Information Sharing Alliances in the Airline Industry: An Examination of Code Sharing Agreements

Abstract

This paper addresses the issue of inter-organizational information-sharing alliances and their impacts on firm values from the perspective of inter-organizational coordination between partners in the airline industry setting. We investigate the shareholder wealth effects of inter-organizational information-sharing alliance arrangements, using 131 cede sharing agrc.unems in the airline industry betwcm 1984-1997. Employing event study methodology, we find that the information-sharing alliances between similar partners did create positive value in terms of stock returns at the time of alliance announcements to major US airlines. However, alliances between dissimilar partners resulted in significant losses of shareholder value to the major airlines. These results strongly support our main hypotheses, that information- sharing alliances arc successful and the benefits of such alliances are realized only when coordination difficulties can be effectively dealt with.