Victim of History? The Impact of Pan Am's ‘Imperialistic’ Past on its Capacity to Adjust to Deregulation

Abstract

The rise and fall of Pan American World Airways has been analysed in a number of ways. This paper adds a further level of analysis by applying Pauchant and Mitroff's discourse (supplemented by the work of Finney and Pearson) on the ‘crisis-prone’ organisation. Through its dissection of Pan Am's corporate culture the paper ascertains how closely the ‘ailing giant’ approximated Pauchant and Mitroff's model of such an organisation. It is concluded that Pan Am exhibited characteristics typical of crisisprone organisations and that these characteristics rendered the corporation's staff less able and willing to adjust to the economic realities of deregulation.