Press Release

Air France and Delta compare their cultures
to reinforce their alliance

Inter Cultural Management Associates (ICM), a Paris-based consultancy, was awarded to help Air France and Delta Management Teams take a proactive approach in preparing the partners companies to work together effectively and to see how the alliance is perceived by each company. In June 1999, Air France signed a partnership agreement with Delta. Since then the Alliance has been successfully extended to include Korean Air, AeroMexico, CSA Czech Airlines and Alitalia today.

With over 18 years experience of Culture Bridging in Europe, America and Asia, and a team of 35 consultants from over twenty different nationalities, ICM has developed a unique methodology to analyze and compare corporate cultures in international alliance processes : the "Culture Bridging Fundamentals" (CBF©) model. For the Air France - Delta survey, the Culture Bridging Fundamentals © questionnaire focused on top management and work groups in each company. An Alliance Barometer has been launched to identify employee perceptions of the Alliance's mission, vision and goals. The Barometer involves the same group of people plus a representative sample of 1000 employees. Approximately 50 qualitative interviews have been conducted to interpret the cultural survey results and articulate concrete recommendations to foster cross-cultural cooperation on both sides of the Atlantic.

In the second phase of the program, a Culture Bridging Clinic was set up with both management teams to analyze the data and better define working methods and means of implementation. ICM Culture Bridging © workshops now use the results of the Culture Bridging Survey to build a strong client-oriented alliance.

The analysis of the different corporate cultures underlines the shared values as well as the gaps between the partner companies. This knowledge allows the management teams :