Reconciling multiple realities in an international joint venture: a case for deliberately fostering communication hybridity at the interfirm interface

Abstract

Examples of international joint ventures (IJVs) abound in the intercultural business literature but provide relatively few insights into how interlocutors experience communication at the interorganisational interfaces of these hybrid organisational forms. This article presents findings from a case study of a Sino-New Zealand IJV that sought to understand interorganisational communication from the key actors’ points of view. It revealed that misalignment between these interlocutors’ expectations about communication created a dysfunctional hybrid form of interface communication that frustrated both companies and put their collaboration at risk. Key actors’ accounts of this communication were examined to understand this dysfunction and develop a model for fostering constructive hybridised communication. This proposes that, rather than inhibiting constructive collective action, hybridity can allow the IJV to flourish if it is deliberately harnessed through the application of a mutually agreeable model of engagement established prior to a formal IJV agreement being made.

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