Stuck in Limbo: how sensemaking discrepancy over strategy-related performance leads to disjointed collaboration in an international joint venture

A major issue in international business is why many International Joint Ventures (IJVs) fail to live up to partners’ expectations. Research into why IJVs underperform centres on differences between partners’ equity, resources, technical knowledge and cultural values, but seldom internal sensemaking conflicts. We address this research gap: specifically, the sense managers make of their own and their partner managers’ perceived performance in relation to strategy practices, and the effects of sensemaking upon collaboration. Some IJV studies examine outright organizational failure, but we focus on a common situation where partner firms’ expectations about each other’s performance are not met. Our case is a major Sino-New Zealand dairy IJV in a Limbo-like state of severe sensemaking discrepancy. Here, managers struggled to perform strategy effectively in a context of mutual misunderstanding and profound miscommunication, rooted in sensemaking differences. Using a strategy practice lens, we explore how this sensemaking discrepancy arose over organizational identity, learning and experience, strategizing, communication and trust. This eroded meaningful cooperation over strategy, leading to disjointed collaboration: a new concept capturing a state of compromised engagement, where the IJV continued operationally, but collaboration became increasingly difficult. We provide a theoretical framework to help understand sensemaking discrepancy in IJVs, based on a reconceptualization of sensemaking discrepancy in terms of own and others’ expected and perceived performance. We also offer essential practice-based insights into cognitive barriers to strategy collaboration.

Trust Relationship with Suppliers, Collaborative Action, and Manufacturer Resilience in the COVID-19 Crisis

Frequent emergencies highlight the importance of corporate resilience, and relationship governance behaviors have received much attention for improving firms' resilience. This study uses structural equation modeling to test hypotheses based on trust theory and synergy theory. It investigates the impact of the behavioral operations management approach of collaborative action on manufacturers' resilience in Chinese manufacturing firms during the COVID-19 pandemic. Environmental uncertainty is used as a moderating variable to explore its role between the trust relationship with suppliers and collaborative action, which are two types of relationship management behaviors. The results show that collaborative action positively affects each of the three stages of manufacturer resilience. Moreover, collaborative action mediates between the trust relationship with suppliers and the different dimensions of manufacturer resilience. Environmental uncertainty does not moderate the facilitative effect of the trust relationship with suppliers on collaborative action. This study examines the relational governance behavior of firms in the context of a particular Chinese culture to build a bridge between relational governance behavioral science and firm resilience management. This study tries to provide inspiration for managers to improve the risk management ability of manufacturing enterprises by using relationship management theory and behavioral science.

Participatory Monitoring and Evaluation of the COVID-19 Response in a Local Public Health System

The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic tested the capacity of local health systems to understand and respond to changing conditions. Although data on new cases of COVID-19 were widely shared in communities, there was less information on the multisector response activities and factors associated with implementation. To address this gap, this empirical case study examined (a) the pattern of implementation of COVID-19 response activities and (b) the factors and critical events associated with both the pattern of new cases and the implementation of the local COVID-19 response. We used a participatory monitoring and evaluation system to capture, code, characterize, and communicate 580 COVID-19 response activities implemented in the city of Lawrence and Douglas County, Kansas. Collaboration across sectors including public health, medical services, city/county government, businesses, social services, public schools, and universities enabled the local public health system’s response effort. Documentation results showed the varying pattern of new COVID-19 cases and response activities over time and the factors identified as enabling or impeding the response and related new cases. Similar participatory monitoring and evaluation methods can be used by local health systems to help understand and respond to the changing conditions of COVID-19 response and recovery.