Management Of Joint Ventures Research Articles

Organizational Membership and Environmental Ethics: A Comparison of Managers in State-owned Firms, Collectives, Private Firms and Joint Ventures in China

This study empirically examines the relationship between organizational type and the environmental, ethical orientation of managers in the People's Republic of China (PRC) on three dimensions—stewardship and long- and short-term utilitarianism. It was found that Chinese managers uniformly self-report strong ethical commitments to environmental protection. In addition, organizational type was found to be a significant predictor for the different ethical dimensions. Overall, managers in state-owned firms uniformly reported the strongest values. Managers in private firms, on the other hand, self-reported lower values and appeared relatively more skeptical of emergent utilitarian arguments that economic performance and environmental performance are compatible in the short term.

Compositional gaps and downward spirals in international joint venture management groups

AbstractWe argue that compositional gaps in international joint venture (IJV) management groups, along parent company lines, will accentuate distinct managerial coalitions. Such gaps can occur on dimensions of observable demography, less apparent demography, or psychological characteristics. While compositional gaps in IJV management groups can provide the basis for healthy substantive conflict, such gaps—particularly if they are large—also tend to induce relationship conflict and heighten substantive conflict beyond its beneficial range. This can set off a downward spiral of relationship conflict, substantive conflict, and behavioral disintegration in the group. These harmful group processes further interact reciprocally with any tensions that might exist between the IJV parents, engendering a second downward spiral. Our model has implications for the performance of international joint ventures, and it serves as a foundation for designing interventions to avoid the downward spirals we portray. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Drivers and outcomes of parent company intervention in IJV management: a cross-cultural comparison

This study focused on an important issue in international joint venture (IJV) management — the motivations for and outcomes of parent company intervention into the affairs of the IJV, specifically in the form of control processes. The paper reports on IJVs between Japanese companies and firms from other Asian and Western national cultures. The study considered two forms of parental control: direct, where the parent overtly dictates and meddles in IJV operations and decision-making, and indirect, which involves a more consultative relationship between the parent and IJV. Motivations for control included IJV experience, strategic importance, product similarity, and resource dependence. As an outcome of parent control of the IJV, the study looked at conflict between partners and conflict between the IJV's managers and their parent company. Results suggested significant variance in control by national culture for the effects on control of IJV experience, strategic importance, product similarity, and resource dependence. The effects of control on conflict also varied by national culture.

Assessing management and performance of Sino-foreign construction joint ventures

Since the early 1990s, construction joint ventures are developing and evolving rapidly in China. However, there has been relatively little empirical research into Sino-foreign JVs in China's construction industry. This study investigates the management and operating performance of Sino-foreign construction joint ventures, and the relationships between ownership, management control and JV performance. It is found that dominant management control over JVs by Chinese partners is the major form of management. Sino-foreign construction JVs perform well. Positive and significant correlations were found to exist between three variables - ownership, management control and JV performance. A valid measure is developed in assessing JV's performance in terms of JV's social role in developing countries. The relationship between partner's participation in daily operational management of JV and the level of control over JV exercised by their parent company, and the relationship between partner's strategic objectives and the selection of JV organizational structure are also discussed.

Measures of Joint Venture Performance from Multiple Perspectives: An Evaluation by Local and Foreign Managers in Vietnam

A study was undertaken to identify the most relevant performance evaluation measures for joint venture managers and to analyze differences in perception about joint venture performance between foreign and Vietnamese joint venture managers. The results revealed five factors belonging to three perspectives of particular relevance to managers: operational efficiency (economic indicator), competitiveness and external customer relations (strategic indicators) as well as equity and working relationship (behavioral indicators). This study also points out that under normal operating conditions, there are no significant differences in perception between foreign and Vietnamese joint venture managers regarding both efficiency and equity. This confirms the need for equity in a joint venture relationship in order to maintain balance between the partners and avoid dissolution.

