Abstract
This paper investigates the importance of firms forming joint ventures having similar organizational climates such that the chances of inter-party conflict arising will be minimized. The study is based on 40 Russian international joint ventures (IJVs) and has both qualitative and quantitative elements. Support was provided for inter-party IJV conflict being an important outcome of IJV activity to monitor (and try to minimize) when evaluating IJV success. Further, evidence was presented to show that similar firms forming an IJV are more likely to have less conflict than more dissimilar firms.