Trust, Organizational Controls, Knowledge Acquisition from the Foreign Parents, and Performance in Vietnamese International Joint Ventures

Successful adaptation in strategic alliances "calls for a delicate balance between the twin virtues of reliability and flexibility" [Parkhe 1998]. On one hand, the joint venture must be flexible enough to respond to the uncertainties of competitive business environments because it is not feasible to plan for every possible contingency. Yet, on the other hand, unfettered flexibility invites dysfunctional behavior, such as opportunism and complacency. This delicate balance accompanies a parallel balance between trust and control of the joint venture. The primary goal of this study is to empirically examine this relationship in the context of Vietnamese international joint ventures (IJVs) by building on the model of knowledge acquisition and performance in IJVs established by Lyles and Salk [1996]. This study makes three major contributions to the literature. First it confirms several findings of the original Lyles and Salk study [1996]. Second, we strengthen Lyles and Salk's original model by incorporating multiple measures of both interorganizational trust and control as independent variables. Finally, this study represents one of the first in-depth examinations of business in the emerging Vietnamese economy.http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/39713/3/wp329.pd

Trust, Organizational Controls, Knowledge Acquisition from the Foreign Parents, and Performance in Vietnamese International Joint Ventures

Successful adaptation in strategic alliances "calls for a delicate balance between the twin virtues of reliability and flexibility" [Parkhe 1998]. On one hand, the joint venture must be flexible enough to respond to the uncertainties of competitive business environments because it is not feasible to plan for every possible contingency. Yet, on the other hand, unfettered flexibility invites dysfunctional behavior, such as opportunism and complacency. This delicate balance accompanies a parallel balance between trust and control of the joint venture. The primary goal of this study is to empirically examine this relationship in the context of Vietnamese international joint ventures (IJVs) by building on the model of knowledge acquisition and performance in IJVs established by Lyles and Salk [1996]. This study makes three major contributions to the literature. First it confirms several findings of the original Lyles and Salk study [1996]. Second, we strengthen Lyles and Salk's original model by incorporating multiple measures of both interorganizational trust and control as independent variables. Finally, this study represents one of the first in-depth examinations of business in the emerging Vietnamese economy.

Bargaining power, ownership and control of international joint ventures in Taiwan

This thesis provides an empirical analysis of international joint venture activities in Taiwan. The primary purpose is to examine control and its antecedents in terms of ownership, bargaining power, resources contribution, and motivation for forming international joint ventures. Primary data collected by a mail questionnaire is analysed along five core dimensions of international joint venture activities. First, the mechanism, focus, and extent of parent control is identified and tested in a number of sample characteristics. These empirical results also reveal that most joint ventures in Taiwan have higher autonomy and have more autonomy on the appointment of key function managers. Parent firms seek to focus their control over specific activities of the joint ventures rather than attempting to control the entire range of joint venture activities. Second, the results of equity shares held by the host country parents and foreign parents show that both parents have minority shareholding in the joint ventures. A higher ownership by the parents in joint ventures indicates that they have a higher percentage of board members. Third, the relative importance of a set of bargaining power is identified with hypothesis testing of the relationship between control and bargaining power. There is little evidence that the relationship between bargaining power and control is not closely associated. Fourth, the relative importance of resource contribution by parents is identified and hypotheses are tested on the relationship between control and resource contribution factors. The results are strongly supported that the relationships between resource contributions in terms of physical, invisible, financial, human, and organizational ability of parents and their control has significant and positive associations. Fifth, the relative importance of a set of motives for international joint venture formation is identified and hypotheses are tested on the relationship between control and motivation factors in terms of technological acquisition, knowledge learning, risk sharing, competitive strategy consideration, resource complementarily, market expansion. The findings reveal a limited number of significant correlations between motivation factors and control

Toward a process theory of entrepreneurship: revisiting opportunity identification and entrepreneurial actions

This dissertation studies the early development of new ventures and small business and the entrepreneurship process from initial ideas to viable ventures. I unpack the micro-foundations of entrepreneurial actions and new ventures’ investor communications through quality signals to finance their growth path. This dissertation includes two qualitative papers and one quantitative study. The qualitative papers employ an inductive multiple-case approach and include seven medical equipment manufacturers (new ventures) in a nascent market context (the mobile health industry) across six U.S. states and a secondary data analysis to understand the emergence of opportunities and the early development of new ventures. The quantitative research chapter includes 770 IPOs in the manufacturing industries in the U.S. and investigates the legitimation strategies of young ventures to gain resources from targeted resource-holders.Open Acces

Essays on the Strategic Implications of Marketing Capabilities: Marketing Exploration and Exploitation