Strategic Response to a Volatile Environment: The Case of Cross-Cultural Cooperative Ventures

Unlike free-standing companies, joint ventures involve more complex governance structures and organizational systems. Because of interpartner dependence in the managerial process, it is more difficult for joint ventures to configure their strategies with environmental dynamics. Without such configuration, however, joint ventures will suffer from operational instability and resource misallocation. This study assesses the strategic response of joint ventures to a dynamic environment. Based on a survey of top managers in international joint ventures (IJVs) in China, it is found that managerial perceptions of increased environmental complexity and hostility are positively related to an Analyzer strategy. Proactive and Defensive strategies are either negatively or non-significantly linked with perceived environmental dynamics. Further, the Analyzer strategy is associated with superior performance for IJVs in the context of an emerging economy.

Effects of the Value Chain in International Joint Ventures

Summary This paper examines differences in the resource profile and experience of Sino-foreign joint ventures located in the two sectors: non-consumer electronics and fast moving consumer goods [FMCG]. It identifies key dimensions along which the two sectors differ and considers the implications for joint ventures. The impact of sectoral differences suggests that the industrial sector of China into which a foreign company invests is of consequence, especially for the business priorities of Chinese partners and for the ease with which a joint venture can be managed through the foreign partner's corporate network. Foreign partners are likely to find more flexibility, and a greater opportunity to influence joint venture management in the FMCG sector compared with non-consumer electronic sector. The physical and infrastructural features of the sectors appear to be particularly consequential for managing an investment in China, and they may be more significant than institutional factors.

Doing Business with China

China's policy on the utilization of foreign capital the development and reform of China's state-owned enterprises the Chinese government structure and its operation China's assurance of Hong Kong's long-term prosperity China's foreign trade activity and administration setting up business in China accountancy standards and practices and taxation issues the implications of Chinese cultural values in business transactions - the impact of "guanxi" in business relationships selecting Chinese partners, negotiating and managing joint ventures market research, brand management, advertising and public relations in China investment banking in China economic and trade statistics of 46 provinces, municipalities and cities surveys of 27 selected key Chinese industries.

Do firms learn to create value? The case of alliances

We investigate whether firms learn to manage interfirm alliances as experience accumulates. We use contract-specific experience measures in a data set of over 2000 joint ventures and licensing agreements, and value creation measures derived from the abnormal stock returns surrounding alliance announcements. Learning effects are identified from the effects of unobserved heterogeneity in alliance capabilities. We find evidence of large learning effects in managing joint ventures, but no such evidence for licensing contracts. The effects of learning on value creation are strongest for research joint ventures, and weakest for marketing joint ventures. These results are consistent with the view that learning effects are more important in situations characterized by greater contractual ambiguity.Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

The cultural context of learning in international joint ventures

Currently, learning in international joint ventures between developing and developed countries tends to be viewed as a one‐way process, with Western partners assuming superiority in both technology and management. Learning is often dominated by the rational drive to achieve organisational effectiveness without sufficient attention to cultural differences, which has created problems of mutual understanding. In this paper we examine learning processes in Chinese‐Western joint ventures as well as the cultural context where learning is taking place. We argue that improved management of joint ventures lies in the process of collective learning of joint venture partners. To achieve this, it is important for partners from diverse cultures and socio‐economic backgrounds to understand the different modes of managing and organising. We illustrate this with examples from our study of Chinese‐Western joint ventures.

Re-engineering in East Asia: an examination of Chinese and Japanese business applications

Summary: Business process re-engineering (BPR) has been used widely to improve the performance of American and European businesses. As an economic downturn sweeps across East Asia, managers there are starting to apply the principles of BPR in their firms. This paper employs a cultural software model to examine how re-engineering fits the business cultures of Greater China and Japan. The role of information, the nature of business relationships and prevailing attitudes towards change are key factors that are shaping Chinese and Japanese business process re-engineering initiatives. The insights provided here will help in the management of Asian-based business ventures and international joint ventures, particularly with regard to use of new management models and business information and other computer-based systems. The eight propositions presented here are also relevant to international transfer of new technology and other R&D collaborative ventures.

