Behavioral attributes in IJVs: the role of organizational culture and the impact on knowledge.

We develop a theoretical framework that examines the effects of organizational culture differences on the transfer of tacit and explicit knowledge from foreign parent firms to their International Joint Ventures (IJVs). In this study, two important but conceptually distinct behavioral attribute constructs ' trust and conflict resolution ' are used to serve as mediating mechanisms that link organizational culture and knowledge transfers. We test the framework with a structural equation model, using survey data from 334 IJVs in South Korea. The results show that organizational culture differences have a negative direct impact on both tacit and explicit knowledge transfers. Our findings provide supporting evidence for the partial mediating effect of conflict resolution. While the effectiveness of the conflict resolution process between partners mediates the impact of cultural differences on both explicit and tacit knowledge, its impact on the latter is weaker. Lack of trust was found to negatively impact the efficacy of conflict resolution processes, but it did not directly influence tacit and explicit knowledge transfer. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]