Effective boundary spanners in IJVs experiencing performance downturn

International joint ventures (IJVs) are defined by Chenet al. (2009, p. 1133) as “legally independent entities formed by two or more parent firms from different countries that share equity investments and consequent returns.” The basis of most IJV structures involves a multinational enterprise (MNE) and a local partner pooling their respective competitive advantages. Although IJVs are widespread, their success rate has been estimated to be no more than about 50 percent (Bamford et al., 2004) and there is evidence of particular difficulties for IJVs involving Chinese partners (Child & Yan, 2003). In short, because IJVs are prone to interpartner conflict (Hambrick et al., 2001), they are fundamentally unstable, with only a minority surviving beyond a few years (Kogut, 1989; Park & Ungson, 1997).

This is the author’s accepted manuscript version of a book chapter published by Palgrave Macmillan in Global Enterprise Management, Volume II: New Perspectives on Challenges and Future Developments. The published version is available at https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1057/9781137510709_6