The formation of an international joint venture: Marley automotive components

In Maidstone and Lenham in Kent, and Bitton near Bristol, England, is the operation of Marley Automotive Components Ltd. In the late 1980s it entered into an international joint venture (IJV) with the US company, Davidson Instrument Panel - Textron of Portland, New Hampshire. An earlier article by the authors examined Davidson's perception of the IJV, including their reasons for the joint venture, the critical human resource issues they were facing and how they were planning to deal with several unfolding human resource issues. This article now portrays Marley's perceptions of the same issues. The purpose in using this case study to describe IJV issues is to offer information on human resource issues to readers considering an IJV as the route to globalization. Hopefully, this information will help companies to increase the chances of a successful IJV experience.