International Joint Venture marketing performance and manifest conflict in a developing country context

Abstract

This study examines the relationship between manifest conflict and marketing performance via the international joint venture (IJV) market entry mode in Thailand. The primary data for the study were collected from a self-administered mail survey of 1,047 Thai-Foreign IJVs in Thailand. The criteria for inclusion in the sample was that no joint venture partner could have less than 20 percent equity participation and no partner could have more than 80 percent equity participation (Makino and Beamish, 1998). The sample consisted of 203 firms that were engaged in agricultural, mining, light industries, metal-working, electrical, chemical and the services industries. From the application of the exploratory factor analysis and the discriminant analysis it was concluded that a significant negative relationship existed between manifest conflict and marketing performance in the case of the IJVs in Thailand that were studied. That is, when manifest conflict was present between the partners it resulted in lower levels of marketing performance than when it was not.3