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Outlines the history of the 1978 Airline Deregulation Act's Employee Protection Program (EPP). Purpose, eligibility requirements and protection; Implementation; Duration of EPP protection; Delays in the implementation of EPP; Employees' initial steps to seek EPP's protection; Delayed assessments of qualifying dislocations; EPP's appropriate statute of limitations; Failure.

Purpose: This paper investigates the nature of conduct that existed in the U.S. airline hub-to-hub markets prior to the recent merger wave of the legacy carriers. We explore the strategic importance of network carrier hubs in form of "spheres of influence" on airline market conduct. We also simultaneously recognize the overgrowing role played by Low Cost Carriers (LCC) over the years by estimating two conduct parameters - one in markets where LCCs directly compete head-to-head with legacy carriers and the other for markets which LCCs do not serve but has presence in the hub airports or adjacent airports comprising the market endpoints. Thus our supply side framework also sheds some light on the issue of perfect contestability in airline industry. Design/methodology: We estimate a structural oligopoly model for differentiated products with competitive interactions using DB1B data for first quarter of 2004. Findings: Our results imply that the nature of competition is more aggressive relative to Bertrand behavior in hub-to-hub markets and that these markets are less than perfectly contestable. Originality/value: This paper adds to the empirical literature of airline competition by enabling estimation of the actual conduct parameter assuming firm price setting behavior in presence of product differentiation. Contrary to existing literature on airline competition, a structural model enables us to systematically separate out effects of demand, cost and strategic factors on observed airline prices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Operating lease obligations avoid balance sheet recognition. Critics assert that these off-balance sheet arrangements lack transparency. To address the criticism, the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) issued a leasing proposal that requires balance sheet reporting of most right-of-use leased assets and debt, and improves alignment with the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB) standards. This paper summarizes the current status of the FASB lease proposal and illustrates the anticipated impact on airlines - an industry heavily reliant on operating leases. Finally, the paper recommends steps for implementing the standard. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the ongoing evolution of the U.S. airline industry under deregulation. After losing money for most of the past 35 years, carriers have made structural changes to their business models that have proven to be, at least in the short term, very profitable. After delineating these management actions, the paper examines their impact on passengers. The author utilizes the Service Quality Model to analyze the long-term implications of this new operating paradigm for passenger satisfaction. Based on this analysis the paper goes on to suggest several actions management could take to improve satisfaction. Finally, conclusions are offered and areas for additional research suggested. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the ongoing evolution of the U.S. airline industry under deregulation. After losing money for most of the past 35 years, carriers have made structural changes to their business models that have proven to be, at least in the short term, very profitable. After delineating these management actions, the paper examines their impact on passengers. The author utilizes the Service Quality Model to analyze the long-term implications of this new operating paradigm for passenger satisfaction. Based on this analysis the paper goes on to suggest several actions management could take to improve satisfaction. Finally, conclusions are offered and areas for additional research suggested. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses a study which investigated the relationship between profitability and the choice of a business model by a firm in the U.S. airline industry. The study examined persistence of earnings components of the firm, including unit prices, costs and productivity changes. It analyzed the financial performance of several airline companies and the competitive strategy adopted by each company.

