文档介绍：REVISITING MULTINATIONAL FIRMS' TOLERANCE FOR
JOINT VENTURES: A TRUST-BASED APPROACH
Anoop Madhok*
Universityof Utah
Abstract. In spite of the increasing popularity of international joint
ventures, managers express a high level of dissatisfaction with them.
This paper argues that overemphasis on the e has resulted in a
neglect of the social processes underlying the e. The paper
elaborates upon the rationale for a cooperative approach towards
anizational collaborative relationships based on trust, and
discusses it in the context of joint ventures. This is then applied
towards understanding multinational ownership preferences and tol-
erance for joint ventures. It is argued that trust-centered logic is
largely consistent with approaches that emphasize the issue of owner-
ship, and deepens and enriches the insights provided by the latter. A
shift in focus from ownership to relational dynamics is encouraged.
Internationaljoint venture activity has been increasing in recent years, both in
terms of frequency and strategicimportance [Geringer and Hebert 1991]. In spite
of the rising popularityof joint ventures (JVs), there is significant dissatisfaction
with their performance[Beamish 1988]. This is intuitively inconsistent and indi-
cates that, though firms perceive the need for JVs, they find them difficult to
manage. Considering their increasing popularity,it is importantto address this
inconsistency.
Investigationof JVs has tended to stress the e of collaboration(., sur-
vival, control, performance)and does not adequatelyrecognize the inseparability
of the e from the process [Parkhe 1993a; Hebert and Geringer 1993].
Parkhe [1993a] has criticized past empirical work on JVs for being haphazard
in that researchershave not effectively built upon each other's work if the out-
come being investigatedwas argues that such an orientationignores
critical issues pertaining to the relationship