Essay On Joint Venture

735 Words2 Pages

“A Joint venture involves two or more legally distinct organisations (the parents), each of which actively participates, beyond a mere investment role, in the decision-making activities of the jointly owned entity” (Geringer, 1988). The parties (often companies or individuals) contribute equity to develop a new entity and control the business, share risks and consequently share revenues generated by the venture. It is called an International joint venture (IJV) if at least one parent is headquartered outside the venture’s country of operation or if the JV has a significant level of operation in more than one country (Geringer & Hebert, 1989). IJVs are beneficial for companies to gain access to a certain market or advantage from the distribution potential of the local partner and pre- empting competitors, to gain access to new technological knowhow, diversify into new businesses and to share costs and risks associated with the developments in certain areas (Rumpunen, 2011). One feature of IJVs that has captured the attention of many academics is that the typical life of an IJV seems to be short. In particular, when compared to the life of a wholly-owned subsidiary (WOSs) of an MNC (Geringer & Herbert, 1989). Gomes-Casseres (1987) found that even though the liquidation process of IJVs is similar to that of WOSs, the sell-out rate of joint ventures (to one of the partners or outsiders) is higher. IJVs have a low rate of success due to various reasons, some internal and others external. Conflict between partners, negotiation problems, cross-cultural differences, ownership structure, commitment issues, management style are some internal reasons. External reasons include overestimated market, local government & infrastructure chang... ... middle of paper ... ...anagers treat associations differently. Jones & Shill (1993) stated that cross-cultural differences "lead to endless, energy-and-time consuming debates-futile talk that produces a lot of heat and prevents the company making the decisions it has to" using IJVs in Japan as an example. Unlike internal factors, external are difficult to anticipate and can have a great impact on IJVs. Marketplace changes, technology development and issues, regulatory uncertainties and economic downturns impact the advancement of IJVs. IJVs are less stable in industries with intensive consolidation or volatile growth (Kogut, 1991 and Hennart & Zeng, 1997). Changes in local government policies regarding FDI and equity IJVs affect working and cause IJV instability (Boddewyn & Brewer, 1994). Such drastic changes have occurred in many countries over the past few decades (Yan & Gray, 1994).

Open Document