Impact Of Organization Characteristics On Sustainable Competitive Advantage During Strategic Change In Airlines
Abstract
Firms in the airline industry are using resources and capabilities to build sustainable competitive advantage and how
these resources and capabilities are used are subject to change when the organization is responding to change from
external forces. This leads to change of the whole organization as a system. This study focuses on organization
characteristics which make up the organization including business processes, structure and culture and how these are
managed during strategic change to build sustainable competitive advantage in airlines. With Porter’s five-force
model and the value chain model, this study aims at analyzing the dynamic environment of airlines with forces that
lead to strategic change and how these affect the three organization characteristics. The study employed survey
research design with a sample of 173 drawn from executive directors, senior managers and managers and pilots
through stratified sampling who were picked by simple random sampling from airlines. Self-administered
questionnaires and personal interviews were used as well as data from books, journals, periodicals, company reports,
press releases and the internet. Data analysis was done using descriptive analysis (percentages, frequencies and
averages) and chi-statistic followed by data presentation on bar graphs and tables. The study concludes the three
elements of organization characteristics namely business process, culture and structure are interlinked. They are
disrupted during strategic change and require integration for consistency help build sustainable competitive
advantage. It is recommended that managers and policy makers in airlines view organization characteristics as
subsystems that depend on each other to build sustainable competitive advantage during strategic change. Further
researchers should incorporate operational level employees and customers in the target influence to establish their
role in organization characteristics during strategic change process.