IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/jaitra/v75y2019icp16-26.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Diversity in airline alliance portfolio configuration

Author

Listed:
  • Cobeña, Mar
  • Gallego, Ã ngeles
  • Casanueva, Cristóbal

Abstract

Alliances in the airline industry operate as a basic strategy to stimulate competition and both the number and the types of alliances have increased over time. Each airline maintains alliances simultaneously with a variable number of partners. The set of airline's alliance partners constitutes its alliance portfolio. A central theme of these portfolios is the way in which partner selection improve performance. Is the alliance portfolio configuration based on either similar or different partners? We examine how the differences can arise from differences between the partners themselves, from resource complementarity, and from the partners structural positions in the network. The relations between these types of differences and whether they affect firm performance are studied. Codeshare alliances established between airline companies at a global level are analyzed to establish their effects on performance. In particular, the study comprises 135 alliance portfolios all of which from major airlines. The results suggest that structural homogeneity and complementarity improve performance and that alliance portfolio diversity favors network resource complementarity.

Suggested Citation

  • Cobeña, Mar & Gallego, à ngeles & Casanueva, Cristóbal, 2019. "Diversity in airline alliance portfolio configuration," Journal of Air Transport Management, Elsevier, vol. 75(C), pages 16-26.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:jaitra:v:75:y:2019:i:c:p:16-26
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jairtraman.2018.11.004
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0969699716304070
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.jairtraman.2018.11.004?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Ranjay Gulati, 1999. "Network location and learning: the influence of network resources and firm capabilities on alliance formation," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 20(5), pages 397-420, May.
    2. Dovev Lavie & Stewart R. Miller, 2008. "Alliance Portfolio Internationalization and Firm Performance," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 19(4), pages 623-646, August.
    3. Reshma H. Shah & Vanitha Swaminathan, 2008. "Factors influencing partner selection in strategic alliances: the moderating role of alliance context," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 29(5), pages 471-494, May.
    4. Joel A. C. Baum & Tony Calabrese & Brian S. Silverman, 2000. "Don't go it alone: alliance network composition and startups' performance in Canadian biotechnology," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 21(3), pages 267-294, March.
    5. Anthony Goerzen & Paul W. Beamish, 2005. "The effect of alliance network diversity on multinational enterprise performance," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 26(4), pages 333-354, April.
    6. Wim Vanhaverbeke & Victor Gilsing & Bonnie Beerkens & Geert Duysters, 2009. "The Role of Alliance Network Redundancy in the Creation of Core and Non‐core Technologies," Journal of Management Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 46(2), pages 215-244, March.
    7. Gautam Ahuja & Giuseppe Soda & Akbar Zaheer, 2012. "The Genesis and Dynamics of Organizational Networks," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 23(2), pages 434-448, April.
    8. Xiaowei Luo & Lina Deng, 2009. "Do Birds of a Feather Flock Higher? The Effects of Partner Similarity on Innovation in Strategic Alliances in Knowledge‐Intensive Industries," Journal of Management Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 46(6), pages 1005-1030, September.
    9. Werner H. Hoffmann, 2007. "Strategies for managing a portfolio of alliances," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 28(8), pages 827-856, August.
    10. Zou, Li & Chen, Xueqian, 2017. "The effect of code-sharing alliances on airline profitability," Journal of Air Transport Management, Elsevier, vol. 58(C), pages 50-57.
    11. Kim, Jerry W. & Higgins, Monica C., 2007. "Where do alliances come from?: The effects of upper echelons on alliance formation," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 36(4), pages 499-514, May.
    12. Gudmundsson, Sveinn Vidar & Lechner, Christian, 2006. "Multilateral airline alliances: Balancing strategic constraints and opportunities," Journal of Air Transport Management, Elsevier, vol. 12(3), pages 153-158.
