Through structural social anthropology lens, this thesis explored issues of international joint venture performance measurements and parent company learning through international joint ventures in the context of the Chinese automotive industry. It was a case study of the First Automotive Work FAW, a Chinese state-owned car manufacturing group and its joint venture with German car manufacturing group Volkswagen. Its focus was on the Chinese engineers working in both companies, who are on the frontier of technology transfer and knowledge learning through their work experience of localizing imported technologies. The methodology used was qualitative, primarily interviews, historical and technological background research, participant observation and the researcher’s lived experience of the encounters.
The research argues and demonstrates that complexity matters on IJV performance measurements and organizational learning studies; and calls for closer attention to individuals through structural social anthropology theories. It describes in detail the indigenous engineers and managers’ perspective of the learning experience, learning outcomes, the purposes of learning and its relationship to parent companies as independent tribes.
It affirms, contends and extends current concepts of IJV performance measurements and indigenous partner learning through IJV. It presents the complexity of how the IJV and its SOE parent company values knowledge and means of learning differently and how it relates to the ecological system of SOE and its IJV. It explores the independent tribalism in FAW-VW and the sacred and profane dichotomy of FAW that had led to the ecological structure of FAW.
The thesis presents the structural social anthropology theories of the solidarity, sacred and profane dichotomy and tribalism as solution to some of the issues in current international business literature. It argues that the different ecological system lead to different interpretations of goals at the SOE and IJV. A human model that is useful for a deeper understanding of IJV performance measurements and indigenous parent learning through the social anthropological lens. It also analyzes the complexity of historical and hidden factors such as SOE corruption that contributes to such phenomenon.
