ABSTRACT
SUMMARY. Although the importance of partner selection with regard to any type of cooperation has generally been agreed on, the amount of research analyzing the relationship between partner selection and IJV performance in more detail has so far been surprisingly limited. The goal of this paper is to analyze the influence of various foreign partner-specific, IJV location-specific and investment-specific variables on the relative importance of task- and partner-related selection criteria. Furthermore, the study analyzes the relationship between IJV performance and the relative importance of the selection criteria. The empirical part of the study is based on a sample of 60 IJVs established by Finnish companies in various foreign countries during the 1990s. The results indicated that IJV location-specific and investment-specific variables had influenced the relative importance of the partner selection criteria used by the Finnish companies, while foreign partnerspecific variables had a much more limited influence. The influence of contextual variables in general was seen to be stronger on task-related criteria. Finally, the results indicated clear differences in the relative importance of the selection criteria between better and poorly performing IJVs. doi:10.1300/J037v16n01_09 [Article copies available for a fee from The Haworth Document Delivery Service: 1-800-HAWORTH. E-mail address: <docdelivery@haworthpress.com> Website: < https://www.HaworthPress.com > © 2006 by The Haworth Press, Inc. All rights reserved.]
