Compositional gaps and downward spirals in international joint venture management groups
研究了国际合资企业管理团队中沿母公司界线出现的构成缺口如何加剧管理联盟分化，引发关系冲突和实质性冲突的恶性循环，并导致团队行为解体，对合资企业绩效有重要影响。
We argue that compositional gaps in international joint venture (IJV) management groups, along parent company lines, will accentuate distinct managerial coalitions. Such gaps can occur on dimensions of observable demography, less apparent demography, or psychological characteristics. While compositional gaps in IJV management groups can provide the basis for healthy substantive conflict, such gaps—particularly if they are large—also tend to induce relationship conflict and heighten substantive conflict beyond its beneficial range. This can set off a downward spiral of relationship conflict, substantive conflict, and behavioral disintegration in the group. These harmful group processes further interact reciprocally with any tensions that might exist between the IJV parents, engendering a second downward spiral. Our model has implications for the performance of international joint ventures, and it serves as a foundation for designing interventions to avoid the downward spirals we portray. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.