Organisational Culture, National Culture and Performance in International Joint Ventures based in Israel

In the light of globalisation, international joint ventures (IJV) appear to offer an opportunity to capitalise on the particularities of localised skills, knowledge and capabilities within the international arena. Moreover, the internationalisation of markets offers an increased scope to innovate, develop and market new products which may benefit from the advantages offered by international collaborations. Nonetheless, some of these IJV fail and many do not achieve satisfactory performance. One reason proposed for unsatisfactory performance is cultural differences, most often the differences in partners ’ national cultures. However, it is also possible that differences between corporate internal cultures may affect satisfaction. Consequently, this paper examines 66 international joint ventures in Israel to establish the impact of national and organisational cultures. We found that neither organisational nor national culture had much impact on performance or the perception of performance. However, trust seems to play an important mediating role