ENDOGENOUS FORMATION OF COMPETITIVE RESEARCH SHARING JOINT VENTURES*

Research sharing is an important objective of many research joint ventures. When partners share R&D but do not maximize joint profits, large consortia are more profitable than small ones, and joint ventures prefer dispersed rivals. For much of the spillover space, a coalition formation game that permits limited membership predicts that at most, three joint ventures form. Research‐sharing joint ventures improve welfare when spillovers are low, and banning research sharing joint ventures is beneficial for high spillovers. With imperfect research sharing and low spillovers, allowing only research sharing is the best industry‐wide joint venture alternative for consumer surplus.     

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.     

‘Trojan horse’ or ‘Workhorse’? the evolution of U.S.–Japanese joint ventures in the United States

Foreign investors and their domestic joint venture partners must find ways to share the benefits of the venture if both sides are to be satisfied. Some work in the literature on joint ventures has asserted that there is a danger in all joint ventures, and especially joint ventures with Japanese, that one side will exploit the venture for its own gain, using it as a Trojan Horse. To test this assertion, we build a full data set of Japanese firms with joint ventures in the United States and track the ventures over time. Our data show that the Japanese partners do not take actions consistent with the Trojan Horse hypothesis. Copyright © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Joint ventures vs. Non-joint ventures: An empirical investigation

This paper describes a longitudinal empirical study comparing joint ventures and non-joint ventures in the petroleum industry as they compete for oil and gas leases. Results indicate that, while enjoying a significant advantage in market power, joint ventures do not perform any better than non-joint ventures at identifying potentially productive leases. Because of the higher payments made for these leases, the overall performance of joint ventures is significantly lower than that of non-joint ventures.     

程序公平对新产品开发成功的影响——跨职能整合的中介作用

本文通过对中外汽车合资企业的实地调研，提出将程序公平引入现有关于跨职能整合与新产品开发成功的模型中，并进一步提出跨职能整合在合资企业程序公平与新产品开发成功关系中的中介作用。通过对获取数据的分析，发现合资企业程序公平不仅可以直接影响合资企业的新产品开发成功，而且也可以通过跨职能整合间接影响新产品开发成功，而跨职能整合在程序公平与新产品开发成功关系中起中介作用。     

Joint Venture Satisfaction in Asia Pacific

Entering and developing a presence in the Asia-Pacific region has required, and in most cases, still requires the setting up of joint ventures with a local partner particularly when the prime motive of the operation is to capture opportunities in local markets.The objectives of the research presented in this article are to identify the factors which are associated with a satisfactory perception of joint ventures from the point of view of Western managers and to identify the major differences in joint venture characteristics across countries in the Asia-Pacific region. The conceptual perspective, based on transaction cost theory, is that foreign partners will show satisfaction if joint ventures are instrumental in achieving the Western partner's objectives and if co-operation costs are minimum given strategic fit, cultural fit and ability to controlThe analysis, using multiple regression based on survey data collected from 96 Western managers working in the Asia Pacific region, shows the predominance of the cultural and strategic fit factors in explaining the expressed satisfaction of Western managers. The ability to control the joint ventures is not related directly to satisfaction although it is very often quoted by Western managers as an important factor for the success of joint ventures.With regard to differences across regions, there are clearly four categories of countries: the highest expressed satisfaction is found in Japan, then in Indonesia and Malaysia, while China and Vietnam generate a moderate level of satisfaction, and Korea and Thailand a high level of dissatisfaction.     

Asymmetric information and joint venture performance: theory and evidence for domestic and international joint ventures

The increased number of perspectives on joint ventures (JVs) raises important issues for theory development on interfirm collaboration. In this paper, we bring together two key theoretical perspectives on joint ventures—the asymmetric information perspective and the indigestibility view. On a theoretical level, we focus on the relationship between these two different explanations of joint ventures. We also present new evidence on the firm valuation effects of JVs in domestic and international investment contexts. The findings lend support to the asymmetric information perspective on resource combination through joint ventures. Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Environmental research joint ventures among manufactures

This paper explores the reasons that firms form research joint ventures by focusing on a particular type of venture — namely, ventures that are developing new processes to reduce toxic air emissions. The legislative expression of government concern and intent to develop regulations for toxic chemicals prompts firms to join forces in joint ventures that address the problems posed by the chemicals. The cooperative R&D ventures do not appear to be a way for companies to avoid Schumpeterian competitive pressures that stimulate R&D investment. New, primary data at the disaggregated level of a particular type of R&D for particular companies support the belief that cooperative R&D ventures among manufacturing companies may well promote economic efficiency.     

