Pedram Fardnia, Thomas Kaspereit, Thomas Walker and Sizhe Xu
This paper investigates whether financial factors, which are presumed to influence an airline's maintenance, purchasing, and training policies, are associated with the air…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper investigates whether financial factors, which are presumed to influence an airline's maintenance, purchasing, and training policies, are associated with the air carrier's safety performance.
Design/methodology/approach
In this paper, we employ a series of univariate and multivariate tests (OLS and Poisson regressions) to examine whether an airline's financial well-being as well as a country's legal and economic environment affect the airline's accident rate. Our study is the first to employ an international sample that covers 110 airlines in 26 countries over the period 1990–2009.
Findings
We document an inverse relationship between the profitability of air carriers and their accident propensity. Other financial variables such as liquidity, asset utilization, and financial leverage also appear to affect an airline's safety record, although these findings do not reach significance in all models. Flight equipment maintenance and overhaul expenditures are negatively related to accident rates. In addition, our results show that country-level variables related to the legal and economic environment have a significant effect on airline safety. Specifically, airlines in countries with strong law enforcement, more stringent regulatory systems, and better economic performance have superior safety performance. A series of robustness tests confirms our results.
Originality/value
The unique contributions of the study are (1) that it is the first to explore the drivers of safety performance in a cross-country context and (2) that it introduces a novel index of capacity when computing accident rates. By using data from 110 airlines in 26 countries, the study does not only provide insights into the firm-level but also the country-level determinants of an airline’s safety performance. The results of this research should be of interest both to academics and to regulators who develop, oversee, and implement policies targeted at improving aviation safety on a national and supranational level.
Details
Keywords
Qifan Jia, Rui Chen, Yihan Zuo, Run Liu, Roushan Gong, Linnan Huang, Chen Chen and Bangyi Xue
This research aims to find out the reasons why Chinese people prefer domestic products. The authors examine the effect of consumer ethnocentrism (CE), social norms (SNs) and…
Abstract
Purpose
This research aims to find out the reasons why Chinese people prefer domestic products. The authors examine the effect of consumer ethnocentrism (CE), social norms (SNs) and national identity (NI) on willingness to buy (WTB) domestic products in two time points and test the product category differences and age group differences.
Design/methodology/approach
Two survey studies (n1 = 314; n2 = 346) were conducted in China in 2021 and 2022, respectively. The authors measured CE, SNs, NI and WTB domestic products in both studies and WTB four categories of products in study 2. Multiple hierarchical linear regression was conducted to test the hypotheses.
Findings
In study 1, the authors found that SNs and NI significantly predicted WTB domestic products, but CE did not. In study 2, the authors found that all three indicators significantly predicted WTB domestic products. CE played a significant and consistent role in different product categories, while SNs and NI had inconsistent effects. NI predicted WTB domestic products for younger people but not for older people.
Originality/value
This research is the first to examine CE, SNs and NI in the same study and the first to explore the role of SNs and NI in WTB domestic products in China. It promotes the understanding of CE and other related factors, increases the knowledge of Chinese consumers’ purchasing behavior and indicates the power of the situation. Practical implications are also discussed.