    13. Min, Hokey & Joo, Seong-Jong, 2016. "A comparative performance analysis of airline strategic alliances using data envelopment analysis," Journal of Air Transport Management, Elsevier, vol. 52(C), pages 99-110.
    14. Casanueva, Cristóbal & Gallego, Ángeles & Sancho, María, 2013. "Network resources and social capital in airline alliance portfolios," Tourism Management, Elsevier, vol. 36(C), pages 441-453.
    15. Roberta Capello & Alessandra Faggian, 2005. "Collective Learning and Relational Capital in Local Innovation Processes," Regional Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 39(1), pages 75-87.
    16. Ulrich Wassmer & Pierre Dussauge, 2012. "Network resource stocks and flows: how do alliance portfolios affect the value of new alliance formations?," Post-Print hal-00696858, HAL.
    17. Bevc, C.A. & Retrum, J.H. & Varda, D.M., 2015. "New perspectives on the "silo effect": Initial comparisons of network structures across public health collaboratives," American Journal of Public Health, American Public Health Association, vol. 105, pages 230-235.
    18. Park, Namgyoo K. & Cho, Dong-Sung, 1997. "The effect of strategic alliance on performance," Journal of Air Transport Management, Elsevier, vol. 3(3), pages 155-164.
    19. Martin Kilduff & Reinhard Angelmar & Ajay Mehra, 2000. "Top Management-Team Diversity and Firm Performance: Examining the Role of Cognitions," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 11(1), pages 21-34, February.
    20. Andrew V. Shipilov & Stan Xiao Li & Henrich R. Greve, 2011. "The Prince and the Pauper: Search and Brokerage in the Initiation of Status-Heterophilous Ties," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 22(6), pages 1418-1434, December.
    21. Assaf, A. George & Josiassen, Alexander, 2012. "European vs. U.S. airlines: Performance comparison in a dynamic market," Tourism Management, Elsevier, vol. 33(2), pages 317-326.
    22. Klaus Marhold & Jina Kang, 2017. "The effects of internal technological diversity and external uncertainty on technological alliance portfolio diversity," Industry and Innovation, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 24(2), pages 122-142, February.
    23. Ulrich Wassmer, 2010. "Alliance Portfolios : A Review and Research Agenda," Post-Print hal-02313048, HAL.
    24. Gautam Ahuja & Francisco Polidoro & Will Mitchell, 2009. "Structural homophily or social asymmetry? The formation of alliances by poorly embedded firms," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 30(9), pages 941-958, September.
    25. C. K. Prahalad & Richard A. Bettis, 1986. "The dominant logic: A new linkage between diversity and performance," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 7(6), pages 485-501, November.
    26. Hemant Merchant & Dan Schendel, 2000. "How do international joint ventures create shareholder value?," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 21(7), pages 723-737, July.
    27. Pierre Dussauge & Bernard Garrette & Will Mitchell, 2000. "Learning from competing partners: outcomes and durations of scale and link alliances in Europe, North America and Asia," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 21(2), pages 99-126, February.
    28. Lori Rosenkopf & Giovanna Padula, 2008. "Investigating the Microstructure of Network Evolution: Alliance Formation in the Mobile Communications Industry," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 19(5), pages 669-687, October.
    29. Christine M. Beckman & Pamela R. Haunschild & Damon J. Phillips, 2004. "Friends or Strangers? Firm-Specific Uncertainty, Market Uncertainty, and Network Partner Selection," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 15(3), pages 259-275, June.
    30. Zou, Li & Oum, Tae H. & Yu, Chunyan, 2011. "Assessing the price effects of airline alliances on complementary routes," Transportation Research Part E: Logistics and Transportation Review, Elsevier, vol. 47(3), pages 315-332, May.
    31. Markus Baer & Abhijeet K. Vadera & Roger T. A. J. Leenders & Greg R. Oldham, 2014. "Intergroup Competition as a Double-Edged Sword: How Sex Composition Regulates the Effects of Competition on Group Creativity," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 25(3), pages 892-908, June.
