Successful Joint Ventures in Japan: Transferring Knowledge Through Organizational Learning

摘要

This article describes a new approach to managing joint ventures by knowledge transfer and sets out the conditions necessary to realize such a managerial process. Companies must undergo a learning sequence consisting of the perception, internalization and abstraction of the partner firm's knowledge resources to expand their own corporate knowledge base. Only the permanent extension of the corporate knowledge base guarantees the organizational renewal of the cooperating firm. Case studies of three German firms—Bosch, Hoechst, and Huels—engaged in joint ventures with Japanese partners are described to demonstrate the relevance of the approach.