Key Influences on the Early and Rapid Internationalization in the Airline Industry. A Case Study on easyJet

Master's Thesis from the year 2016 in the subject Business economics - Miscellaneous, grade: 1,0, , course: International Management, language: English, abstract: This dissertation analyses the key influences on the emergence of Born Global Firms (BGFs) in the airline industry. Thus, it helps to contribute to the general knowledge on the topic known to date and to be an inspiration for future studies in this area. At the centre of attention is the question what key influences favoured the early and rapid internationalization in the case of the low cost airline easyJet. In order to answer this question the appropriate methodology of a single case study content analysis approach was chosen. Hence reference is made to various documents and archival records such as books, company documents, company websites, journal articles, newspaper articles, official statistical data and other Internet sources. The time period under consideration is from the foundation of the firm to the first internationalization steps. The results show that the market conditions of the low state protection in the home country, the strong opportunistic behaviour of easyJet when selecting the host country, the high internationality and extensive use of technology in the airline industry has promoted the early and rapid internationalization of eayJet. Further the findings recommend that majority of easyJet’s resources had a positive influence on early and rapid internationalization. The most important key influences could be identified in the Human Resources. Thus the founder of easyJet is a young, confident, international experienced man who possesses a positive mind-set, an international vision and a high risk-tolerance. Missing industry knowledge of the founder is compensated through the extension of the senior management. Thus, we can conclude that the decisive aspect of whether or not to internationalize lies with the attitudes of senior management. In many cases it requires a “paradigm shift” in order to move toward the BGF model.