Abstract

The issue of IJVs has been widely noticed. Less attention, however, has been paid to the instability in IJVs. This pper aims at examining how partnership fit and environmental impact affect the instability in IJVs. Four hypotheses were proposed to address the correlations among constructs. We conducted an in-deth case study to investigate a focal IJV, which was joint-ventured by a Taiwanese state-owned company and a state-owned company in the Czech Republic. We identified 33 events happened in the IJV during a ten-year timeframe (1995-2005). The unit of analysis is each event. Statistical tests for 33 event-observations have revealed that four hypotheses were all supported, demonstrating that: (1) The higher the extent to which the partnership fit between two parent companies, the lower the instability in the IJV. (2) The higher the extent to which IJV perceived environmental impact, the higher the instability in the IJV. (3) The higher the extent to which the partnership fit between two parent companies, the better performance of the IJV. (4) The higher the instability in the IJV, the worse the performance in the IJV. According to our findings, we discussed the implications and proposed suggestions for future research as well as for managerial practice. This study contributes a more complete exploration of instability in IJVs.