Multilateral airline alliances: Balancing strategic constraints and opportunities

This paper explores multilateral airline alliances through the lenses of structural holes and network closure. The structural holes theory sees network ties as opportunities linking together separate network segments through brokers and weak ties. The opposing view argues that network closure would...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of air transport management 2006-05, Vol.12 (3), p.153-158
Main Authors: Gudmundsson, Sveinn Vidar, Lechner, Christian
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Airline alliances
Airline performance
Alliance processes
Network closure
Structural holes
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Summary:This paper explores multilateral airline alliances through the lenses of structural holes and network closure. The structural holes theory sees network ties as opportunities linking together separate network segments through brokers and weak ties. The opposing view argues that network closure would generate superior “social capital” and thus superior “economic rent” as we would have more trust, reputation and cooperation within a closed group with strong internal ties. We discuss these theories in the context of multilateral airline alliances and argue that the two concepts in combination advance our ability to explain alliance processes in the airline industry.
ISSN:0969-6997
1873-2089
DOI:10.1016/j.jairtraman.2005.11.007