Managing for High Performance? People Management Practices in Flight Centre

The travel industry is characterised by fierce rivalry, high threat of entry by would-be competitors, high supplier and consumer power and a developing threat of substitutes (especially online). However, despite this, Flight Centre, an Australian travel agency, has managed to achieve an exceptional performance record in terms of profitability and share price. In this paper we focus on the people management practices in Flight Centre in the context of the argument that there is a direct relationship between a company's financial performance and its utilisation of specific practices. The results of the research show that Flight Centre is representative of most of the advocated practices, but its parallel strategies in marketing and operations/logistics raise questions about the appropriateness of people management practices being given priority over other areas of management practice in the determination of performance outcomes