The effect of culture on the responsiveness of firms to mimetic forces: Imitative foreign joint venture entries into China, 1985¬タモ2003

Institutional theory suggests that firms imitate their peers when deciding to enter a foreign market in order to gain legitimacy and cope with uncertainty. There is little investigation, however, on how home country culture affects a firm’s mimetic behavior as a response to institutional influences. To understand culture’s role, this paper examines the effect of the cultural environment on mimetic foreign joint venture entries into China. Based on a sample of 1361 international joint venture entries in the 1985– 2003 period, we find that the cultural dimensions individualism–collectivism and power distance significantly affect the responsiveness of firms to mimetic forces. 2014 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. * Corresponding author. Tel.: +49 05251 60 4932; fax: +49 05251 6