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U.S.–Mexican alliance negotiations: Impact of culture on authority, trust, and performance
Author(s) -
Teegen Hildy J.,
Doh Jonathan P.
Publication year - 2002
Publication title -
thunderbird international business review
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.553
H-Index - 37
eISSN - 1520-6874
pISSN - 1096-4762
DOI - 10.1002/tie.10045
Subject(s) - alliance , negotiation , business , perception , corporate governance , cultural diversity , public relations , political science , psychology , law , finance , neuroscience
In this article, we highlight the impact of culture on relationships of authority, trust, and performance inU.S.‐Mexican alliance negotiations. Using a sample of 55 Mexican firms with experience in alliances withU.S. counterparts, we propose cultural foundations to explain the outcomes of these negotiations in terms ofgovernance structure (authority) and relationships (trust) in the alliance, and link thesenegotiation outcomes to Mexican partner perceptions of alliance performance. We find that Mexican managers viewauthority balance as a positive contributor to alliance performance, while authority advantage—even whenbenefiting the Mexican partner at the expense of the U.S. partner—is viewed as having a negative impact onperformance. Trust also plays an important role in alliance performance. We highlight several examples ofalliance negotiations between U.S. and Mexican corporations to illustrate these findings, and present otherchallenges and opportunities in cross‐cultural negotiations. We draw implications of our research formanagers engaged in similar cross‐cultural negotiations. © 2002 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.