Jeffrey Barden

We integrate the predictions of prospect theory, the threat-rigidity hypothesis, and institutional theory to suggest how patterns of institutional persistence and change depend on whether decision makers view environmental shifts as potential opportunities for or threats to gaining legitimacy. We argue that in the event that decision makers face ambiguity in their reading of the environment, they initiate decoupled substantive and symbolic actions that simultaneously accommodate the predictions of prospect theory and the threat-rigidity hypothesis.

There has been significant interest in understanding how the distribution of parental control over international joint ventures (IJV) influences IJV outcomes (e.g., parent conflict, survival, performance). Yet, the accumulation of research on the relationship between control structure and IJV outcomes has been somewhat inconclusive and even contradictory. We contribute to this research stream by developing an organizational justice-based contingency model relating parental control structure to parent conflict. We suggest that the level of conflict between IJV parents will depend on the consistencies between the control structure and parents' contribution of proprietary resources, and between control structure and the parents' abilities to effectively monitor operations. Our analysis of Vietnamese joint ventures provides some support for our model, and suggests that the relationship between parent control structure and IJV outcomes is perhaps more complex than previously thought.