How do ownership control position and national culture influence conflict resolution strategies in international joint ventures?

•We investigate how national culture (NC) and ownership power position (OPP) influences the selection of conflict management strategies of (CRS) in multinational corporations (MNCs) in their international joint ventures (IJVs).•The empirical evidence is based on 89 IJVs by Nordic MNCs.•Both NC and OPP influence on the selection of CRS.•In addition some interaction effects were found between national culture and ownership control position as well as trust and national culture on the CRS.

In this study, we investigate the relationship between ownership control position, national culture, and selection of conflict resolution strategies (CRS) of multinational corporations (MNCs) in their attempts to solve conflicts with local partners in international joint ventures (IJVs). The empirical evidence is based on a survey of 89 Nordic MNCs. The results show that MNCs select their CRS depending on their national culture and their ownership control position in IJVs. In addition, interesting results were found related to the interaction effects on the choice of CRS of national culture and ownership control position as well as of the trust between partners and national culture.