The cultural impact on decision coordination in international alliances

Building successful international business partnerships is one of the key concerns for most corporations today. However, even after a careful partner selection, a sensible alignment of interests and a meticulous crafting of cooperation agreements, many alliances still fail to achieve the desired results. Cultural differences have become the most popular explanation for such failure, triggering a boom in the market for cultural manuals and how-to books. But has this made a difference? No! This study questions the blind devotion to the simple answer of cultural differences being the main driver for alliance failure. By investigating multiple partnerships in the German-Russian oil and natural gas industry, a problem-based perspective will yield insights into the true causes and show the limited, albeit existing, influence of culture on international alliances.