High- and low-road strategies for competing on costs and their implications for employment relations: international studies in the airline industry1

Abstract

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size Notes 1. We thank our great colleagues Tom Kochan and Andrew von Nordenflycht, with whom we published: Up in the Air: How the Airlines Can Improve Performance by Engaging their Employees (2009). We also thank all of our collaborators in the study of the airline industry. We draw on the work of many of them in this paper including: Michael Barry, Phil Beaumont, Geraint Harvey, Nancy Brown Johnson, Russell Lansbury, Robert McKersie, Werner Nienhueser, Sarah Oxenbridge, Teresa Shuk-Ching Poon, Kate Rainthorpe, Siobhan Tiernan, Peter Turnbull, Joe Wallace, Peter Waring and Lorraine White. Our research and that of our colleagues was facilitated by funding from several sources including: Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, Australian Research Council, MIT Global Airline Industry Program, Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada, and US Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service. For fuller acknowledgements, see: Bamber et al. (2009a Bamber, G.J., Gittell, J.H., Kochan, T.A. and von Nordenflycht, A. 2009a. Up in the Air: How Airlines Can Improve Performance by Engaging their Employees, Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. [Google Scholar]). 2. For further analysis and more discussion of each of these and many other airlines, as well as for more references, see Bamber et al. (2009a Bamber, G.J., Gittell, J.H., Kochan, T.A. and von Nordenflycht, A. 2009a. Up in the Air: How Airlines Can Improve Performance by Engaging their Employees, Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. [Google Scholar]) and Bamber, Gittell, Kochan and von Nordenflycht (2009b Bamber, G.J., Gittell, J.H., Kochan, T.A. and von Nordenflytch, A. 2009b. Contrasting Management and Employment–Relations Strategies in European Airlines. Journal of Industrial Relations, 51(5): 635–652. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]). 3. Earlier versions of most of the papers were discussed at the Airline Industry Council of the Labor and Employment Relations Association. Subsequently, the manuscripts were revised and resubmitted, taking into account the advice and comments of the guest editors and referees.