IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/vision/v24y2020i1p118-124.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

How Icarus Paradox Doomed Kingfisher Airlines

Author

Listed:
  • Sulphey M.M.

Abstract

Icarus, a Greek mythical character, is fabled to have plunged to his death in the Aegean Sea due to his own overconfidence and follies. Now management literature has adopted this fable and has extensively used to denote paradoxical decision-making in business. The present case analyses the rise and fall of the Indian air company Kingfisher Airlines Ltd (KFA) and its promoter the flamboyant Mr Vijay Mallya. The author draws parallel between Icarus and KFA, and presents how both met the same fate due to misplaced overconfidence. A few suggestions for organizations to tide over Icarus paradox are also presented.

Suggested Citation

  • Sulphey M.M., 2020. "How Icarus Paradox Doomed Kingfisher Airlines," Vision, , vol. 24(1), pages 118-124, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:vision:v:24:y:2020:i:1:p:118-124
    DOI: 10.1177/0972262919897646
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0972262919897646
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/0972262919897646?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
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Audia, Pino G. & Brion, Sebastien, 2007. "Reluctant to change: Self-enhancing responses to diverging performance measures," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 102(2), pages 255-269, March.
    2. Daniel Kahneman & Amos Tversky, 2013. "Prospect Theory: An Analysis of Decision Under Risk," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Leonard C MacLean & William T Ziemba (ed.), HANDBOOK OF THE FUNDAMENTALS OF FINANCIAL DECISION MAKING Part I, chapter 6, pages 99-127, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    3. Miller, Danny, 1992. "The icarus paradox: How exceptional companies bring about their own downfall," Business Horizons, Elsevier, vol. 35(1), pages 24-35.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Marleen McCormick & Stephanie A. Fernhaber, 2018. "Are growth expectations being met? Implications for the internationalization of micro-sized ventures," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 50(3), pages 591-605, March.
    2. Pasi Kuusela & Thomas Keil & Markku Maula, 2017. "Driven by aspirations, but in what direction? Performance shortfalls, slack resources, and resource-consuming vs. resource-freeing organizational change," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 38(5), pages 1101-1120, May.
    3. DeTienne, Dawn R. & Shepherd, Dean A. & De Castro, Julio O., 2008. "The fallacy of "only the strong survive": The effects of extrinsic motivation on the persistence decisions for under-performing firms," Journal of Business Venturing, Elsevier, vol. 23(5), pages 528-546, September.
    4. Edward Bishop Smith & Heewon Chae, 2017. "The Effect of Organizational Atypicality on Reference Group Selection and Performance Evaluation," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 28(6), pages 1134-1149, December.
    5. Di Lorenzo, Francesco & Almeida, Paul, 2017. "The role of relative performance in inter-firm mobility of inventors," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 46(6), pages 1162-1174.
    6. Kim, Euisin & Rhee, Mooweon, 2017. "How airlines learn from airline accidents: An empirical study of how attributed errors and performance feedback affect learning from failure," Journal of Air Transport Management, Elsevier, vol. 58(C), pages 135-143.
    7. Seow Eng Ong & Davin Wang & Calvin Chua, 2023. "Disruptive Innovation and Real Estate Agency: The Disruptee Strikes Back," The Journal of Real Estate Finance and Economics, Springer, vol. 67(2), pages 287-317, August.
    8. Herrmann, Tabea & Hübler, Olaf & Menkhoff, Lukas & Schmidt, Ulrich, 2016. "Allais for the poor," Kiel Working Papers 2036, Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel).
    9. Christiane Goodfellow & Dirk Schiereck & Steffen Wippler, 2013. "Are behavioural finance equity funds a superior investment? A note on fund performance and market efficiency," Journal of Asset Management, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 14(2), pages 111-119, April.
    10. Berg, Joyce E. & Rietz, Thomas A., 2019. "Longshots, overconfidence and efficiency on the Iowa Electronic Market," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 35(1), pages 271-287.
    11. Reckers, Philip M.J. & Sanders, Debra L. & Roark, Stephen J., 1994. "The Influence of Ethical Attitudes on Taxpayer Compliance," National Tax Journal, National Tax Association;National Tax Journal, vol. 47(4), pages 825-836, December.
    12. Bier, Vicki & Gutfraind, Alexander, 2019. "Risk analysis beyond vulnerability and resilience – characterizing the defensibility of critical systems," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 276(2), pages 626-636.
    13. Sitinjak Elizabeth Lucky Maretha & Haryanti Kristiana & Kurniasari Widuri & Sasmito Yohanes Wisnu Djati, 2019. "Investor behavior based on personality and company life cycle," HOLISTICA – Journal of Business and Public Administration, Sciendo, vol. 10(2), pages 23-38, August.
    14. Theo Arentze & Tao Feng & Harry Timmermans & Jops Robroeks, 2012. "Context-dependent influence of road attributes and pricing policies on route choice behavior of truck drivers: results of a conjoint choice experiment," Transportation, Springer, vol. 39(6), pages 1173-1188, November.
    15. van den Bergh, J.C.J.M. & Botzen, W.J.W., 2015. "Monetary valuation of the social cost of CO2 emissions: A critical survey," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 114(C), pages 33-46.
    16. Frank D. Hodge & Roger D. Martin & Jamie H. Pratt, 2006. "Audit Qualifications of Income†Decreasing Accounting Choices," Contemporary Accounting Research, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 23(2), pages 369-394, June.
    17. Philippe Fevrier & Sebastien Gay, 2005. "Informed Consent Versus Presumed Consent The Role of the Family in Organ Donations," HEW 0509007, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    18. Ran Sun Lyng & Jie Zhou, 2019. "Household Portfolio Choice Before and After a House Purchase," Economics Working Papers 2019-01, Department of Economics and Business Economics, Aarhus University.
    19. Homonoff, Tatiana & Spreen, Thomas Luke & St. Clair, Travis, 2020. "Balance sheet insolvency and contribution revenue in public charities," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 186(C).
    20. Shuang Yao & Donghua Yu & Yan Song & Hao Yao & Yuzhen Hu & Benhai Guo, 2018. "Dry Bulk Carrier Investment Selection through a Dual Group Decision Fusing Mechanism in the Green Supply Chain," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 10(12), pages 1-19, November.

    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:sae:vision:v:24:y:2020:i:1:p:118-124. 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: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    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.