مصون سازی عملیاتی در برابر شرایط نامطلوب

This paper investigates operational hedging against severe disruptions to normal operations. It offers a new method to evaluate the extent that operations policy serves as a hedge against adverse circumstances. We apply the proposed method to explore how supply chain characteristics affect the responses of airlines to the acute demand fall off after the September 11 terrorist attacks. Results indicate that operational hedging vehicles (fleet standardization, high-fleet utilization, an aircraft ownership policy rather than leasing, and international operations) are more powerful in protecting firms than using financial instruments. The study contributes in guiding managers as to how operations policy can serve as an imperative factor in mitigating exposures to low-end performance levels.

The utilization of operations to manage risks has recently attracted considerable attention and a growing interest in applying risk management concepts to manage the operations of firms. In particular, several studies focus on risk arising from disruptions to normal activities of supply chains and their consequences (e.g., Papadakis and Ziemba, 2001, Lewis, 2003, Hendricks and Singhal, 2005 and Kleindorfer and Saad, 2005). Major sources of disruption arise from exogenous hazards, such as earthquakes, tornadoes and flooding, political instability, and terrorist attacks. Prior studies focus on risk management as well as on the structural and temporal pathology of operational failure. This study extends this line of research and investigates to what extent can operations policy serve as a hedge for firms facing uncertain adverse circumstances. In particular, we examine the relative impact of operational hedging vehicles compared with financial hedging vehicles.

This paper extends the operations management literature by showing that operations policies are a critical part of hedging against adverse circumstances. We formalize Stulz’s (1996) approach and rank the hedging level of airlines on the basis of their low-tail financial performance from 1990 through 2000, showing that highly ranked airlines had a better (less bad) response to the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001. The evidence shows that operations policy complements financial instruments in hedging against severe disruptions. Particularly, fleet standardization, fleet utilization, fleet ownership (rather than leasing), and globalization enhance operational hedging. The findings provide guidance to firms as to how to use their operations in their risk-management programs.