Over the last decade, the U.S. airline industry has transformed itself through mergers, restructurings, bankruptcies, and dissolutions. Also during this time, the airline industry focused on a business model that was driven by an emphasis on asset utilization. This was driven by increasing the load factor to increase cost efficiencies through economies of scale so that the return on invested capital could be improved by reducing the operating costs. This study evaluates economies of scale and resultant cost efficiencies in the U.S. passenger airline industry for the period 2013 to 2018. The research finds that the airline industry is experiencing cost efficiencies with every increase in the size of the airline, but cost efficiencies are not evenly distributed. The paper also finds that the main source of cost efficiency appears to be aircraft maintenance expenses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the effects of regulatory constraints and their relaxation on managerial discretion and internal fit in the context of the U.S. airline industry. Our results suggest that when managers' discretion is limited in one realm of choice, they compensate by using their greater level of discretion in some other arena to achieve internal fit. We show that the pursuit of fit matters, in the sense of having measurable efficiency consequences, and that fit trumps ‘best practice,’ at least in this context. In this respect, our findings provide a validation of the contingency perspective on internal fit. The ability to achieve fit under changing conditions may express a dynamic managerial capability necessary for adaptive organizational change. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The reporting of voluntary disclosures of accounting information is believed to increase financial transparency and boost shareholder confidence. In a rapidly changing business environment, more companies are choosing to voluntarily disclose accounting information as they believe that such disclosures give them a competitive advantage. This study examines whether U.S. airline companies voluntarily disclose financial information more than non-U.S. airline companies. This study is a follow-up to the author's previous paper which examined the voluntary accounting disclosures in the airline industry. This study shows that, on average, U.S. airline companies voluntarily disclose accounting information more than non-U.S. airline companies. The study also shows that the differences in voluntary accounting disclosures between U.S. and non-U.S. companies are not statistically significant. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the executive origins of firms' competitive moves by focusing on top management team characteristics, specifically on team heterogeneity, rather than on the more often studied environmental and organizational determinants of such behaviors. Arguing that competitive actions and responses represent different decision situations, we develop propositions about how heterogeneity may enhance some competitive behaviors but impair others. With a large sample of actions and responses of 32 U.S. airlines over eight years, we find results that largely conform to our propositions. The top management teams that were diverse, in terms of functional backgrounds, education, and company tenure, exhibited a relatively great propensity for action, and both their actions and responses were of substantial magnitude. Heterogeneous teams, by contrast, were slower in their actions and responses and less likely than homogeneous teams to respond to competitors' initiatives. Thus, although team heterogeneity is a double-edged sword, its overall net effect on airline performance, in terms of changes in market share and profits, was positive. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the causes and consequences of competitive inertia in the U.S. airline industry. Competitive inertia is defined as the level of activity that a firm exhibits when altering its competitive stance in areas such as pricing, advertising, new product or service introductions, and market scope. Inertia is argued to be driven by managers' incentives to act, their awareness of action alternatives, and the constraints on their capacity to act. These three sources of inertia were assessed, respectively, by past performance and market growth; by competitive experience and the diversity of the market environment; and by company age and size. We found that good past performance contributed to competitive inertia, whereas a diversity of markets discouraged it. Antecedents for inertia differed in tactical versus strategic actions, the former being driven more by performance and market diversity, the latter by growth in markets. These results suggest the operation of two distinct models of organizational learning, one reactive, the other experimental. Although inertia in strategic actions had mildly positive implications for near-term performance, the benefits from inertia in all kinds of actions diminished with increases in market diversity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Optimized profile descent (OPD) is an arrival procedure for the Next Generation Air Transportation System, which has been demonstrated to effectively decrease noise, emissions, and fuel costs. Implementation of OPD operations requires effective metering policies because of the increased role of uncertainty in aircraft trajectories during descent. While optimal sequencing and spacing of OPD flights have been studied in the literature, any potential savings resulting from possible changes in metering point configurations have not been addressed. In this paper, we develop models to further increase the value of OPD operations over conventional arrival procedures by optimizing metering point configurations, which include identification of the optimal number and locations of metering points to use during OPD. We derive an algorithmic framework based on implementations of a stochastic dynamic programming model and a nonlinear stochastic integer program to