Bargaining power and the trade-off between the ownership and control of international joint ventures in China

Equity ownership and operational control constitute two crucial elements in the design of the governance structure of international joint ventures (IJVs). Based on the bargaining power theory, this study proposes that discrepancies between majority ownership and dominant control may exist as a consequence of bilateral bargaining, which is attributable to the influence of both contextual and resource content variables. Based on a survey database containing over 700 IJVs in China, our empirical findings illustrate contingencies under which equity share and dominance of control may reveal a trade-off relationship. The foreign partner will be more likely to secure a position of dominant control by accepting ownership concessions when it is at the upstream stage of the IJV, which is characterized by a high dependence on foreign input. Furthermore, while intangible resources furnished by the foreign parent exert positive impacts on the foreign partner’s attainment of dominant operational control in general, the foreign partner’s supply of product related knowledge and marketing expertise is particularly capable of rendering it bargaining power in managing the trade-off between ownership and control whenever necessary. These findings may suggest foreign firms adopt a flexible mindset in their negotiations with potential local counterparts in order to achieve collaborative goals.     

联盟关系协同的股权规制机制研究

联盟关系协同是在一定的规制机制下的联盟系统自组织过程。股权式联盟可被视为一种规制机制,它借助于关系性资产的投入所形成的双边依赖关系在促进联盟成员激励相容、信息对称和利益分享方面发挥协同作用。本文分析了股权规制机制的协同机理,通过对等和非对等关系性资产投入下联盟成员纳什议价过程及结果的比较分析,确定了股权规制机制的协同效应,并结合最优股权结构的决策分析揭示出,对等分享股权有利于实现联盟关系的协同。     

A Meta-analysis of Factors Leading to Management Control in International Joint Ventures

In international joint ventures (IJVs), management control exerted by parent firms is fundamental since it can direct employees' activities to strive for the overall goals, to safeguard parent firms' idiosyncratic investments and to decrease opportunistic behaviors. Using a meta-analytic approach, we investigate the main factors influencing management control in IJVs. A search of the published and unpublished literature uncovered 45 articles that yielded 329 reported correlations between the factors and management control with a total sample size of 15,252 IJVs. Results indicate that the factors can be ordered in the following way in terms of the average size of their association with management control: resource contribution; equity share; trust; and strategic importance to the IJVs. Three moderators including operating country (China versus other countries), industry type (manufacturing versus service) and management control type (formal control versus informal control) were proposed to examine the heterogeneity issue. Our meta-analysis suggests that there is a bias of the empirical studies given that a majority of the samples are IJVs operating in the Chinese manufacturing industry, which indicates that results of this meta-analysis may not be representative of all IJVs and that future empirical research should include IJVs in other countries and in other industries.     

How do CEOs matter? The moderating effects of CEO compensation and tenure on equity ownership in international joint ventures

We propose that CEO compensation and tenure moderate the relationship between multinational corporations' (MNCs) R&D intensities and their percentages of equity ownership in international joint ventures (IJVs). Transaction cost economics (TCE) suggests a positive relationship between MNC R&D intensity and IJV equity ownership, but this relationship has not been confirmed consistently in prior research. We examine the moderating effects of CEO compensation and tenure on the relationship between MNC R&D intensity and IJV equity ownership, thereby bringing more nuanced explanations from agency theory and upper echelons theory into the discussion. Our proposed relationships were tested using a sample of 202 IJVs formed between U.S. MNCs and foreign partners in high-tech industries for the period 1993 to 2003. We found an overall positive relationship between MNC R&D intensity and the percentage of equity ownership in IJVs. Moreover, CEO tenure and bonus compensation each weaken the positive R&D intensity-equity ownership relationship in our sample, while CEO stock options compensation amplifies it. These findings indicate that CEO compensation and tenure influence decision making about equity ownership in IJVs, suggesting that scholars and boards of directors should consider these CEO-related factors when evaluating strategic decisions regarding IJVs.     

