Control of international joint ventures

Prior research has found that many international joint ventures (IJVs) fail. Some authors have suggested that control problems are one of the primary causes of IJV failures. However, little IJV-related research has focused on control issues. This paper reports the results of a largely exploratory study of the control practices employed by partners involved in three arguably successful IJVs. The study found some control-system similarities among the three IJVs, but it also found significant differences related to the use of dispute-settling mechanisms, control focus (broad vs, narrow), and control tightness. The paper describes some of the factors that seem to cause the differences and, thus, provides a start for a contingency theory of IJV control systems. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.