The management of joint ventures within international business networks: US companies in China

Diversified multinational corporations (MNCs) have to manage a high level of complexity which, as Doz and Prahalad (1993) have argued, stems from a combination of heterogeneity and multidimensionality. Heterogeneity results primarily from the particular trade-offs between businesses, countries, functions, and tasks that best suit the economic and political circumstances of different countries. Multidimensionality reflects the range of products or services, geographical regions, and supporting functions which diversified MNCs encompass. The need to articulate forms of organization that can cope with growing MNC complexity has been increasingly recognized in recent years (cf. Bartlett et al., 1990; Ghoshal and Westney, 1993), and the “network” form is a possible response.