identify best metering point configurations where resulting computational difficulties are addressed through convex approximation and Lagrangian decomposition procedures. We also describe numerical results based on actual traffic information at major U.S. airports, which indicate that the total potential savings in the top 10 major airports could be up to $22 million a year if the proposed policies are implemented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose – This paper aims to examine the effects of 9/11/2001 on strategic variability in the US air carrier industry. The paper also seeks to examine the role of firm size in these relationships. Design/methodology/approach – The paper tests two different perspectives on organizational adaptation to environmental jolts: the punctuated equilibrium model and institutional isomorphism. The two counter hypotheses predict either increasing or decreasing variability in strategic response to 9/11, respectively. This is a longitudinal study of the US air carrier industry. The sample includes the major, national, and large regional air carriers in the US from 1979 (post-deregulation) to 2008. The data come from archival sources. The study includes measures of variability in differentiation and low cost strategies as well as scope. Findings – Time series regressions examine the effects of the 9/11 jolt on business strategy variability in the majors, nationals, and large regionals. The results lend some support to both perspectives on organizational adaptation. Air carrier size had a significant relationship to strategic variability. Originality/value – The paper studies the behavior of firms in the US air carrier industry following the terrorist attacks of 9/11/2001. It examines two different theoretical approaches to environmental jolts and should provide useful information to both academics and managers who are interested in the effects of significant environmental changes on the behavior of an industry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper studies airlines' competitive behavior in the U.S. airline industry, focusing on 2014 data. I use a structural model to estimate demand and test several supply models, including noncooperative competition, perfect collusion, and tacit coordination. There are three different types of tacit coordination, formed by multimarket contact, common ownership, and codeshare agreement, respectively. I find that the model that fits the data best is a tacit coordination model with coalitions between airlines with at least 30% of their markets overlapped and using price rather than quantity as the strategic variable. I further analyze the consumer welfare loss, each carrier's profit gains, and changes in market variables due to the tacit coordination. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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This paper examines the permanence of excess capacity in the US airline industry. To avoid the problems with the standard engineering measure of capacity utilization, load factor, we define and measure capacity as an economic concept. Two measures of economic capacity utilization are then computed — one, a demandbased measure and the other an output-based measure of capacity utilization. Both measures share little in common with the standard engineering measure (load factor) and reveal some interesting attributes of airline travel demand. This paper also provides interesting new insights into the role of deregulation and the costs of excess capacity during regulation. Specifically, it is found that deregulation with the concomitant rationalization of route structures enabled airlines to move closer to their optimal levels of capacity and facilitated substantial improvements in capacity utilization and cost reductions over the period considered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper presents safety data for the period 1977-86 from more than 30 U.S. domestic airlines and 80 international flag carriers. These statistics are examined in conjunction with others from an earlier MIT study about the previous two decades. The primary safety measure used is "death risk per flight," which weights each fatal accident by the proportion of passengers killed and exploits statistical evidence that the risk arising from a nonstop flight is uncorrelated with its route length. The main conclusions of the analysis are: (1) The U.S. domestic trunklines can continue to lay claim to being the safest group of airlines in the world. In 1977-86, the death risk per flight on these carriers was roughly one in eleven million. This represents a factor-of-four improvement since the early 1970's and a factor-of-ten improvement since the early 1960's. (2) But while U.S. jet travel has become safer in recent years, the improvement would probably have been greater still in the absence of airline deregulation. The reason for this assessment relates to the new jet carriers spawned by deregulation. Most such carriers have perfect safety records so far but, collectively, the recent entrants averaged twelve times the death risk per flight in 1979-86 of the established trunklines. This statistically significant excess cut by nearly one-half the recent progress in domestic jet safety. (3) International air travel was also far safer in the last decade than in preceding ones. But the flag carriers of Communist bloc and Third-World nations averaged eight times the death risk per flight as those from industrialized First-World nations. This factor-of-eight discrepancy, which has persisted with little change throughout the last quarter century, cannot be explained by differences in route structure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Airlines use robust scheduling to mitigate the impact of unforeseeable disruptions on profits. We examine how effectively three common practices-flexibility to swap aircraft, flexibility to reassign gates, and scheduled aircraft downtime-accomplish this goal. We first estimate a multiple-input, multiple-outcome production frontier, which defines the attainable set of outcomes from given inputs. We then recover unobserved input costs and calculate how expenditure on inputs affects outcomes and revenues. We find that the per-dollar return from expenditure on gates, or more effective management of existing gate capacity, is three times larger than the per-dollar returns from other inputs. Next, we use the estimated trade-offs faced by carriers along the frontier to measure the value to carriers of reducing delays. Finally, we calculate the improvement in carriers' outcomes and profits if their operational inefficiencies are eliminated. On average, we estimate that operational inefficiencies cost carriers about $1.7 billion in revenue annually. This paper was accepted by Serguei Netessine, operations management. