Purpose – This article examines the strategic option of airlines facing a crisis. It analyses the current troubles faced by Malaysia Airlines (MAS). Having faced major crises in five months in 2014, the company has been saved only by nationalisation and has a very uncertain future. However,...

Purpose – Southwest is the world’s fourth largest airline and has consistently been one of the most admired organisations in the USA. Its founder and Chairman Emeritus, Herb Kelleher, attributes much of this success to the use of strategic principles. This gives a guiding framework for...

Purpose Academics and practitioners are in relative agreement on what drives a company’s fundamental value, primarily it’s current assets and future cash flows. The practice of paying a premium may thus be due to the non-tangible factors associated with perceived value that currently are not...

Purpose According to the Irish writer, Oscar Wilde, a second marriage is the “triumph of hope over experience”. Many mergers and acquisitions (M&As) could be cast in the same light. This paper aims to outline four crucial questions senior managers should ask before embarking on a merger or...

Purpose Between 1985 and 2001, only 45 of 90,480 total European mergers and acquisitions were identified as a merger of equals (Zaheer et al. , 2003). This indicates that there were less than 1 per cent of the M&A deals that could actually be categorized as a merger of equals. This paper aims to...

Purpose The Allianz acquisition of Dresdner Bank was announced as one of the most important deals of the year, in 2001. It was certainly one of the largest. In April 2001, the Munich-based insurance firm, Allianz, bought Dresdner Bank for more than €20 bn. Unfortunately, such optimism was...

Purpose This paper aims to analyse the success of the three main mergers that have taken place in the US airline industry since 2008. Delta and Northwest, then Continental and United and finally US Airways and American Airlines have all tied the corporate knot. This is the latest attempt of the...

Purpose This paper aims to review the latest management developments across the globe and pinpoint practical implications from cutting-edge research and case studies. Design/methodology/approach This briefing is prepared by independent writers who add their own impartial comments and place the...

Purpose The aim of this paper is to see how NOT to manage an acquisition through the case study of one of the worst M&As in recent years: Emporiki Bank’s by Crédit Agricole. Although the role of the banks is to manage risk, the acquisition of Emporiki by Crédit Agricole shows how easy it is,...