Paul Myers, Organizational Behavior PhD

Dissertation Chair: Prof. R. Moss Kanter

Strategic and Operational Autonomy in the Governance of Multiparty Ventures

This thesis examines why and how managers of successful multiparty ventures achieve any given level of autonomy from venture partners. Interviews with venture managers and partners provide data for a comparative case study analysis of the evolution of two successful multi-party ventures whose autonomy developed on opposing trajectories – one ascending, the other descending. I argue that successful venture managers actively shape the degree of autonomy they attain in order to increase the venture's survival chances; that they do so by exploiting the two distinguishing features of joint ventures, their multilateral structure and the varied status set of the partners; and that adjusting their degree of autonomy helps venture managers mediate partner goal incongruity and mitigate the effects of partner dependence.