Motivations for Environmental Alliances: Generating and Internalizing Environmental and Knowledge Value

Environmental alliances are a common response to societal sustainability demands. In environmental alliances, firms collaboratively exploit and explore environmental technologies to address market opportunities while simultaneously generating positive environmental impacts. A striking idiosyncrasy is that in addition to economic value, environmental alliances generate two types of external value: environmental value from positive effects on air, water, land and biodiversity, and knowledge value from innovations in environmental technologies. Research on motivations for environmental alliances is dispersed and underdeveloped compared to the well‐established literature on motivations for strategic alliances that emphasize economic value. This study therefore develops a classification of motivations for environmental alliances by combining the literature on strategic alliances and that on environmental and knowledge value. The resulting classification includes motivations for environmental alliances to generate environmental and knowledge value as well as motivations to create economic value by internalizing environmental and knowledge value. A systematic review of 123 articles on environmental inter‐firm alliances identifies specific motivations to populate the new classification. We show that alliance partners are motivated to share sustainable resources, reduce sustainability risk, respond to stakeholders or invest in specific sustainable assets to generate external value. They collaborate to reduce costs or enhance competitive advantage, reputation or legitimacy to internalize external value. The resource‐based view, resource‐dependence view, institutional theory and transaction cost economics have not previously distinguished between motivations to generate and internalize external value. We extend their area of application from strategic alliances to environmental alliances, and thus beyond the exclusive pursuit of economic value.     

Legitimacy in international joint ventures: It is still needed

International joint ventures (IJVs) enable foreign firms to complement their lack of local knowledge and resources by accessing their local partners' knowledge and resource bases. However, IJV formation is not simply a means of overcoming legitimacy-related challenges that stem primarily from a local market's unfamiliarity with foreign firms. This paper proposes that foreign firms can increase the legitimacy of their IJVs to facilitate local market penetration by building interorganizational linkages through which third parties and, especially, prospective customers in local markets can infer the viability and competence of IJVs. Our empirical analyses of manufacturing IJVs in Japan support our arguments.     

International joint venture partner origin,strategic choice,and performance: A comparative analysis in an emerging economy in Africa

This study examines the competitive strategic choices of international joint ventures (IJVs) and their performance implications in a low-income emerging economy in Sub-Saharan Africa — Ghana. Using the resource-based view of the firm, it is argued that IJVs with partners from emerging economies are more likely to pursue an efficiency-oriented business strategy to strengthen their strategic positioning, competitiveness and performance. Conversely, IJVs with partners from advanced industrialized economies would be more likely to pursue a market effectiveness-oriented strategy to strengthen their strategic positioning, competitiveness and performance. The findings from 76 IJVs offer support for the hypothesized relationships. IJVs with partners from emerging economies implementing an efficiency-oriented strategy of cost leadership outperform those with partners from advanced industrialized economies implementing the same strategy. In contrast, IJVs with partners from advanced industrialized economies implementing a differentiation strategy outperform those with partners from emerging economies implementing a differentiation strategy.     

Decision-making Autonomy in UK International Equity Joint Ventures

This paper investigates approaches to decision making in international joint ventures (IJVs) from the perspectives of the transactions cost and resource‐based theories of the firm. In particular, the concept of autonomy in decision‐making in a sample of UK‐European equity joint ventures is examined. The study adopts a multi‐method personal interview and self‐administered questionnaire approach to examine managerial perceptions of decision‐making and autonomy in the parent firms and the joint venture. The findings show that there are differences in the perception of autonomy between each of the parent firms, and between the parent firms and the IJV management. When we unpack the nature of autonomy in detail, it is found that IJV managers have greater degrees of operational autonomy than strategic autonomy and that decision making by IJV managers takes place within the context of constraints set within the IJV's business plan. This confirms the transaction cost theory which posits that key internal markets (for management, technology and capital) will be under parent control and also supports the resource based view that key capabilities are protected under the business plan established by the parent firms. The influence on IJV autonomy of the moderating variables IJV performance and IJV duration are also examined.     

The development of global IT infrastructure

A research model of the impact of a multinational corporations’ (MNC) global strategic orientation on global IT infrastructure was developed using global integration, or the degree to which a global strategy is actually implemented, as a mediator. A “matched pair” survey of 94 MNCs was conducted (two respondents per firm) in order to guard against common source bias. The results showed that the firms that pursue a globally oriented strategy actually enacted these strategies as indicated by a wide-variety of resource flows across national units. The role of the level of global integration as a mediator between global strategic orientation and global IT capabilities was empirically demonstrated. This confirms that a global strategy is not sufficient to ensure that an enabling IT infrastructure will be developed; rather it is the actual level of integration and interdependence that is achieved as a result of the strategy that drives IT infrastructure. The primary areas in which global integration was found to be closely linked to the global IT infrastructure were human resources, which significantly influenced the reach, range, support services and planning of the global IT infrastructure, and information resources which significantly influenced the planning dimension of the infrastructure. These results strongly suggest that the transfer of people among national units creates an information needs “pull” which leads to the development of better IT infrastructure and that the “push” of standardized information also contributes positively.     