Agency hazards and alliance portfolios

Prior research over several decades has catalogued many positive motives underlying firms' decisions to engage in joint ventures and other forms of alliances. In this empirical analysis, we investigate whether agency problems brought about by the separation of ownership and control also stimulate the development of firms' joint venture portfolios. By focusing on joint ventures, as opposed to diversification in general or acquisitions, we address the recent debate on agency theory's domain. Results from a sample of U.S. manufacturing firms' alliance portfolios offer supporting evidence, and comparable findings are obtained for international and domestic joint ventures. Agency hazards are also found to bring about extensions of firms' nonequity alliance portfolios in both the international and domestic settings. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Are joint venture partners more opportunistic in a more volatile environment?

This study examines how joint venture partners' opportunism is influenced by environmental volatility in a drastically changing emerging economy. Building on transaction cost and information‐processing theories, we develop the hypothesis that opportunism increases to cope with industry structural instability, information unverifiability, and law unenforceability, the three interrelated yet distinct characteristics that jointly describe environmental volatility in an emerging economy. Our analysis of 188 foreign joint ventures in an emerging market suggests that opportunism increases with information unverifiability and law unenforceability. These relationships are even stronger when joint ventures depend more on the host country environment, but weaker when joint ventures operate in faster‐growing industries. Finally, opportunism is found to play a mediating role in the relationship between environmental volatility and joint venture performance. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Research notes and communications factors in the instability of international joint ventures: An event history analysis

This study uses Event History methodology to examine factors that may contribute to the instability of joint ventures between U.S. multinationals and foreign companies. Using joint venture contract renegotiation as a proxy for instability, it finds statistically significant support for hypotheses that joint ventures are more unstable when partners start out with uneven shares of equity and when the contracts have been renegotiated before. Contract renegotiation is also more likely in relatively open economies than in countries that impose restrictions on direct investment.     

When do wholly owned subsidiaries perform better than joint ventures?

This study explores when wholly owned subsidiaries outperform joint ventures with local partners. In order to avoid the endogeneity problem inherent in foreign subsidiaries' operating mode decisions that might confound performance measurement, we employ the propensity score matching method, along with the difference‐in‐differences approach, and compare the performances of joint ventures turned wholly owned subsidiaries vis‐à‐vis continuing joint ventures. Based on foreign subsidiaries' financial data in China for 1998–2006, we find strong evidence that converted wholly owned subsidiaries outperform continuing joint ventures in industries characterized by high levels of intangible assets such as technology or brand, after controlling for factors that may affect the conversion decision. This finding is consistent with the prediction of transaction cost theory. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Internal corporate joint ventures: Development processes and performance outcomes

Joint venture activity and internal corporate venturing represent two administrative innovations receiving increased attention in strategic management research. This study investigates a new hybrid form of administrative innovation: internal corporate joint ventures, which combine the equity involvement typically found in joint ventures with the internal staffing of a semiautonomous unit typical of internal corporate ventures. Drawing on both a process model and a variance model, the structuring, development and performance of 53 such ventures in an industry-specific setting is examined.     

The Exogamic Nature of Sino-Foreign Joint Ventures

The paper suggests that Sino-foreign joint ventures areexogamicpartnerships. Three hypotheses were formulated: (1) partners pool differentiated sets of idiosyncratic and non-substitutable resources into their joint ventures; (2) they establish cooperation to gain access to resources provided by their counterparts; (3) the younger the partnership, the less the partners contribute with idiosyncratic resources. A questionnaire investigation was conducted into 67 Sino-foreign joint ventures. The test for H1 clearly demonstrated that each partner pools very different resources into the joint venture. H2 was also clearly supported by the data collected. However, H3 was weakly supported.     

