The impact of organizational context on marketing knowledge acquisition in IJVs

This paper focuses on the effects of organizational context on the acquisition of tacit and explicit marketing know-how by the local partner from staff of the foreign partner firm in an IJV (international joint venture). Organizational context consists of management features and matching factors. The former includes factors that are within the control of the IJV management such as management commitment and teamwork while the latter covers those that pertain to the congruence of knowledge source and receiver such as relationship strength and cultural distance. The general proposition is that these factors have different effects on the acquisition of tacit and explicit marketing know-how from foreign partners in an IJV. The interrelationships between the enabling factors and between tacit and explicit know-how are investigated as well as the consequent effects of acquired marketing know-how on marketing outcomes.