竞争驱动战略转型的人力资本视线研究——以天津中小制造业企业为例

转型升级阵痛中的中国制造业企业，唯有基于人力资本"视线"实施差异化战略、推进激进式创新，才能变革成功，进而在激烈市场竞争中存活下来并形成核心竞争力。以天津市各大工业园区154家中小制造业企业的问卷调查数据为样本，采用结构方程模型对制造业企业创新逆驱战略转型的人力资本"视线"进行统计检验。结果显示，战略层面的"视线"有一个：外部环境竞争性、差异化战略、激进式创新与企业绩效。资源层面"视线"有两个：差异化战略、HRM系统、人力资本、渐进式创新、激进式创新与企业绩效；差异化战略、HRM系统、知识共享与企业绩效。这三条"视线"为中国制造业企业指明了战略转型、创新变革的具体方向。     

A Review of Antecedents of International Strategic Alliance Performance: Synthesized Evidence and New Directions for Core Constructs

This paper provides a systematic review of 165 empirical studies on the antecedents of performance in international strategic alliances. It provides the most detailed display of definitions, rationales, measures and findings currently available. Hence, this state‐of‐the art literature review creates an accessible pool of knowledge that is highly relevant for future research on international strategic alliances. Further, it draws on this knowledge pool to build a model which highlights the quite different rationales advanced by researchers to explain associations between the antecedents and performance. The model makes the different rationales explicit and will aid researchers in identifying tests that can be performed to examine the links between antecedents and performance as well as the mechanisms through which such associations operate. Finally, the synthesized evidence is used to suggest that researchers should give increased attention to achieving congruence between measures of antecedents and performance.     

Organizational dynamics and global integration: A perspective from subsidiary managers

This study establishes a relationship between organizational dynamics and overall integration within MNEs from the perspective of foreign subsidiaries in a dynamic environment. While previous empirical studies have emphasized that overall integration is determined by environmental and industrial pressures, we propose that integration is also affected by strategic capabilities, organizational infrastructures and strategic needs of foreign operations. Analysis of survey data including 168 foreign subsidiaries in a large emerging foreign market suggests that the resource distinctiveness committed to local operations is positively associated with overall integration, while the strength of networking with local businesses and governments is positively associated with overall responsiveness. The effectiveness of established information flow and coordination between a focal subsidiary and the rest of the network has a favorable effect on integration. Moreover, strategic needs in exploitation of factor endowment contribute to higher levels of integration. These needs also moderate the relationship between dynamic capability and overall integration.     

International Strategy and Knowledge Creation: The Advantage of Foreignness and Liability of Concentration

International business scholars increasingly emphasize regional strategies based on an optimal location of downstream sales. There has been less scholarly attention, however, to the relationship between international strategy and upstream knowledge creation including R&D. Building on contemporary strategic management theory and the knowledge‐based view we remedy this. The viability of home‐regional or bi‐regional strategies is based on common assumptions that imply negative consequences of distance and foreignness for downstream sales and marketing and benefits from agglomeration for upstream knowledge creation activities including R&D. In contrast, we propose that upstream knowledge creation, radical innovation in particular, rather gains from distance and foreignness and from being dispersed, suggesting the effectiveness of a global strategy. Based on the resource‐based view and recent research on the economics of strategic opportunities and competitive advantage, we provide theoretical explanations for this. We demonstrate how a global multinational corporation is uniquely equipped with knowledge extensity including heterogeneous social‐identity frames in multiple sub‐units. Thanks to arbitrage advantages between the sub‐units’ separate and often locally embedded knowledge, a global multinational corporation can address complex interdependences and interactions between knowledge sets required for knowledge creation. This suggests that maximum exploration capabilities are made possible by a global rather than a home‐regional or bi‐regional strategy.     

Unveiling the black box of IJV innovativeness: The role of explicit and tacit knowledge transfer

This paper explores the relationships between the tacit knowledge, explicit knowledge, and innovativeness of International Joint Ventures (IJVs) based on knowledge-based and learning theories. In the context of IJVs, the relationship between knowledge (explicit and tacit) transfer and innovativeness is still complicated by many challenges. We conducted a survey of 199 IJVs in South Korea. A structural equation model was used to test hypothesized linkages. Our results confirm that explicit knowledge transfer is positively associated with innovativeness. The explicit knowledge transferred from the foreign parent to the IJV has a stronger impact on innovativeness than tacit knowledge does. Additionally, tacit knowledge proved to not exhibit a direct impact on the innovativeness of IJVs. The results provide strong support for the mediating role of explicit knowledge in the relationship between tacit knowledge transfer and an IJV's innovativeness. Finally, the strength of the relationship between only explicit knowledge transferred from a parent firm and an IJV's innovativeness increases with international work experience.     

