Managing supply chain collaborations in international joint ventures: case study in the Chinese automotive industry

The international joint venture (IJV) strategy brings the challenges of managing the interrelated horizontal and vertical supply chain collaboration (SCCs) in Chinese automotive industry. To explore the multi-level interrelated relationships including cross-cultural SCCs and IJVs, a multi-case study approach is employed in the paper. Best practices of SCC in IJVs are identified and investigated, where multicultural collaborations as well as monitoring and control of SCC tasks are discussed. The paper reveals the reconfiguration and development of SCCs in a multicultural-IJV context, addressing the question of how multi-level SCC is influenced by the cultural differences among the collaborators