BOOK REVIEW

Aerlines

Leadership and Organization

in the Aviation Industry
By Marc-Philippe Lumpé
‘Dear airline manager, do not fall into the trap of using
yourself as the standard when managing your airline.
There are many different types of jobs within your airli-
ne, each job preferring its own organizational structure
and leadership style. A lot can be gained if you appreci-
ate that and act accordingly.’
That seems to be one of the key messages in this book.
Review by Frank van der Zwan

Book Discussion
The book starts on the premise that leadership and organizational
structures, when not adjusted to the cultural background of the
employees concerned, are most likely to generate sub-optimal
results. Traditionally, perceiving and analyzing culture in the
workplace involved looking at national and organizational
cultures. According to the author however, such an approach
completely ignores the cultural differences between the various
occupations present within an organization. He therefore
introduces the concept of ‘professional culture’; something
that emerges as a consequence of a common occupational
background, which can be understood as a genuine cultural
system comparable to organizational and national culture.
This book reports on research undertaken by the author in order
to get an idea of what the expectations of members of a certain
occupation are with regard to how their work environment and
leadership are structured, with a view to developing leadership
and organizational structures that can cope with the demands
exhibited by these different occupational backgrounds. The
author presents empirical data, gathered exclusively in the
aviation sector.
The book has a clear structure. The first four chapters form the
theoretical basis of the work and consist of literature reviews on
leadership, organization, and (professional) culture theories. In
this part, the author establishes the academic need to study the
differences in professional culture. The second part of the book
covers the empirical work. It sets out the research methodology
that was used, and discusses the findings. The author has adapted
the set-up of a multinational cross-cultural study on national
culture, to make it suitable to study the differences between
professional cultures. He also augmented the methodology by
including open interviews with respondents representing the
different occupations. He identified in total twelve different
clusters of functions or occupations within the aviation industry,
ranging from blue-collar workers and flight attendants to project
leaders and operational managers.
I was genuinely surprised by the significant differences in
occupational cultures. My preconceived idea was that, for
example, organizational culture would play a much larger role.
But the research findings clearly show that the twelve clusters
have twelve different leadership styles and organizational
structure preferences. Research findings show, for example,
that flight attendants favor indirect leadership, while for blue-
collar workers the role of a direct leader is incredibly important.
Furthermore, pilots favor the strict hierarchic organizational
structure, while an airline’s IT specialist prefers a less hierarchy-
based organization. This part of the book provides the reader
with a rich understanding of the cultural differences between the
occupations, which is fascinating to read.
Those of you expecting an accessible textbook on leadership
and organization in the aviation industry might be disappointed:
it is more like a proper academic dissertation in both style and
structure. Although the author writes lucidly, the rigid structure
and technical writing style with all its academic justifications
does not make for an easy read; the reader has to work hard
to elicit the interesting elements from the text. But despite the
somewhat awkward style, this book provides interesting and

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 Aerlines
thought-provoking insights into the cultural differences between About the Reviewer
the various occupations within the aviation industry. The Frank van der Zwan is Assistant Professor at the Air Transport
author has consequently succeeded in enriching our traditional & Operations Group, Faculty of Aerospace Engineering, Delft
perception of culture in the workplace with the construct of University of Technology, The Netherlands.
professional culture.
About the Book
About the Author Author: Marc-Philippe Lumpé
Dr. Marc-Philippe Lumpé was formerly Corporate Director of Title: Leadership and Organization in the Aviation Industry
Quality and Flight Safety Management and Corporate Process Publisher: Ashgate
Management at Air Berlin. He is now a consultant with A.T. Date of publication: July 2008
Kearney in Germany. ISBN: 978-0-7546-7144-2
http://www.ashgate.com
Firgure 1: New management tools for the aviation industry? “Blue-
tooth” and “Plug and play”! (Courtesy of Ritsch and Renn)

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