ABSTRACT
Fundamental environmental and organizational changes, trends toward internationalization and the increasing cost and complexity of technology have caused many companies to utilize inter-organizational collaboration, including joint ventures and other forms of alliances, as a key element of their international strategies (Harrigan 1988; Yoshino and Rangan 1995). However, despite their increasing frequency and strategic importance, many joint ventures and alliances ( JVAAs) fail to achieve their performance objectives due to the unique challenges associated with managing these inter-organizational ventures (Geringer and Hebert 1991; Yoshino and Rangan 1995). The challenge results from the presence of two or more partner organizations that are often competitors as well as collaborators (Geringer 1988, 1991; Hamel 1990). Partners often simultaneously have convergent or complementary and divergent or even opposing alliance motivations, goals, and operating policies, as well as disparate national and organizational cultures (Buckley and Casson 1988; Frayne and Geringer 1990; Laurent 1986; Lynch 1993). As a result, a large proportion of JVAA failures have been attributed not to financial or technical problems, but instead to “cultural,” factors, such as conflicts in management styles and operational practices (Devlin and Bleackley 1988; Ganitsky and Watzke 1990; Geringer and Frayne 1990, 1997, 2000; Shenkar and Zeira 1987). Indeed, these factors help to explain why many JVAAs begin to experience operational problems even after years of relatively stable performance.