My dissertation examines how exploitation and exploration capabilities impact organizational performance for competitive advantage. The first essay reviews previous empirical, simulation, and theoretical studies to provide a synopsis and quantitative assessment of previous empirical research. The organizational performance implications of both exploration, exploitation, and their interaction (i.e., an ambidexterity) are evaluated through the substantiation of previous findings. Exploration and exploitation focus are discrete options that require a cognitive choice and are constrained by firm resources. The results show exploitation as having the greater relative impact on performance folloby exploration and ambidexterity. Essay two conceptualizes marketing capabilities as exploitation and exploration. Drawing on longitudinal objective data from publicly-traded manufacturing and service companies, this study examines how marketing exploitation and exploration capabilities impact performance over time. Study one constructs capability measures for marketing exploitation and exploration using stochastic frontier estimation. These measures are validated through a cross-industry survey of marketing executives using previously established scales. The results show a positive relationship between marketing exploitation and current organizational performance, a positive relationship between marketing exploration and forward-looking performance, and evidence that performance is impacted by industry dynamism and firm slack. Study two, examines the mercurial nature of the capability to performance relationship through the examination of industry dynamism and firms slack as moderators. I demonstrate that in times of high dynamism marketing exploration and exploitation each have a positive impact on firm performance

Effectiveness and Efficiency of Knowledge Transfer in Supplier Development: Key Antecedents and Buyer-Supplier Outcomes

There is strong evidence that U.S. organizations are increasingly implementing supplier development programs to help their suppliers improve quality, enhance delivery performance, reduce costs, and in turn improve their own supply chain performance. However, many of these supplier development programs are not successful. This study argues that an understanding of the knowledge transfer process should play a central role in understanding improvements in buyer-supplier performance resulting from supplier development activities. Building on the extant supplier development literature and relevant knowledge transfer literature, this study investigates key antecedents and performance outcomes of knowledge transfer in a supplier development context. Specifically, the study tests the impact of the extent of supplier development involvement, trust (competence and benevolence), shared vision and supplier\u27s learning intent on the effectiveness (comprehension and usefulness) and efficiency (speed and economy) of knowledge transfer and the influence of knowledge transfer on buyer-supplier performance. For this research, 167 U.S. manufacturing firms were used to test the hypotheses. The results show that suppliers\u27 learning intent and benevolence trust positively impact both the effectiveness and efficiency of knowledge transfer. Supplier development involvement was found to have a positive effect on knowledge transfer effectiveness while shared vision and competence trust had positive effect on knowledge transfer efficiency. The findings also show that both effectiveness and efficiency of knowledge transfer have impact on supplier delivery performance but have no direct effect on supplier cost performance. This research makes an important contribution to the literature on the antecedents of successful knowledge transfer in supplier development. First, the research highlights that supplier\u27s learning intent leads to better comprehension, better application and quicker absorption of the new knowledge that is transferred to th

Effectiveness and Efficiency of Knowledge Transfer in Supplier Development: Key Antecedents and Buyer-Supplier Outcomes

There is strong evidence that U.S. organizations are increasingly implementing supplier development programs to help their suppliers improve quality, enhance delivery performance, reduce costs, and in turn improve their own supply chain performance. However, many of these supplier development programs are not successful. This study argues that an understanding of the knowledge transfer process should play a central role in understanding improvements in buyer-supplier performance resulting from supplier development activities. Building on the extant supplier development literature and relevant knowledge transfer literature, this study investigates key antecedents and performance outcomes of knowledge transfer in a supplier development context. Specifically, the study tests the impact of the extent of supplier development involvement, trust (competence and benevolence), shared vision and supplier\u27s learning intent on the effectiveness (comprehension and usefulness) and efficiency (speed and economy) of knowledge transfer and the influence of knowledge transfer on buyer-supplier performance. For this research, 167 U.S. manufacturing firms were used to test the hypotheses. The results show that suppliers\u27 learning intent and benevolence trust positively impact both the effectiveness and efficiency of knowledge transfer. Supplier development involvement was found to have a positive effect on knowledge transfer effectiveness while shared vision and competence trust had positive effect on knowledge transfer efficiency. The findings also show that both effectiveness and efficiency of knowledge transfer have impact on supplier delivery performance but have no direct effect on supplier cost performance. This research makes an important contribution to the literature on the antecedents of successful knowledge transfer in supplier development. First, the research highlights that supplier\u27s learning intent leads to better comprehension, better application and quicker absorption of the new knowledge that is transferred to th

Effectiveness and Efficiency of Knowledge Transfer in Supplier Development: Key Antecedents and Buyer-Supplier Outcomes

