This study explores the dynamics of the managerial relationship in Sino-foreign joint ventures from the perspectives of both Western expatriates and local Chinese. It is based on observations of one joint venture and some formal and informal interviews of a few other joint ventures. Through examining cross-cultural trust, communication, decision making and conflict management, this study has presented some of the problems which have appeared, shed light on their origins and suggests possible resolution strategies. The author argues that mutual understanding between Westerners and Chinese is needed to form a basis for successful managerial relationships. Furthermore, understanding must be based on equality, respect and a knowledge and appreciation of the other people's different customs and forms of self-expression. This study also cautions against the use of Western concepts in pursuing cross-cultural studies of managerial relationships in the Sino-foreign joint venture context.

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Though International Joint Ventures (IJVs) are widespread, their high failure rate, attributed to the difficulty of managing them, has increased interest in their management. IJV research has seen knowledge sharing and learning between partners to be essential for success, and has noted that this is easier when the international partners are culturally aligned with one another. The process of integrating knowledge across national boundaries and between people from dissimilar cultures is a challenge, because it requires the firms to be embedded into the local market. IJVs need to ensure appropriate approaches for acquiring the knowledge and learning they require. The purpose of this thesis is to examine the knowledge sharing and learning processes that IJV managers undertake, focusing on the “micro-level” of IJV manager action and interaction. It explores how managers of the partners and of IJVs overcome barriers to knowledge sharing. This research combines internationalisation process, knowledge sharing and organisational learning research to develop an overarching theoretical framework for IJV learning that positions the IJV managers’ roles within the learning process within IJVs. It then examines theoretical ideas concerning the ‘microfoundations’ of learning to consider the structural arrangements, the individual capabilities and the organisational processes of the IJV that might help IJV managers to learn from their partners, to develop capacity within their IJV, and to help the internationalisation of their partners. This study explores knowledge sharing and learning within the highly successful Samsung-Tesco Homeplus retail IJV formed in 1999 in South Korea as part of Tesco’s internationalisation process. The retail context is appropriate to study the concepts of IJV learning, because retail businesses need to be highly embedded in their market through strong ties with their local customer base, which increases the need for internationalising retail firms to gain knowledge and learning from local IJV partners. The case partner firms, having complementary resource bases but facing barriers of dissimilarity (Korean electronics manufacturer and UK retail firm), yielded a rich context for examining how these were overcome to achieve learning. Data from semi-structured interviews with top and middle level managers and industry experts were triangulated with multiple sources of secondary data. A microanalysis approach for data analysis enabled analytical abstraction to theory. The study draws three broad findings regarding the overarching theoretical framework for IJV learning. First, IJV partners can themselves develop strategies that help knowledge sharing that will enhance the prospects for IJV success. The IJV partner’s prior capabilities are critical for building and sustaining their IJV relationship prior to and during the IJV. These capabilities facilitate cross-fertilization, integration, and combination of new knowledge and learning between the partner’s prior bodies of knowledge, helping knowledge application to be focused on the IJV’s needs. This, in turn, helps an absorptive capacity building process to be generated within the IJV itself.

by Wang Li Hua. / Thesis (M.B.A.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 1996. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 45-51). / ABSTRACT --- p.ii / TABLE OF CONTENTS --- p.iii / LIST OF FIGURES --- p.iv / LIST OF TABLES --- p.v / ACKNOWLEDGMENT --- p.vi / Chapter / Chapter I. --- INTRODUCTION --- p.1 / Chapter II. --- DYNAMICS OF TRUST --- p.5 / Transaction Cost Economics (TCE) and Criticism --- p.6 / The Importance of Trust --- p.8 / The Concept of Trust --- p.8 / Definition --- p.9 / Components of Trust --- p.10 / "Related Concepts: Reciprocity, Opportunism and Forbearance" --- p.13 / Measurement of Trustworthiness of a partner and Trust Level of Partner Relationship --- p.17 / Measurement of trustworthiness of a partner --- p.17 / Measurement of Trust Level of Partner Relationship --- p.19 / "Trust Level Measurement and Control, Conflict, Instability and Cultural Difference" --- p.24 / The Relationship Between Trust and Performance and the Measurement of Performance --- p.27 / Chapter III. --- PROPOSED METHODOLOGY --- p.30 / Research Questions --- p.31 / Propositions --- p.32 / Data Collection --- p.34 / Stages for Case Study and survey --- p.34 / Theory Building and Practical Implications --- p.36 / Chapter VI. --- CONCLUSIVE REMARKS --- p.39 / APPENDIX --- p.40 / BIBLIOGRAPHY --- p.45

