International Joint Ventures

|INTERNATIONAL JOINT VENTURES |

Please answer just ONE of the questions below:

1. If you were given the responsibility of managing an IJV, what skills and attributes might you look for in your team? Critically discuss what mix of skills, backgrounds and attributes you might need among your team in order to ensure an effective collaboration, and why.

2. Protection of intellectual property (IP) can be a major issue during the negotiation of a collaboration. What steps (both contractual and informal) could be taken to give partners the confidence to share background IP and share in the development of foreground IP?

3. Select one of the European companies (HC or EM but not CNI), described in the module Collaboration Exercise. From the viewpoint of that company develop an initial strategic plan, based on analysis of the company’s current position, and that of its prospective partner, CNI. Taking into consideration the key commercial, practical and political issues, arrive at the optimum type of collaboration (from the viewpoint of your company) for this particular situation. Consider also what objections CNI may have to your choice, and therefore what concessions might have to be negotiated in order to gain their agreement. Test out the financial viability of your strategy using the spreadsheet provided and use it to provide a justification for your choice (50%).

Having done the initial strategic planning, SELECT ONE of the following planning stages and give a thorough and in-depth discussion of all the relevant issues (30%), leading to some firm recommendations on how the company should proceed (20%):

a) Contractual issues - Consider the technical, commercial and legal issues relating to this collaboration (from the perspective of your company) and discuss what provisions you would make for those issues in negotiating the collaboration agreement...