There is strong evidence that U.S. organizations are increasingly implementing supplier development programs to help their suppliers improve quality, enhance delivery performance, reduce costs, and in turn improve their own supply chain performance. However, many of these supplier development programs are not successful. This study argues that an understanding of the knowledge transfer process should play a central role in understanding improvements in buyer-supplier performance resulting from supplier development activities. Building on the extant supplier development literature and relevant knowledge transfer literature, this study investigates key antecedents and performance outcomes of knowledge transfer in a supplier development context. Specifically, the study tests the impact of the extent of supplier development involvement, trust (competence and benevolence), shared vision and supplier\u27s learning intent on the effectiveness (comprehension and usefulness) and efficiency (speed and economy) of knowledge transfer and the influence of knowledge transfer on buyer-supplier performance. For this research, 167 U.S. manufacturing firms were used to test the hypotheses. The results show that suppliers\u27 learning intent and benevolence trust positively impact both the effectiveness and efficiency of knowledge transfer. Supplier development involvement was found to have a positive effect on knowledge transfer effectiveness while shared vision and competence trust had positive effect on knowledge transfer efficiency. The findings also show that both effectiveness and efficiency of knowledge transfer have impact on supplier delivery performance but have no direct effect on supplier cost performance. This research makes an important contribution to the literature on the antecedents of successful knowledge transfer in supplier development. First, the research highlights that supplier\u27s learning intent leads to better comprehension, better application and quicker absorption of the new knowledge that is transferred to th

Riding the dragon : entrepreneurship under market transition

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Sloan School of Management, 2009.Cataloged from PDF version of thesis.Includes bibliographical references.This dissertation focuses on three of the most important questions in entrepreneurship study, namely venture financing, corporate strategy and firm performance. The main thrust of the dissertation is to elaborate the mechanisms through which institutional and social factors impact entrepreneurial activities in developing countries. The first essay, "Evaluation or Attention", examines the causal mechanisms of social ties in venture financing. A staged model of network effects is developed, showing that the prior literature has drawn erroneous conclusions about the role of social ties as they conflate VC's evaluation of entrepreneurs with the necessary preceding act of becoming aware of them. The second essay, coauthored with Yasheng Huang, examines the institutional driver of local entrepreneur's foreign direct investment (FDI) seeking behavior. We find that the Chinese economic system has a political pecking order in which private enterprises are located at the bottom. FDI-seeking behavior, while diluting local entrepreneurs' ownership controls, helps change their firms' political status to transcend institutional constraints. The third essay examines the role of bureaucratic legacy upon entrepreneurial performance. I find that Chinese entrepreneurs with work experiences in the public sector have better access to state controlled resources but low efficiency in utilizing these resources. This pattern reflects that entrepreneurs are organizational products: individuals' past work experiences shape both their positions within the social structure and the organizational blueprints that they transfer to new ventures.by Yanbo Wang.Ph.D

The adoption of western management accounting practices in China and the influences of foreign partnered joint ventures

As an attempt to investigate the adoption, future emphasis and benefits derived from traditional and contemporary western-orientated management accounting practices in Chinese organisations, in particular, in state-owned enterprises and foreign joint ventures located in China, this empirical study was modeled on a similar study undertaken in Australia (Chenhall and Langfield-Smith 1998). It obtained structured information and carried out a comparison between a western capitalist developed country and an eastern socialist developing country (China), which is moving towards a market economy. The effectiveness of the adoption of management accounting practices is influenced by complex contextual factors. Based on cultural, economic, institutional, organisational and innovation theory frameworks established in the research literature, the study therefore explored a wider range of environmental factors which determined the extent to which state-owned enterprises and foreign joint ventures have employed management accounting practices, Thus, the role which joint ventures have played in the diffusion of management accounting practices in China has consequently been evaluated. A cross-sectional survey involving a postal questionnaire method of data collection was adopted. A total of 179 usable responses were received representing a response rate of 19%. The study also conducted some interviews. The results of this research indicated that management accounting practices in Chinese organisations have made considerable progress in recent years compared to previous Chinese studies (He 1997; Lin and Wu 1998; Qiao 1997). However, there is a lower usage of management accounting practices by comparison with western countries. A number of environmental factors such as external authorities, social services, advanced production and management techniques, long-standing traditional practices, the attitude of the leadership, the quality of the accounting personnel have influenced the adoption of management accounting practices in stateowned enterprises and joint ventures. This study also confirmed that joint ventures have played an important role in the diffusion of management accounting practices in China because they have in general higher adoption rates and place greater emphasis on recently developed, strategically focused, market oriented and investment appraisal techniques than state-owned enterprises. In addition, the research has reinforced some support for the findings from previous studies (Chenhall and Langfield-Smith 1998; Firth 1996; O'Connor et al. forthcoming). The study also provided some evidence supporting institutional isomorphism theory; for example, joint ventures have adjusted the management accounting systems and practices to suit the Chinese management context. The distinguishing feature of this study is that it incorporates an empirical investigation and an exploratory study in order to provide new knowledge relating to the adoption of western practices. of management accounting in China and the influence of foreign joint ventures. However, as with other studies, it has a number of limitations that need to be overcome in the future. Also future research directions are highlighted.EThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceGBUnited Kingdo