    32. Ulrich Wassmer & Pierre Dussauge, 2012. "Network resource stocks and flows : How do alliance portfolios affect the value of new alliance formations?," Post-Print hal-02313044, HAL.
    33. Arvind Parkhe, 1991. "Interfirm Diversity, Organizational Learning, and Longevity in Global Strategic Alliances," Journal of International Business Studies, Palgrave Macmillan;Academy of International Business, vol. 22(4), pages 579-601, December.
    34. Harumi Ito & Darin Lee, 2007. "Domestic Code Sharing, Alliances, and Airfares in the U.S. Airline Industry," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 50(2), pages 355-380.
    35. Ulrich Wassmer & Pierre-Xavier Meschi, 2011. "The effect of code-sharing alliance formations and terminations on firm value: The role of co-specialization and scope extension," Post-Print hal-01839624, HAL.
    36. Sergio G. Lazzarini, 2007. "The impact of membership in competing alliance constellations: Evidence on the operational performance of global airlines," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 28(4), pages 345-367, April.
    37. Duysters, Geert & de Man, Ard-Pieter & Wildeman, Leo, 1999. "A network approach to alliance management," European Management Journal, Elsevier, vol. 17(2), pages 182-187, April.
    38. Mariko Sakakibara, 1997. "Heterogeneity Of Firm Capabilities And Cooperative Research And Development: An Empirical Examination Of Motives," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 18(S1), pages 143-164, July.
    39. Ulrich Wassmer & Pierre-Xavier Meschi, 2011. "The effect of code-sharing alliance formations and terminations on firm value : The role of co-specialization and scope extension," Post-Print hal-02313046, HAL.
    40. Joanne E. Oxley & Rachelle C. Sampson, 2004. "The scope and governance of international R&D alliances," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 25(8‐9), pages 723-749, August.
    41. Ulrich Wassmer & Pierre Dussauge, 2012. "Network resource stocks and flows: how do alliance portfolios affect the value of new alliance formations?," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 33(7), pages 871-883, July.
    42. Tim J. Rowley & Joel A. C. Baum & Andrew V. Shipilov & Henrich R. Greve & Hayagreeva Rao, 2004. "Competing in groups," Managerial and Decision Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 25(6-7), pages 453-471.
    43. de Leeuw, Tim & Lokshin, Boris & Duysters, Geert, 2014. "Returns to alliance portfolio diversity: The relative effects of partner diversity on firm's innovative performance and productivity," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 67(9), pages 1839-1849.
    44. Wassmer, Ulrich & Meschi, Pierre-Xavier, 2011. "The effect of code-sharing alliance formations and terminations on firm value: The role of co-specialization and scope extension," Journal of Air Transport Management, Elsevier, vol. 17(5), pages 305-308.
    45. Jungwon Min & Hitoshi Mitsuhashi, 2012. "Dynamics of Unclosed Triangles in Alliance Networks: Disappearance of Brokerage Positions and Performance Consequences," Journal of Management Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 49(6), pages 1078-1108, September.
    46. Milgrom, Paul & Roberts, John, 1990. "The Economics of Modern Manufacturing: Technology, Strategy, and Organization," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 80(3), pages 511-528, June.
    47. Seungwha (Andy) Chung & Harbir Singh & Kyungmook Lee, 2000. "Complementarity, status similarity and social capital as drivers of alliance formation," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 21(1), pages 1-22, January.
    48. Weijian Shan & William Hamilton, 1991. "Country—specific advantage and international cooperation," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 12(6), pages 419-432, September.
    49. Bernard Garrette & Pierre Dussauge & Will Mitchell, 2000. "Learning from competing partners: outcomes and durations of scale and link alliances in Europe, North America and Asia," Post-Print hal-00458812, HAL.
    50. Casanueva, Cristóbal & Gallego, Ángeles & Castro, Ignacio & Sancho, María, 2014. "Airline alliances: Mobilizing network resources," Tourism Management, Elsevier, vol. 44(C), pages 88-98.
