Long-term orientation and international joint venture strategies in modern China

Does high long-term orientation (LTO) as a distinctive feature of Chinese and Asian national culture still influence modern business decisions? It is difficult to answer this question when any such cultural impact must be qualified by the influence of local Chinese institutions. We study, therefore, different nationalities of international joint ventures (IJVs) within the same institutional setting of China. With foreign partners distanced from their national institutions, this isolates any cultural influence on strategies. We report that strategic commitment does indeed seem to be higher in IJVs with overseas Chinese and other Asian partners, but this conclusion is not general, and is limited to the subset of human resource strategies. © 2010 Elsevier Ltd.