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines determinants of sticky cost behavior, costs that increase faster than they decrease as demand fluctuates. The majority of the literature infers that sticky costs arise because managers retain idle capacity as demand falls, but add capacity as demand grows. I use United States Air Transportation industry data to confirm that managers do retain idle capacity when demand falls. However, I also find that sticky costs arise because managers lower selling prices to utilize existing capacity when demand falls, but add capacity (rather than raise selling prices) when demand grows. Finally, I find that sticky costs arise because managers incur more cost when adding capacity as demand grows than they incur when they add capacity as demand falls. Conversely, I find evidence of anti-sticky costs that occur because managers save more cost by removing capacity when demand falls than they save by removing capacity when demand grows. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Projects to improve airport ground access not only provide important intermodal connections but can also present difficult funding challenges. This paper reviews the recent literature on funding airport ground access projects as well as some of the wider literature on funding transportation projects in general in the United States (U.S.) that is indirectly relevant to airport ground access projects. This is followed by a review of current U.S. federal transportation funding programs relevant to airport ground access projects, as well as a discussion of state and local funding programs and potential opportunities for private sector funding. The paper then describes several case studies of airport ground access project funding that were undertaken as part of this research. Based on this discussion, the paper discusses potential funding strategies for intermodal airport ground access projects in the U.S., requirements for effective implementation of these strategies, and a recommended approach to facilitate successful project development and implementation. It also presents recommended changes to the transportation funding program rules and regulations in the U.S. that could facilitate and simplify the development of intermodal solutions to meet future airport ground access needs. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

The paper investigates the outcomes of multimarket competition among U.S. scheduled airlines when the interests and positions of the airlines differ in the mutually contested markets. Asymmetry in territorial interests provides multimarket competitors with footholds in important markets of their rivals, which can be used to deter the behavior of the rivals in other markets. Evidence suggests that airlines use footholds in their rivals' important markets (particularly in their hubs) to reduce the competitive intensity of those rivals in the airlines' own important markets (their hubs), and sustain their dominant positions (or spheres of influence) in those markets. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract This paper assesses whether Chapter 11 is a form of subsidy for US airlines. US airlines have used Chapter 11 to restructure their operations. This has been criticized as a subsidy by major non US airlines and governments for a long time and recently, in the "level playing field" debate. Applying legal and economic perspectives of subsidy, we examine the different opportunities of Chapter 11 to reduce airlines' costs. It is argued that most of the forms available, such as the modification of collective bargaining, do not constitute a subsidy. Only the termination of pension plans might involve a subsidy, but only using a legal definition of doubtful relevance since there is normally no use of public funds. Highlights • Major non US airlines and governments criticize Chapter 11 as a subsidy. • However, most of the forms of Chapter 11 do not constitute a subsidy. • Even the termination of pension plans does not normally involve a subsidy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In his pathbreaking article "The Nature of the Firm," Ronald H. Coase postulated that the structure of production was determined by the comparative advantage between contracting and hierarchy in securing and coordinating complementary resources for production. While Coase considered the possibility that regulation might also influence the way production is structured, he considered the problem only very generally. This paper suggests that airline deregulation has profoundly affected the structure of firms that operate airline networks by affecting contractual conditions under which airlines purchase labor inputs, removing constraints on the extent and nature of the firm's route network, and changing the competitive environment in which airline firms operate. Where a stable uniform firm structure existed under regulation, airline networks now are organized with a variety of firm structures, and individual networks have changed as particular conditions have changed over time. No single structure dominates, although some are more common than others. