Building effective international joint venture leadership teams in China

An overlooked factor affecting the success or failure of international joint ventures is the effectiveness of the leadership teams put in charge. In this paper we analyze the special features of leadership teams in Chinese-foreign joint ventures and identify was to improve their effectiveness. We identify five key elements of the IJV leadership team-composition, process, structure, incentives, and the leader's behaviors-that have important implications for IJV success. Our analysis is based on the literature on top management teams, cross-cultural behavior, international joint ventures, and our own in-depth interviews with leadership teams from international joint ventures in China.