Managing for Joint Venture Success

Confronted with soaring business risks and fierce global competition, managers are discovering that the best hope for staying ahead is by joining forces with other companies. By pooling resources and complementary strengths companies can increase productivity and competitive standing in ways they could not do by themselves.

This book is a goldmine of information and insights for managers who are considering entering a joint venture or for those struggling to deal with its problems. Harrigan examined 492 joint ventures and 392 other cooperative strategies to uncover what makes them successful (or unsuccessful) and why they work differently in different situations. Using that information, she tells managers how to do it right. She develops a framework managers can use to identify the benefits and pitfalls of cooperation, to set realistic expectations, to select partners and negotiate working agreements, to successfully transfer knowledge, resources, and personnel between owner and venture, and to recognize when the arrangement is no longer working.

Armed with their own expectations and expertise, managers can glean from this book new ways of designing and managing successful joint ventures.