Management of dependency relations and factors effecting the outsourcing decision in their ground handling activities of airlines in Turkey

Airline organizations need a great deal of resources that requires special expertise and huge investments to sustain their activities. Some of these resources are achieved by airline itself while some are obtained through outsourcing. In this research, factors affecting airline's ground handling outsourcing decisions and the ways they manage dependency relations throughout outsourcing process, is investigated based on resource dependence and transaction cost theories through a qualitative research. The data is collected from 13 managers, who were selected by purposeful sampling and have effective role in airline's ground handling outsourcing decisions, by semi-structured interviews. Nvivo 11 program is used in analyzing the data. As a result of the research, it is determined that transaction requirements, sector dynamics, organizational factors and managerial factors are affecting airline's ground handling outsourcing decisions. Legal approaches, rational approaches, leverages toward ground handling organizations and industrial structure have both determinant and supportive role in airline's management of dependency relations.