University of Technology, Sydney. Faculty of Business. / The need for more dynamic views on international joint ventures' control research has recently become a growing concern. Changes in the complexity of relationships between organisations and their environments have led to an increase in control problems and to a need to investigate a suitable framework of management control. The concept of self-organising systems that has emerged with the science of complexity produces some useful and interesting new ways to examine the behaviour of complex systems. Therefore, extending the recent development in self-organising systems into international joint ventures' control research is an opportunity to explore new insights into the development of joint ventures. This study takes an integrative approach by focusing on the integration of management control and self-organising properties of international joint ventures. The purpose of this study is to investigate the roles of management control systems in affecting international joint ventures' performance, from the perspective of alliance complexity constraints. A model of management control in international joint ventures as self-organising systems, representing a complexity-control-outcomes framework, is developed and tested empirically using the partial least square (FLS) approach, a distinctive structural equation modeling (SEM) based technique. The primary results of this study show that formal control mechanisms and control extent have significant direct effects on management automony and the international joint ventures' performance. Management autonomy as an intervening endogenous construct has a significant direct effect on the international joint ventures performance. Significant direct effects of organisational complexity on the formal control mechanisms and control extent are found, and a significant indirect effect of organisational complexity on the management autonomy is found. The overall results suggest a sound link between the complexity-control framework with the control-outcome framework, and the achievement of fit between these two frameworks is important for superior international joint ventures' performance.

University of Technology, Sydney. Faculty of Business. / The need for more dynamic views on international joint ventures' control research has recently become a growing concern. Changes in the complexity of relationships between organisations and their environments have led to an increase in control problems and to a need to investigate a suitable framework of management control. The concept of self-organising systems that has emerged with the science of complexity produces some useful and interesting new ways to examine the behaviour of complex systems. Therefore, extending the recent development in self-organising systems into international joint ventures' control research is an opportunity to explore new insights into the development of joint ventures. This study takes an integrative approach by focusing on the integration of management control and self-organising properties of international joint ventures. The purpose of this study is to investigate the roles of management control systems in affecting international joint ventures' performance, from the perspective of alliance complexity constraints. A model of management control in international joint ventures as self-organising systems, representing a complexity-control-outcomes framework, is developed and tested empirically using the partial least square (FLS) approach, a distinctive structural equation modeling (SEM) based technique. The primary results of this study show that formal control mechanisms and control extent have significant direct effects on management automony and the international joint ventures' performance. Management autonomy as an intervening endogenous construct has a significant direct effect on the international joint ventures performance. Significant direct effects of organisational complexity on the formal control mechanisms and control extent are found, and a significant indirect effect of organisational complexity on the management autonomy is found. The overall results suggest a sound link between the complexity-control framework with the control-outcome framework, and the achievement of fit between these two frameworks is important for superior international joint ventures' performance.

University of Technology, Sydney. Faculty of Business. / The need for more dynamic views on international joint ventures' control research has recently become a growing concern. Changes in the complexity of relationships between organisations and their environments have led to an increase in control problems and to a need to investigate a suitable framework of management control. The concept of self-organising systems that has emerged with the science of complexity produces some useful and interesting new ways to examine the behaviour of complex systems. Therefore, extending the recent development in self-organising systems into international joint ventures' control research is an opportunity to explore new insights into the development of joint ventures. This study takes an integrative approach by focusing on the integration of management control and self-organising properties of international joint ventures. The purpose of this study is to investigate the roles of management control systems in affecting international joint ventures' performance, from the perspective of alliance complexity constraints. A model of management control in international joint ventures as self-organising systems, representing a complexity-control-outcomes framework, is developed and tested empirically using the partial least square (FLS) approach, a distinctive structural equation modeling (SEM) based technique. The primary results of this study show that formal control mechanisms and control extent have significant direct effects on management automony and the international joint ventures' performance. Management autonomy as an intervening endogenous construct has a significant direct effect on the international joint ventures performance. Significant direct effects of organisational complexity on the formal control mechanisms and control extent are found, and a significant indirect effect of organisational complexity on the management autonomy is found. The overall results suggest a sound link between the complexity-control framework with the control-outcome framework, and the achievement of fit between these two frameworks is important for superior international joint ventures' performance.

