Strategic Choice and the Management of
Labour in the Civil Aviation Industry
In his review of the strategic choice
literature, Child (1997: 70-71) emphasises
the interplay of two ‘cycles’ of interaction
between action and situation. Within the
‘inner’ cycle, ‘organizational actors seek to
work upon, and are simultaneously
informed or constrained by, the existing
structures and routines of the organization’
(Child 1997: 70). The ‘outer’ cycle extends
to the environment, wherein
‘organizational actors seek to influence or
reach an accommodation with specific
environmental groups and more general
environmental conditions’ (Child 1997:
70). Each cycle is dynamic in character,
thereby giving rise to organizational and
environmental change through a process of
social interaction within and between the
two cycles. Analytically, therefore, it is
difficult to disentangle the two cycles.
Broadly speaking, however, we will
consider each cycle in turn before turning
to the dynamic interaction between the two
in the following section.
Within the inner cycle, management is the
dominant actor by virtue of its control over
the means of production and the authority
this imparts (see Blyton and Turnbull
1998: 76). It is wrong, however, to cast
management in the role of monolithic,
omnipotent, omniscient strategist (Crow