At Their own Will: Success and Failure of Airlines After Deregulation

MUDROŇ, Róbert, Pavlína ŠIROKÁ and Michal JIRÁSEK. At Their own Will: Success and Failure of Airlines After Deregulation. In Florinda Matos, Maria de Fátima Ferreiro, Álvaro Rosa, Isabel Salavisa. Proceedings of the 16th European Conference on Innovation and Entrepreneurship. Reading: Academic Conferences International, 2021, p. 590-597, 10 pp. ISBN 978-1-914587-09-2.

Basic information

Original name

At Their own Will: Success and Failure of Airlines After Deregulation

Authors

MUDROŇ, Róbert, Pavlína ŠIROKÁ and Michal JIRÁSEK

Edition

Reading, Proceedings of the 16th European Conference on Innovation and Entrepreneurship, p. 590-597, 10 pp. 2021

Publisher

Academic Conferences International

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Other information

Language

English

Type of outcome

Stať ve sborníku

Field of Study

50204 Business and management

Country of publisher

United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland

Confidentiality degree

není předmětem státního či obchodního tajemství

Publication form

printed version "print"

Organization unit

Faculty of Economics and Administration

ISBN

978-1-914587-09-2

Keywords in English

success; deregulation; breakthrough event; Icarus paradox; strategic persistence; qualitative comparative analysis

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Abstract

V originále

The deregulation of the U.S. air transportation industry in 1978 has served both as an inspiration for subsequent deregulation efforts and as a natural experiment of firm behavior under significant environmental change. The deregulation hurled many airlines into a qualitatively different business context in which they needed to re-establish their competitive positions. Our research aims to identify airlines' characteristics connected with success or its absence in the early postderegulation era. For this purpose, we use Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA) that allows us to observe airlines' characteristics in their combinations, not as independent factors. The method enables us to point out the equifinality in airlines' success, meaning that there were several ways how airlines could have become successful. We find that there were no clear pathways towards post-deregulation success. Yet, the results suggest (with borderline significance) that large airlines that changed their strategy succeeded. Regarding the absence of success, we find three combinations of conditions that explain the lack of success with a relatively high significance. Both results for the presence of success and its absence provides some support for the Icarus paradox. In this phenomenon, a satisfactory past performance causes a strategic persistence that is rendered dysfunctional during and after the breakthrough event and causes airlines' decline.