Identifying the best practices of airlines’ green operations strategy: A cross‐regional worldwide survey

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to report the best practices of airlines' green operations strategies throughout the world by surveying airlines from different regions. To realize this goal, a sample of 23 airlines from different regions (North America, South America, Europe, Asia, and the Middle East) was surveyed. The sample suited the availability of the secondary published data. For the study, the annual sustainability reports of surveyed airlines from the period of 2013 to 2016 were reviewed. The reports were retrieved from the Global Reporting Initiative website and from airline websites. To gain insight into the best practices, two analytical approaches were adopted: cross-sampling and cluster analysis. The study revealed that the best practices are related to several green indicators, and the actions in best practice were closer to process-oriented than to technology-oriented actions. This is one of a very few studies to report the best practices in green operations strategy over time by airlines at the global level. Elzzqaibeh, 2018), but very few writers have reported the best green strategic patterns (e.g., Migdadi, 2016;Migdadi & Elzzqaibeh, 2018), and most of the previous studies have investigated the manufacturing sector, with less concern for the service sector.Migdadi (2016) in his study, reporting the practices of six leading mobile phone producers, develops the best green strategic patterns clearly and in depth, but his indicative models are treated with very basic statistical methods. Furthermore, Migdadi's study, being very limited in sample size, does not report the strategic patterns adopted over regions or compare one region with another.The study of Migdadi and Elzzqaibeh (2018) reports the strategic patterns of green manufacturing by ISO 14001 certificate holders in a single country, and evaluates in depth the green strategies adopted. Indeed, all of the previous studies have focused on one country or a small number of countries when they report manufacturing green strategies. This means that the service sector still needs more Environ Qual Manage. 2019;28:21-32. c 2018 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. 21 wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/tqem AUTHOR'S BIOGRAPHY Y. K. A. Migdadi is an associate professor of operations management at the business department, Yarmouk University, Jordan. He was awarded a PhD in operations strategy from Bradford University, UK, and also awarded a BA and an MBA from Yarmouk University, Jordan. He worked as a teaching assistant and a researcher of operations and information management at Bradford University, School of Management, UK. His main research interest is reporting operations strategy: best practices, taxonomies, process, and typologies.How to cite this article: Migdadi YKA. Identifying the best practices of airlines' green operations strategy: A crossregional worldwide survey. Environ Qual Manage. 2018;28:21-32. https://doi.

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