Understanding strategies for the improvement of inter-organizational performance: cases from the air transport industry.

In the increasingly globalized economy there can be few organizations that have no need to interact with other organizations. In modern business, interaction with other organizations is virtually unavoidable. The ability to manage inter-organizational affairs effectively might be a capability critical to the success of the organization. This paper presents an enquiry into inter-organizational management. The aim of the enquiry was to identify and understand strategies that might improve inter-organizational performance with monopoly suppliers, a context often seen as particularly difficult by practitioners and managers. The central purpose was to discover whether there exist any principles that might be generally applied by managers to improve the performance of inter-organizationally managed processes. The research is based on two case studies of the management of baggage systems, one at London Heathrow Airport and the second at London Gatwick Airport. The Heathrow case was selected as an example of an operation where successful cooperation had been achieved. Gatwick was selected as a comparison because the cooperation within this operation was problematic. The paper concludes that there are principles that can be applied to different circumstances to improve inter-organizational performance. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley &Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]