Strategic human resource management at Quantum

This article describes the HR Management system in place at Quantum. Key emphases of Quantum's HR management infrastructure include: (1) establishment and communication of the firm's mission, vision, and values; (2) team-based product development and operations teams; (3) behaviorally based structured interview processes; (4) rigorous and comprehensive performance management and incentive compensation processes; (5) highly automated and efficient HR infrastructure “fundamentals”; and (6) well developed soft asset due diligence processes for integrating mergers and acquisitions. Key challenges for the future include (1) managing explosive growth in a global environment, (2) employee development, (3) managing joint ventures and acquisitions, (4) hiring and retaining talent, and (5) expanding competence in change management processes. © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Sustaining Satisfactory Joint Venture Relationships: The Role of Conflict Resolution Strategy

The paper presents a conceptual framework that links international joint venture context (cultural similarity, relative power, and relationship age) and partners' conflict resolution strategies to satisfaction. Special attention is paid to the mediation effect of conflict resolution behavior on the linkage from context to satisfaction. The framework is assessed empirically using a sample of U.S. and Chinese joint venture managers in China.

Managing people in China: perceptions of expatriate managers

Foreign direct investment has boomed in China and East Asia more generally over the past decade. This has been accompanied by an influx of expatriate managers with responsibility for managing joint ventures and subsidiaries. The paper reviews the relevant literature and draws on interviews with expatriate managers with extensive experience in China, and some other East Asian countries, to identify key human resource management issues and ways in which these were handled. The paper discusses the importance of individual learning and the application of knowledge of cultural differences to managing foreign invested enterprises. We argue that organizations could significantly enhance future expatriate managerial effectiveness by systematically building, updating and disseminating knowledge based on the experience of expatriate managers.

An empirical study of tax audits in China on international transfer pricing

This research studies how Chinese tax authorities implement international transfer pricing legislation. The analysis indicates that tax audits on transfer pricing are confined mainly to medium- and small-sized foreign investments, lower-technology companies and transfer of tangible goods, and tend to focus on certain nationality and forms of foreign investment. Persistent losses, low profitability and lack of local partners in joint venture management most often trigger tax audits. The authorities focus on profit results rather than prices, and often use comparable profit method to adjust income. Tax differentials do not appear to be the most important inducement to transfer pricing manipulations.

China Review 1995 (review)

