The role of conflict and conflict potential in international joint ventures

This study is concerned with the impacts of conflict and conflict potential on the level of performance, longevity, stability, and trust in international joint ventures. The primary focus is placed on the beneficial effects of conflict. Following a conceptual integration of multidisciplinary conflict research and the extensive set of international joint venture literature, the study also explores the interaction between conflict and the major dimensions of culture.;International joint ventures represent a significant factor of competitiveness in the global marketplace. The performance, success, survival rate, and longevity of such collaborative ventures have been extensively investigated over the last decades. Still, major questions remain unanswered about joint venture performance. International joint ventures are inherently instable business entities. They often do not perform up to their expectations. Their success depends on numerous variables, and the current analysis of conflict may significantly contribute to our understanding of international joint ventures. The study emphasizes the potential positive role of the non-antagonistic dimensions of conflict.;Instead of the widely applied measures of manifest conflicts, it argues for the measurement of ex ante, perceived levels of conflict and conflict potential. With this approach the apparent ambiguity around the measurement of the construct may be greatly reduced.;This dissertation draws constructs and concepts from diverse scientific fields such as sociology, organizational behavior, interorganizational relations, new product development, and international business research. The study contributes to interorganizational relations literature by its analysis of international joint ventures from a new perspective. The units of analysis are managers, and the practical investigation is based on a telephone survey among international joint venture managers in Hungary. A new measure of conflict potential is successfully introduced in the study. The findings, although inconclusive, also suggest that further steps of model development need to be taken to reliably measure beneficial effects of conflicts in joint ventures and other business organizations.