    51. Park, Jong-Hun, 1997. "The effects of airline alliances on markets and economic welfare," Transportation Research Part E: Logistics and Transportation Review, Elsevier, vol. 33(3), pages 181-195, September.
    52. Gautam Pant & Padmini Srinivasan, 2013. "Status Locality on the Web: Implications for Building Focused Collections," Information Systems Research, INFORMS, vol. 24(3), pages 802-821, September.
    53. Dovev Lavie, 2007. "Alliance portfolios and firm performance: A study of value creation and appropriation in the U.S. software industry," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 28(12), pages 1187-1212, December.
    54. Reinartz, Werner & Haenlein, Michael & Henseler, Jörg, 2009. "An empirical comparison of the efficacy of covariance-based and variance-based SEM," International Journal of Research in Marketing, Elsevier, vol. 26(4), pages 332-344.
    55. Ruihua Joy Jiang & Qingjiu Tom Tao & Michael D. Santoro, 2010. "Alliance portfolio diversity and firm performance," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 31(10), pages 1136-1144, October.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Belén Payán‐Sánchez & Miguel Pérez‐Valls & José Antonio Plaza‐Úbeda & Diego Vázquez‐Brust, 2022. "Network ambidexterity and environmental performance: Code‐sharing in the airline industry," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 31(3), pages 1169-1183, March.
    2. Ying Li & Tai‐Yu Lin & Yung‐ho Chiu & Shu‐Ning Lin & Tzu‐Han Chang, 2021. "Impact of alliances and delay rate on airline performance," Managerial and Decision Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 42(6), pages 1607-1618, September.
    3. Seungju Nam & Hyun Cheol Lee, 2019. "A Text Analytics-Based Importance Performance Analysis and Its Application to Airline Service," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(21), pages 1-24, November.
    4. Belén Payán-Sánchez & Miguel Pérez-Valls & José Antonio Plaza-Úbeda, 2019. "The Contribution of Global Alliances to Airlines’ Environmental Performance," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(17), pages 1-16, August.
    5. Jia Zhou & Aifang Guo & Yutao Chen & Jin Chen, 2022. "Original Innovation through Inter-Organizational Collaboration: Empirical Evidence from University-Focused Alliance Portfolio in China," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(10), pages 1-18, May.
    6. Gang-Hoon Seo & Munehiko Itoh, 2020. "Perceptions of Customers as Sustained Competitive Advantages of Global Marketing Airline Alliances: A Hybrid Text Mining Approach," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(15), pages 1-15, August.
    7. Aitor Salesa & Raúl León & José Mariano Moneva, 2023. "Airlines practices to incorporate circular economy principles into the waste management system," Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 30(1), pages 443-458, January.
    8. Anshu Agrawal, 2021. "Sustainability of airlines in India with Covid-19: Challenges ahead and possible way-outs," Journal of Revenue and Pricing Management, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 20(4), pages 457-472, August.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Cobeña, Mar & Gallego, Ángeles & Casanueva, Cristóbal, 2017. "Heterogeneity, diversity and complementarity in alliance portfolios," European Management Journal, Elsevier, vol. 35(4), pages 464-476.
    2. Casanueva, Cristóbal & Gallego, Ángeles & Sancho, María, 2013. "Network resources and social capital in airline alliance portfolios," Tourism Management, Elsevier, vol. 36(C), pages 441-453.
    3. Casanueva, Cristóbal & Gallego, Ángeles & Castro, Ignacio & Sancho, María, 2014. "Airline alliances: Mobilizing network resources," Tourism Management, Elsevier, vol. 44(C), pages 88-98.
    4. Castro, Ignacio & Casanueva, Cristóbal & Galán, José Luis, 2014. "Dynamic evolution of alliance portfolios," European Management Journal, Elsevier, vol. 32(3), pages 423-433.
