Demand variation, strategic flexibility and market entry: Evidence from the U.S. airline industry
研究企业能否利用战略灵活性进入需求波动的市场，发现美国航空业中更灵活的企业更可能进入波动大且难预测的市场，这对管理者选择灵活性而非运营效率有启示。
Research Summary Entry into dynamic environments can be challenging for firms. We study if, and under which circumstances, firms can use strategic flexibility to enter markets with variable demand. In the airline industry, we find broad support for our hypotheses. We observe less entry with more demand variation, more entry of more flexible firms, and that more flexible firms are more likely to enter markets with greater variation in demand. Furthermore, we find that this relationship is especially strong when variation in demand is harder to predict, which suggests that strategic flexibility is most valuable in unpredictable turbulent environments. Managerial Summary We show that firms in the airline industry that choose strategic flexibility over operational efficiency are more likely to enter volatile markets. This finding is especially true when future demand is difficult to forecast using historical data. We conclude that strategic flexibility can be a useful complement to investments in business analytics.