Yes / The “50/50”, or the shared management international joint venture (shared IJV) remains a popular and yet challenging control structure to govern IJVs. The purpose of this study is to understand the post-formation management of shared IJVs, specifically the relationship between shared structure, relational conditions and management of post-formation challenges. Our evidence is based on 26 in-depth interviews across four cases of shared IJVs between British multinationals and Asian companies. Our findings indicate that the highly integrative nature of shared IJVs, including high operational interdependence and shared decision-making, encourages partners to work closely together, communicate frequently and intensely and exchange personnel. Although share management can lead to inter-partner conflicts, the equal investment and mutual responsibility partly provides partners with motivation and opportunities to learn about each other, to better implement the control structure, to build trust, and to commit to the venture and partner. These relational conditions facilitated the successful management of post-formation challenges such as diversity related conflicts and macro volatility.

by Lam Wai Hung, Even. / Thesis (M.B.A.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 1994. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 62-63). / ABSTRACT --- p.ii / TABLE OF CONTENT --- p.iii / LIST OF TABLES --- p.v / Chapter / Chapter I. --- INTRODUCTION --- p.1 / Chapter II. --- UPDATE SITUATION IN THE PEOPLE'S REPUBLIC OF CHINA (PRC) --- p.5 / Recent development of Special Economic Zones --- p.5 / New Classification of Enterprises --- p.7 / Foreign Funded Enterprises (FFEs) in 1992 and 1993 --- p.10 / More developing zones to be opened --- p.13 / Labor in China --- p.14 / Chapter III. --- THEORETICAL BACKGROUNDS --- p.21 / Reviews on Western Motivation Theories --- p.21 / Chapter - --- Need Theories --- p.21 / Chapter - --- Expectations --- p.23 / Chapter - --- Reinforcement Theory --- p.24 / "Motivation, Ability and Performance" --- p.25 / Western Motivation Theories Applied to Chinese Cultural Context --- p.31 / Chapter IV. --- THE STUDY --- p.34 / Aim --- p.34 / Methodology --- p.35 / Sampling --- p.37 / Chapter V. --- QUESTIONNAIRE --- p.41 / Chapter VI. --- RESULT AND FINDINGS --- p.44 / Findings --- p.50 / Chapter VII. --- MANAGERIAL IMPLICATIONS --- p.56 / BIBLIOGRAPHY --- p.62 / APPENDIX

by Lee Hon-man Eric, Lee Kin-man Samson. / Thesis (M.B.A.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 1993. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 106-107). / ABSTRACT --- p.ii / TABLE OF CONTENTS --- p.iii / LIST OF EXHIBITS --- p.v / ACKNOWLEDGMENTS --- p.vi / Chapter / Chapter I. --- INTRODUCTION --- p.1 / Joint Venture Manufacturing in Southern China --- p.1 / Research Objectives --- p.3 / Chapter II. --- LITERATURE REVIEW --- p.5 / Background of Joint Venture Investments in Southern China --- p.5 / General Problems of Manufacturing Joint Ventures in Southern China --- p.8 / Socialist Chinese Manufacturing Management --- p.10 / Chapter III. --- RESEARCH METHODOLOGY --- p.13 / Questionnaire Survey --- p.13 / Case Study --- p.15 / Chapter IV. --- RESEARCH FINDINGS --- p.16 / Questionnaire Survey --- p.16 / Company Description and Background Information --- p.17 / Sales Forecasting --- p.20 / Production Planning and Scheduling … --- p.22 / Shop Floor Control…… --- p.27 / Materials Management --- p.29 / Comments Received in Questionnaire Survey --- p.31 / Limitations of Questionnaire Survey --- p.32 / Case Study --- p.33 / Chapter V. --- SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS --- p.36 / APPENDIX 1 TYPES OF MANUFACTURING JOINT VENTURE IN SOUTHERN CHINA --- p.41 / APPENDIX 2 SATISFYING LABOR LAW IN CHINA --- p.46 / APPENDIX 3 COMPARING MANUFACTURING PRACTICES IN CHINA AND SOUTH KOREA --- p.51 / APPENDIX 4 QUESTIONNAIRE --- p.53 / APPENDIX 5 SUMMARY OF QUESTIONNAIRE RESPONSES --- p.79 / BIBLIOGRAPHY --- p.106