Akbar Yusaf H, Kisilowski Maciej
Department of Economics and Business, Central European University, Vienna, Quellenstraße 51-55, 1100, Vienna, Austria.
J Air Transp Manag. 2020 Sep;88:101867. doi: 10.1016/j.jairtraman.2020.101867. Epub 2020 Aug 6.
Nonmarket strategy - strategic actions directed at influencing the governmental, legalregulatory, and societal environment of business - is a key factor in an airlines' competitive position yet remains relatively under-analyzed in aviation research. The COVID-19 crisis has created a heightened role for nonmarket strategy and our paper argues that in deciding how to respond to a variety of policy measures introduced by governments, airline executives need to take into account the perceived legitimacy from the flying public of their response to governments. Our paper presents an integrative framework to analyze airlines' nonmarket response to COVID-19 governmental policy measures. Using a two-by-two matrix, we identify key conceptual links between industry's nonmarket response, the health impacts of a given policy measure as well as its economic costs for the airlines. Our study concludes that, unless economic stakes in a given policy measure are high, airlines do not risk active bargaining with governments over the content of that measure. Such bargaining could trigger a delegitimation cascade: a self-reinforcing process in which key stakeholders reassess their view of airlines' conduct and the industry's broader societal impact. Bargaining is pursued when economic impacts of policy measures are high, and in that case, the choice between cooperative and adversarial posture towards the government depends on the health impact of a given policy.
非市场战略——旨在影响企业的政府、法律法规和社会环境的战略行动——是航空公司竞争地位的关键因素，但在航空研究中仍相对缺乏分析。新冠疫情危机凸显了非市场战略的重要性，我们的论文认为，在决定如何应对政府出台的各种政策措施时，航空公司高管需要考虑飞行公众对其应对政府措施的认可程度。我们的论文提出了一个综合框架，用于分析航空公司对新冠疫情政府政策措施的非市场反应。通过一个二乘二矩阵，我们确定了行业非市场反应、特定政策措施的健康影响及其对航空公司的经济成本之间的关键概念联系。我们的研究得出结论，除非特定政策措施中的经济利益很高，否则航空公司不会冒险就该措施的内容与政府进行积极谈判。这种谈判可能引发合法性丧失的连锁反应：一个自我强化的过程，在此过程中，关键利益相关者会重新评估他们对航空公司行为以及该行业更广泛社会影响的看法。当政策措施的经济影响很大时，航空公司会进行谈判，在这种情况下，对政府采取合作还是对抗姿态的选择取决于特定政策的健康影响。