i86 China Review International: Vol. 4, No. 1, Spring 1997 Lo Chi Kin, Suzanne Pepper, and Tsui Kai Yuen, editors. China Review 1995. Hong Kong: The Chinese University Press, 1995. xxxv, 731 pp. Hardcover $55.00, isbn 962-201-677-4. Reading China Review 1995 from cover to cover impresses upon the reader just how far the study of China has come and how much more documentation is available compared to the days oflimited information from refugee interviews in Hong Kong. The editors and most ofthe authors are based in Hong Kong, living in close proximity to their subject matter. This volume demonstrates the "Hong Kong advantage" in the ease of access these authors have to China and in the prompt publication oftheir work by the Chinese University Press. It is the fifth in an annual series that provides timely contributions and comprehensive coverage, which make the volume unique in its abdity to bring the reader up-to-date on a rapidly changing China. China Review 1995 actually covers 1994, the "Year offhe Dog." It is recommended that the volume's useful Chronology of1994 by Willy Wo-lap Lam be scanned first to put the entire year in perspective. The chronology sets the general frame in which sporadic events and more specialized topics can be situated. The first chapter by Jean Philippe Beja covers the post-Deng succession, the legitimacy crisis, and the elite factional struggles that continue because a legitimate process for leadership succession was never successfully put in place. The year's most noted publication, the book Looking at China through the Third Eye, seemed to propose a neo-Maoist revival as a remedy for all fhe social ills and dislocation spawned by the economic reforms. Subsequent chapters cover various specialized areas of the economic reforms, utilizing field research data and the burgeoning amount ofmaterials and publications being distributed in China and Hong Kong. The chapter by Jean Hung examines the changing family status ofwomen, drawing on two surveys done in China and on her own field trips to eighteen villages. Helen Siu made numerous field trips around the Pearl River Delta for her study on community festivals. For others, the Hong Kong advantage provides access to an enormous array of Chinese publications in specialized areas that provide the technical detail we always hope for. Suzanne Pepper uses China Education News and China's Education Reform to assess educational reform. The Epstein and Cho chapter on legal reform draws extensively from such sources as China Law & Practice and China Lawyer.© 1997 by University Deborah Davis makes extensive use of specialized Chinese yearbooks in her chapofHawai 'iPresster ^0 document the increasing inequality and stratification that have been created by the reforms. She identifies nine emerging patterns ofsocial stratification that differentiate late-Deng society from the late-Mao era. Ka Po Ng's chapter on de- Reviews 187 fense budgeting uses Military Economics Studies and books from China's Military Science Publisher. Tao-chiu Lam and Hon S. Chan draw on the Encyclopedia of State Civil Service System in their work oudining the creation ofa civil service system . Others may rely too heavily on favorite journals such as The Nineties because they are "au courant." Still others do extensive research in fhe Far Eastern Economic Review and the South China MorningPost, hardly primary sources from field research but definitely a venerable Hong Kong tradition. Ofcourse, some topics are more amenable to field research than others. The reader doing business with China will find several chapters worth reading . Ho Yin-ping's chapter on China's foreign trade and accession to the GATT/ WTO gives some indication offuture opportunities in China's liberalizing domestic markets. Henry Mok oudines the evolution of China's stock markets, an understudied topic. Maurice Brosseau writes an important chapter on the individual Chinese entrepreneur and the effect ofentrepreneurship on fhe societal environment. This chapter should be useful for a cross-cultural understanding of Chinese and Western views ofentrepreneurship. David Peetz writes on China's new labor laws that will have ramifications on joint venture management. Carsten Herrmann-Pillath assesses Chinese regional business cycles, finding each macroregion's cycle different from the others. Christine Wong covers the...

Intercultural Differences Between Chinese and Americans in Business

As business relationships with China increase, management of multinational enterprises and joint ventures in the U.S. and in China realizes that success depends on attention to cultural differences. This article was written by a Chi nese professor of business communication who benefited from a business internship in San Francisco and an American professor of finance who wit nessed cultural differences in business during a recent exchange visit in Shanghai. The article highlights several cultural differences that promote understanding and reduce the difficulties of dealing with these disparate cul tures. The Chinese point of view of these cultural differences makes this article uniquely valuable.

Longevity and Cultural Differences of International Joint Ventures: Toward Time-Based Cultural Management

This article explores the relationships among time, organizational, and national cultural distance in an international joint venture setting. More particularly, the extent to which the longevity of an international joint venture affects the intensity of its cultural differences, is investigated in a sample of 51 international joint ventures set up in Hungary. It addresses certain mechanisms available to an international joint venture's managers and to its partners to deal with cross-cultural issues. The results suggest that the temporal dimension is a cultural moderator of prime importance, but to be totally effective, it must be combined with a willful strategy of cultural integration.

EXPLORING CHINESE CONFLICT MANAGEMENT STYLES IN JOINT VENTURES IN THE PEOPLE'S REPUBLIC OF CHINA

This paper centers on the exploration of Chinese conflict management styles in the context of international joint ventures in the People's Republic of China (PRC). Based on interviews conducted with directing managers in U.S.‐Chinese joint ventures and seminars held in China on conflict management in such ventures, major characteristics of Chinese conflict management styles are discussed. Influenced by the traditional Chinese values, norms, and philosophies, Chinese managers in joint ventures tend to adopt contingent, long‐term, contextual, and holistic approaches to conflict resolution.

Chinese culture and its implications for Sino-Western joint venture management

Chinese culture and its implications for Sino-Western joint venture management