From Practice to Theory of the International Joint Ventures

The present study identifies and analyzes, critically evaluating, the contributions and shortcomings of the following theories, approaches and models, which are attempting to explain post factum the creation of international joint ventures in the practice: transaction costs theory and its derivative – internalization theory and eclectic theory of international production; strategic management theory; resource dependence theory; knowledge based and learning approach; Uppsala internationalization model; and the Auster's model of the relationship between the alternative forms of foreign investment and the life cycle of the industries in which these forms are realized. From the endeavor to put order in the caused by the lack of a general theory of the international joint ventures chaos of predominant normative ideas, unsatisfactory defined concepts and relationships between them, as well as the existing "aggregation problem", the study draws the conclusion that the analyzed 8 theories, approaches and models, are not developed to the state, in which they can be applied unreservedly in the research of the international joint ventures. However, the study ends with a suggestion to the future researchers to use systems theory as a coordinating and multidisciplinary framework for research of the international joint ventures, because of the systems theory's principle of isomorphism, which allows the used concepts in a given scientific field to be transferred to another perceived as a system scientific field for its most realistic explanation.