Why do Emerging Market Firms Engage in Voluntary Environmental Management Practices? A Strategic Choice Perspective

In this paper, we investigate firms’ decisions to engage in voluntary environmental management (VEM) practices within an emerging market context. Drawing on the strategic choice and the resource‐based view perspectives, we report results from a survey of VEM practices – a specific form of self‐governance – drawing on a sample of 519 Turkish firms from various industries to identify important strategic antecedents of firms’ decisions to engage in such practices. We find that as firms become more customer focused, more inclined to pursue a differentiation strategy and subject to a higher level of strategy‐oriented stakeholder focus, they tend to implement higher levels of VEM practices, with important implications for research, policy and practice for both emerging and developed markets.     

变革型领导对R&D团队创新绩效的影响机制研究

R&D团队是企业技术创新的重要组织形式.本研究从变革型领导这一视角探讨了其对R&D团队创新绩效的影响及中介机制.本文运用结构方程模型方法,通过对316个R&D团队样本的实证研究发现,R&D团队领导者的变革型领导风格对团队创新绩效有积极影响,而知识分享与知识整合正是这种影响的中介机制.     

中国企业的全球学习模式研究

随着经济全球化的到来,我国企业在国内市场已面临着激烈的国际化竞争,通过全球学习迅速培育和发展核心能力便成为当前我国企业国际化经营的首要战略选择,并进而关系到新世纪中国在整个世界经济中的战略地位。据此,本文从国内市场的互动型学习和国外市场的本土化学习这一双层学习视角,构建中国企业的全球学习模式,并进而针对核心能力的培养与更新,系统地设计互动型学习与本土化学习的层次、架构和流程。最后运用全球性的战略眼光,从全球学习机制、知识管理、企业家三个方面研究全球学习实施的渠道、手段和核心,提出通过全球知识共享来全面提升中国企业国际核心竞争力的新构想。     

Managerial trust and work values within the context of international joint ventures in China

The paper reports on a study of International Joint Ventures (IJVs) in China and provides empirical evidence on how Chinese managers in IJVs, compared with their State-Owned Enterprise (SOE) counterparts, are responding to their new work environments. Changing work practices, in particular human resource management (HRM), are altering the trust dynamics between managers and their subordinates. Changed trust relations pose problems for many Chinese managers originally from SOEs but now working in IJVs. The study examines how Chinese mangers' perceptions of trust in subordinates are being influenced by the work values in IJVs. Key findings of our study suggest that for these managers, trust in subordinates is related to certain beliefs surrounding work values of centralization, formalization and group orientation.     

Understanding knowledge transfer in M&As: An integration of resource orchestration and social capital theories and evidence from UK acquiring firms

Whileknowledge transfer is one of the key components in determining Mergers and Acquisitions (M&A) success, the current M&A literature has produced inconsistent findings regarding its antecedents and consequences. To address this research gap, this study explores the roles of functional integration and shared goals in facilitating knowledge transfer, which will in turn determine M&A success. To provide a more nuanced understanding of knowledge transfer, this study examines bilateral knowledge flows (e.g., knowledge transfer to a target firm from the UK acquiring firm and knowledge transfer from a target firm to the UK acquiring firm). Our research framework is built upon two different theoretical perspectives, namely resource orchestration and social capital theories. Our propositions were tested empirically across a sample of 131 UK cross-border M&A firms. Our results reveal that the affirmative roles of functional integration and shared goals in increasing knowledge transfer both to and from a target firm are confirmed and that knowledge transfer to the target firm is deemed decisive for M&A success. Based on the findings, we discuss theoretical and practical implications, followed by limitations and future study consideration.     

基于资源风险的战略联盟结构模式选择

综合考虑各种资源的特性以及从风险产生的基础和决定风险的根本因素是公司投入的 资源的角度,提出将资源和风险整合,分析战略联盟的结构模式选择问题. 通过对资源、风险、 战略联盟的结构模式分类,建立了反映资源—风险—结构模式选择三者间关系的概念模型及 其相关的判断假说,并运用因子分析及结构方程的方法对所提出的假说进行验证. 研究结论认 为:资源、风险和战略联盟结构模式的选择偏好之间确实存在着紧密的联系. 公司管理者对战 略联盟结构模式选择偏好受到管理者对未来公司在战略联盟中风险的主观评价的影响,而公 司对战略联盟投入的资源是影响公司对风险主观评价的重要因素.