Year

1995

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy

Department

Department of Management - Faculty of Commerce

Abstract

This thesis seeks to broaden our understanding of the determinants of joint venture performance in the context of a developing country. After a comprehensive review of past studies is presented, highlighting the focus of contemporary research on international joint venture, a conceptual model is presented for studying the determinants of joint venture performance. A number of hypotheses which focuses on the relationships between joint venture performance measures and various organisational, strategic, managerial, industry-related, and country-related factors are developed. The impact of these factors on joint venture success and stability is then analysed using multivariate analysis. While measurement methods of past studies are adopted in several cases, new measures are developed for the measurement of a number of determinants (viz., resource complementarity and psychic distance).

The empirical analysis uses data collected from 59 international joint ventures involving local partners and Developed and Developing country multinational companies in Bangladesh. A descriptive analysis of the preliminary results of the study is followed by bivariate and multivariate analyses. In general, the results of the bivariate analysis tend to support the posited hypotheses for half of the variables of this study. Multivariate analysis reveals that joint venture experience of the parents, the extent of complementarity of contributed resources, the extent of cooperation between parent firms, and export orientation of the joint venture have significant positive impact on success. Mature technology tend to influence success better than the sophisticated technology. The degree of cooperation between parent firms tend to determine joint venture stability. Psychic distance between parents is also a likely predictor of joint venture stability but, the influence is relatively weak.

The exploratory analysis of the joint ventures of Developed and Developing country multinational companies reveals that these two groups of joint ventures are significantly different in terms of parents' firm size, multinational spread and joint venture experience, as well as the nature of technology they use, the market cater for, and the level of psychic distance between parents' country of origin. Despite these differences, these two groups of joint ventures did not perform differently. Implications of the research findings are discussed. Finally, the limitations of this study are considered and possible directions for further research outlined.

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Unless otherwise indicated, the views expressed in this thesis are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of the University of Wollongong.