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As service failures are inevitable, firms must be prepared to recover and learn from service failures. Yet, the majority of customers are still dissatisfied with the way firms resolve their complaints. Can learning to reduce service failures reduce customer dissatisfaction, and to what extent are such reductions sustainable? Previous research showed that organizational learning curves for customer dissatisfaction (i) follow a U-shaped function of operating experience and (ii) are heterogeneous across firms. In this paper, I tease out where the U-shaped learning-curve effect and learning-curve heterogeneity originate: service failure or customers’ propensity to complain with a third party given the occurrence of a service failure. Using quarterly data for nine major US airlines over 11 years, I find that the U-shaped learning-curve effect and the learning-curve heterogeneity originate in the propensity to complain. In the long term, reductions in service failure did not translate in sustainable reductions in customer dissatisfaction. Customers’propensity to complain eventually went up. Managing the propensity to complain provides more opportunity for a firm to distinguish itself from competitors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

lthough business aviation has been popular in the USA, Europe, and South America, however, top economies in East Asia, including Japan, Korea, and Taiwan, have been more conservative and lag behind in the development of business aviation. In this paper, we hope to discover possible trends and needs of business aviation for supporting the government to make decision in anticipation of eventual deregulation in the near future. We adopt knowledge-discovery tools based on rough set to analyze the potential for business aviation through an empirical study. Although our empirical study uses data from Taiwan, we are optimistic that our proposed method can be similarly applied in other countries to help governments there make decisions about a deregulated market in the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The short paper describes the major findings of the ISU Statistical Graphics working group on airline traffic in the USA. Flight volumes at major airports are increasing. Delays decreased after structural changes in 2002-2003 but have been increasing again since and delays build up during the day reaching a peak in the early evening hours. There is some hint of wind direction and strength affecting delays. This article has supplementary material online. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

US airlines have lost nearly $60 billion ($2009) in domestic markets since the 1978 deregulation, most of it in the last decade. The dismal financial record challenges the economics of deregulation. I examine some of the common explanations among industry participants and researchers--including high taxes and fuel costs, weak demand, and competition from lower-cost airlines. Major drivers seem to be the demand downturn after 9/11--demand remains much weaker today than in 2000--and the large cost differential between legacy and low-cost carriers, which has persisted even as the price differential between them has greatly declined. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we study an airspace flow program in the context of weather-related disruptions by augmenting the airspace planning and collaborative decision-making model (APCDM). The proposed model selects among alternative flight plans for the affected flights while integrating slot exchange mechanisms induced by multiple ground delay programs (GDPs) to permit airlines to improve flight efficiencies through a mediated bartering of assigned slots, and simultaneously considering issues related to sector workloads and airspace conflicts, as well as overall equity concerns among the involved airlines in regard to accepted slot trades and flight plans. The APCDM is enhanced to include (a) the selection of slot exchange trade offers suggested by the airlines based on their allotted slots under a GDP; (b) connections between continuing flights; and (c) several alternative equity concepts. Both full and light versions of this model are developed and tested using realistic data derived from the enhanced traffic management system data provided by the Federal Aviation Administration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The airline industry currently has a $40-billion plus market and is expected to grow rapidly with the population growth and growth in the overall economy. Everyday, thousands of aircrafts undergo maintenance, repair, and overhaul. The aircraft maintenance problem is one of the important logistic problems in the airline industry. It is aimed at scheduling the aircrafts' routing so that enough maintenance opportunities are provided to every aircraft in the fleet. In this paper, we present a new compact network representation of the aircraft maintenance routing problem (AMR) and propose a new mixed-integer linear programming formulation to solve the problem. The quality of this model was assessed on four real test instances from a major U.S. carrier, and compared with the flight string model proposed in the literature. The computational results show that the proposed model is able to obtain the optimal solutions to all test instances in reasonable time. This study suggests that this model can be applied to integrated problems of the AMR and other planning problems such as the fleet assignment problem and crew pairing problem. