Sleazy Legitimacy: How to Keep Your Corporate Jet

The notion that organizations often make symbolic moves that are meant to increase their legitimacy, without otherwise affecting the organization, is one of the core ideas in a widely applied sociological perspective called "Institutional Theory."  For better or worse, senior executives and their PR people are the
masters of hollow moves that are designed to protect their firm's reputations
without making any actual changes that inconvenience anyone, especially the top dogs. 

One of the most common tricks is to make announcements with much fanfare that you are GOING to do the right thing, but never quite get around to actually doing it.  A remarkable percentage of the changes that firms announce are never actually implemented – there is evidence, for example, from the late 1980's and 1990's that many companies that announced they were going to implement stock buyback plans, but never got around to actually implementing them, still enjoyed increased share prices anyway — so they didn't have to "waste" money buying back all that stock, just promising to do it was enough to impress the market.

The latest example of such creative sleaze can be found in this Economist story on corporate jets, called Deeply Uncool.   Note the ending sentences of the article:

"But not all companies that have put their jets up for sale are
cash-strapped. And according to analysts at JPMorgan, asking prices for
used jets actually rose by 3.4% in the year to November. Jonathan
Breeze, chief executive of Jet Republic, a private-jet operator,
suggests that some announcements that firms are selling their jets are
“elaborate window dressing”. By putting jets up for sale at a high
price that ensures nobody will buy, companies can appear frugal—even as
their bosses continue to fly as usual."

Elaborate window dressing is much of what Institutional Theory is all about, It is brilliant in a sick kind of way, isn't it?  They get the advantages of both keeping and selling their jets at the same time.  Perhaps the old saying "You can't have your cake and eat it to" is not quite right?