asking for feedback from employees. The other one is horizontal communication. At Delta airlines, horizontal communication involves communication between the workers in the same department or even different departments; an example is communication between advertising managers and sales managers in the department of marketing. Horizontal communication can happen during coordination of tasks, building rapport, resolving problems associated with work and interpersonal problems and sharing information concerning organizational goals.
Strategy
Delta Airlines develops products and services with features and attributes that are unique and this puts it apart from its competing electronic companies. Example of this is the iTunes and digital asset management. Delta Airlines offers products and services that are unique and different from the ones that the competitors offer (Vibert, 2017). The cost of the products and services offered by the company is therefore slightly high because of the differentiated attributes and features. The company is in a position to ask for premium prices for its products and services because of this strategy.
Delta Airlines achieves differentiation in several ways which include features, customer service, brand image, design, and technology among its retail shops worldwide. The company also concentrates on other attributes such as product complexity, product timing, product features, product location and many more. Delta Airlines has been insulated from competition from other companies such as America Airline because of the brand loyalty that it has gained from customers and the associated sensitivity to lower price (Vibert, 2017). Brand loyalty and the barriers which exist when a company wants to create differentiated products, therefore, do not allow other companies to imitate Delta Airlines.
This strategy has enabled Apple to handle the competitive forces in the industry that it operated. The differentiation strategy is emphasized by the competitive strategy. The company has gained outstanding performance and competitive advantage as a result of pursuing the differentiation strategy. The differentiation strategy has leveraged the company’s core competencies across the business units of the company and even its product lines.
Technology
There are various technologies which the company is using. One appropriate technology is a website. Delta Airlines has a website that once it is accessed, one will definitely know it is a travel company. It is the first thing that is noticed after entering the website as the services and products offered are clearly listed. The theme of the website shows that is a value proposition on the website of the company.
The other technology embraced by the company is social media. Delta Airlines uses social media to engage its customers and potential customers. The platforms of social media used by the company include Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and Pinterest. This increase the awareness of its brand generates more leads and improves the engagement of its customers. The company posts its products on its social media pages and also tells stories ( Jan and Maqbool, 2015) . Most of the content posted on social media is in video form. A video is a valuable tool that Delta Airlines use to introduce their products to the customers and even show the customers what the company can do for them.
Delta Airlines uses email marketing too. It is used in promoting events and enhancing the awareness of its brand. The company customizes the content of its marketing campaigns so as it fits the preferences of the customers who it is sent to. Emails are also used by the company to inform its current customers on new products and that are available ( Jan and Maqbool, 2015) . The company also sends customers thank you messages and other messages such as birthday and anniversary wishes.
Conclusion
In summary, the organizational environment and behavior of a company involve several aspects. Some of the aspects are innovation, organizational culture and design, power, politics, decision making, communication networks, the negotiation process, and many others. The analysis of Delta Airlines’ organizational behavior has revealed that the company has a six-step process of negotiation. The company also uses Lewin’s model of change when implementing change. It also uses a formal communication network and a centralized process of decision making. The organizational design of the company is bureaucratic. Delta Airlines implements referent and reward power and has different strategies of addressing the effects of politics in the organization.
References
Anderson, D. L. (2016). Organization development: The process of leading organizational change . Sage Publications.
Bacharach, S. B., & Lawler, E. J. (2017). Power and politics in organizations . Jossey-Bass Inc Pub.
Elsbach, K. D., & Stigliani, I. (2018). Design thinking and organizational culture: A review and framework for future research. Journal of Management , 44 (6), 2274-2306.
Jan, I., & Maqbool, M. (2015). Leadership Styles And Organizational Culture In Service Sector: An Empirical Assessment. International Journal of Marketing, Financial Services and Management Research , 4 (2).
Luthans, F., Luthans, B. C., & Luthans, K. W. (2015). Organizational Behavior: An EvidenceBased Approach . IAP.
Miner, J. B. (2015). Organizational behavior 1: Essential theories of motivation and leadership . Routledge.
Vibert, C. (2017). Theories of Macro-Organizational Behavior: A Handbook of Ideas and Explanations: A Handbook of Ideas and Explanations . Routledge.
Uhl-Bien, M., Schermerhorn Jr, J. R., & Osborn, R. N. (2014). Organizational Behavior, Experience Grow Contribute. 222 Rosewood Drive, Danvers, MA 01923: Clearance Center.