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research in consumer psychology shows that customers seek reasons for service failures and that attributions of blame moderate the effects of failure on the level of customer satisfaction. This paper extends research on service operations failures by hypothesizing that attributions of blame also affect what matters to the customer during service failures. Specifically, we hypothesize that the relative weights that customers assign to key service elements in reaching an overall assessment of customer satisfaction are affected by customer attributions of blame for service failures. We use the U.S. airline industry as a quasi-experimental research setting to investigate the components of customer satisfaction for three samples of customers who experience (1) routine service, (2) flight delays of external (i.e., weather) origin, and (3) flight delays of internal origin. Although the level of customer satisfaction is lower for all service failures, we find that the key components of satisfaction differ between delayed and routine flights only when customers blame the service provider for the failure. Specifically, when delays are of external origin satisfaction is lower than for routine flights, but there is virtually no difference in the weight that customers assign to the components of customer satisfaction (including employee interactions). In contrast, when delays are of internal origin, satisfaction is lower than for either routine flights or flights delayed by external factors, and employee interactions have a significantly diminished role in customer satisfaction evaluations. Contrary to the popular view that employee interactions take on a greater role in determining customer satisfaction during service failures, we find that the opposite is true if the customer attributes blame to the service provider. Our findings highlight the important role of customer attributions during service failures and present more nuanced evidence on the role of employee-customer interactions in mitigating the effects of service failures on customer satisfaction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How do liquidation values affect financial contract renegotiation? While the "incomplete-contracting" theory of financial contracting predicts that liquidation values determine the allocation of bargaining power between creditors and debtors, there is little empirical evidence on financial contract renegotiations and the role asset values play in such bargaining. This paper attempts to fill this gap. We develop an incomplete-contracting model of financial contract renegotiation and estimate it using data on the airline industry in the United States. We find that airlines successfully renegotiate their lease obligations downward when their financial position is sufficiently poor and when the liquidation value of their fleet is low. Our results show that strategic renegotiation is common in the airline industry. Moreover, the results emphasize the importance of the incomplete contracting perspective to real-world financial contract renegotiation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The U.S. airline network is one of the most advanced transportation infrastructures in the world. It is a complex geospatial structure that sustains a variety of dynamics including commercial, public, and military operations and services. We study the U.S. domestic intercity passenger air transportation network using a weighted complex network methodology, in which vertices represent cities and edges represent intercity airline connections weighted by average daily passenger traffic, non-stop distance, and average one-way fares. We find that U.S. intercity passenger air transportation network is a small-world network accompanied by dissortative mixing patterns and rich-club phenomenon, implying that large degree cities (or hub cities) tend to form high traffic volume interconnections among each other and large degree cities tend to link to a large number of small degree cities. The interhub air connections tend to form interconnected triplets with high traffic volumes, long non-stop distances, and low average one-way fares. The structure of the U.S. airline network reflects the dynamic integration of pre-existing urban and national transportation infrastructure with the competitive business strategies of commercial airlines. In this paper we apply an emerging methodology to representing, analyzing, and modeling the complex interactions associated with the physical and human elements of the important U.S. national air transport and services infrastructure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose — The purpose of this paper is to focus on top management demographic characteristics, business strategy, and firm performance in the major US airlines. Design/methodology/approach — The relationships between management characteristics and business strategy are examined as well as the business strategy — firm performance relationships before and after airline deregulation. This is a longitudinal study (1972-1995) that includes data from publicly available sources. Pooled cross-sectional time series regression analyses were used with fixed-effects to test specific hypotheses. The management demographics include age, tenure, education, and functional background. Business strategy was measured as low cost, differentiation, and scope. The study includes three measures of firm performance. Findings — There were significant management demographics-business strategy relationships in the deregulatory period. There were also significant business strategy-firm performance relationships with deregulation. Originality/value — This is a longitudinal study of management, strategy, and performance of the airlines from regulation to deregulation. It has performance implications for the major air carriers that are of interest to academics and managers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the question of how the differential exercise of managerial choice can facilitate organizational adaptation and improve efficiency over periods of regulatory change. We address this question in the context of the US airline industry, with a detailed decomposition of an airline cost function. Our findings suggest that managers employ choice in unconstrained domains to counteract the effects of constrained or pre-determined choices. This is an adaptive mechanism that helps firms adjust to environmental change or maneuver over a rugged landscape. We view this as a type of dynamic managerial capability for achieving dynamic fit under changing conditions. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]