工程承包联营体柔性分析及案例研究

联营体工程承包模式在大型复杂工程项目中多有应用,将管理柔性理论引入到工程承包联营体研究中,根据联营体特点并结合项目管理理论,提出了联营体的柔性定义和柔性特征。在借鉴企业组织柔性量化分析方法基础上,建立了联营体的环境动荡性分析和柔性分析的框架和方法。对承包两个大型国际项目工程承包联营体进行了实证研究和对比分析,得出其环境动荡性和柔性度评价结果。为分析和改善工程联营体的运营和管理提供了新的视角和有效的分析工具。     

Annual Review Article 1991

This paper reviews a number of themes or subject areas in British industrial relations which attained a particular level of prominence in 1991. The leading themes covered are wage determination in the context of recession, public-sector industrial relations, union recognition and derecognition developments, training, HRM competitive strategy and international joint ventures. Among the personal observations and comments made are that derecognition is far from being the most important indicator of management opposition to unions, that some criticisms of HRM are rather misplaced, and that the growth of international joint ventures warrants more attention from industrial relations researchers.     

Acquiring knowledge by foreign partners from international joint ventures in a transition economy: learning‐by‐doing and learning myopia

This paper proposes and tests a model of how firms acquire knowledge from their international joint venturing experience. Based on survey responses from 73 Singapore and 89 Hong Kong firms with respect to their joint ventures set up in China, the results indicate that both overseeing effort and management involvement are significant channels of knowledge acquisition. The former channel is more important for firms with a great deal of operational experience in China and for parents of older joint ventures. This finding indicates that firms improve their skills of knowledge acquisition through learning‐by‐doing. Moreover, the strategic importance of the venture concerned, instead of the learning intent of the parent, is the driving force behind the allocation of resources to the two channels. This implies that firms mainly learn through managing their key joint ventures. Since a venture that provides novel and fruitful learning experience may not, and need not, be an operation of great strategic importance, this finding suggests the existence of learning myopia. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

On lemons and indigestibility: resource assembly through joint ventures

We revisit the relationship between two theoretical perspectives on joint ventures—the asymmetric information view and the indigestibility view. The former emphasizes the ex ante valuation challenges firms confront in combining resources, while the latter attends to ex post transaction costs arising from the extraction and integration of indivisible resources. We argue that these two views are complementary, rather than competing, in explaining the usefulness of joint ventures. We also suggest that the perspectives are overlapping inasmuch as resource indivisibility contributes to asymmetric information. Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Franco-Chinese Joint-Venture Formation and Shareholder Wealth

The main purpose of this article is to test the stock market reaction to Franco-Chinese joint venture announcements and to determine whether it is correlated with joint venture-specific and partner-specific factors. Certain factors specific either to Franco-Chinese joint ventures' characteristics (such as coastal or inland location of French investors in China, capital ownership of French and Chinese partners in the joint ventures, announcement date, business activity of the Franco-Chinese joint ventures) or to French partners (such as their experience in managing Franco-Chinese joint ventures, their international, European experience, and more particularly their experience of Asia) will be analysed with respect to their shareholder value creation. A research sample was prepared from the publication of information on Franco-Chinese joint venture announcements in the French daily newspapers Les Echos and La Tribune between 1994 and 2000 (seven years were analysed). It is important to stress that the announcements used in this sample corresponded to the sole formation of joint ventures. This research sample was made up of 47 Franco-Chinese joint venture announcements for which the relevant abnormal returns (AAR and CAAR) were evaluated. A negative and significant valuation effect was reported for Franco-Chinese joint venture announcements for a reduced event window spanning 7 days around the day of announcement. Among the eight different variables associated with shareholder value creation, only two of them appear to be statistically significant: announcement date and international experience of French partners. First, two opposite time trends were stated in the stock market reaction (negative reaction from 1994 to 1997 and positive from 1998 to 2000). Second, French companies possessing high international experience benefit from an important and positive stock market reaction.     

The value from acquiring and divesting a joint venture: a real options approach

This study examines the value created from acquiring and divesting a joint venture. Unlike previous research which focuses on parent firm factors, the study examines value in light of the reason behind the termination of the venture and the characteristics of the target market. Consistent with the real options view, the paper finds that ventures divested to refocus a parent firm's product market portfolio were associated with significant value creation. In contrast, ventures acquired with the objective of growth and expansion in a target market, while not associated with significant value creation, did not destroy value either. Apart from these results, the paper also finds that acquirers and divesters gained lesser value when they terminated ventures in uncertain and concentrated industries. These latter findings highlight an important caveat with regard to termination: joint ventures confer valuable flexibility which is also forgone once they are terminated. Implications are discussed. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.