Performance Characteristics of International Joint Ventures in Construction

Abstract

Joint ventures have become a very popular strategy among international contractors over the past three decades, since it allows achieving a temporary partnership between the participating firms in a project environment. Partners can combine their distinctive competencies and complementary resources for the period of a project as well as they can share project related and host country related risks. This situation also allows international contractors to conform to the host government policies. Besides these advantages, IJVs are difficult to manage due to diversification in the goals of partners and the host country related risk factors. Thus, managing international joint ventures (IJVs) and measuring the performance of IJVs in construction have become one of the most popular subjects of the literature after 2000. However, there isn’t any study concerning the key performance characteristics of IJVs in construction depending on empirical analysis and meta-analysis. That’s why; the main aim of this study is to determine the key performance characteristics of international construction joint-ventures through a literature review both in management science literature and construction management literature by using meta-analysis technique. The findings of this study can be used in further studies concerning about performance models of IJVs in construction as well as can be used by international contractors.