    5. Kavusan, K., 2015. "Essays on capability development through alliances," Other publications TiSEM 8eb736a5-b217-4718-ac13-d, Tilburg University, School of Economics and Management.
    6. Doohee Chung & Marco Jinhwan Kim & Jina Kang, 2019. "Influence of alliance portfolio diversity on innovation performance: the role of internal capabilities of value creation," Review of Managerial Science, Springer, vol. 13(5), pages 1093-1120, November.
    7. Dovev Lavie & Randi Lunnan & Binh Minh T. Truong, 2022. "How does a partner's acquisition affect the value of the firm's alliance with that partner?," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 43(9), pages 1897-1926, September.
    8. Pangarkar, Nitin & Yuan, Lin & Hussain, Sairah, 2017. "Too much of a good thing? Alliance portfolio size and alliance expansion," European Management Journal, Elsevier, vol. 35(4), pages 477-485.
    9. Piening, Erk P. & Salge, Torsten Oliver & Schäfer, Sebastian, 2016. "Innovating across boundaries: A portfolio perspective on innovation partnerships of multinational corporations," Journal of World Business, Elsevier, vol. 51(3), pages 474-485.
    10. Castiglioni, Marco & Gallego, à ngeles & Galán, José Luis, 2018. "The virtualization of the airline industry: A strategic process," Journal of Air Transport Management, Elsevier, vol. 67(C), pages 134-145.
    11. Jacob, Jojo & Belderbos, René & Lokshin, Boris, 2023. "Entangled modes: Boundaries to effective international knowledge sourcing through technology alliances and technology-based acquisitions," Technovation, Elsevier, vol. 122(C).
    12. Rene M. Bakker & Joris Knoben, 2015. "Built to Last or Meant to End: Intertemporal Choice in Strategic Alliance Portfolios," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 26(1), pages 256-276, February.
    13. Haider, Sajjad & Mariotti, Francesca, 2016. "The orchestration of alliance portfolios: The role of alliance portfolio capability," Scandinavian Journal of Management, Elsevier, vol. 32(3), pages 127-141.
    14. Manuela N. Hoehn-Weiss & Samina Karim & Chi-Hyon Lee, 2017. "Examining Alliance Portfolios Beyond the Dyads: The Relevance of Redundancy and Nonuniformity Across and Between Partners," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 28(1), pages 56-73, February.
    15. de Leeuw, Tim & Lokshin, Boris & Duysters, Geert, 2014. "Returns to alliance portfolio diversity: The relative effects of partner diversity on firm's innovative performance and productivity," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 67(9), pages 1839-1849.
    16. Christopher R. Penney & James G. Combs, 2020. "A Transaction Cost Perspective of Alliance Portfolio Diversity," Journal of Management Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 57(6), pages 1073-1105, September.
    17. Qin Yang, 2018. "Geographical Diversity of Alliance Portfolio and Firm Innovation: The Roles of Resource Characteristics and Governance Structures," International Journal of Innovation and Technology Management (IJITM), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 15(06), pages 1-22, December.
    18. Knoben, Joris & Bakker, Rene M., 2019. "The guppy and the whale: Relational pluralism and start-ups' expropriation dilemma in partnership formation," Journal of Business Venturing, Elsevier, vol. 34(1), pages 103-121.
    19. Cho, Sam Yul & Arthurs, Jonathan D., 2018. "The influence of alliance experience on acquisition premiums and post-acquisition performance," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 88(C), pages 1-10.
    20. J. Nils Foege & Erk P. Piening & Torsten-Oliver Salge, 2017. "Don’T Get Caught On The Wrong Foot: A Resource-Based Perspective On Imitation Threats In Innovation Partnerships," International Journal of Innovation Management (ijim), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 21(03), pages 1-42, April.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:jaitra:v:75:y:2019:i:c:p:16-26. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.journals.elsevier.com/journal-of-air-transport-management/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.