A major issue in international business is why many International Joint Ventures (IJVs) fail to live up to partners’ expectations. Research into why IJVs underperform centres on differences between partners’ equity, resources, technical knowledge and cultural values, but seldom internal sensemaking conflicts. We address this research gap: specifically, the sense managers make of their own and their partner managers’ perceived performance in relation to strategy practices, and the effects of sensemaking upon collaboration. Some IJV studies examine outright organizational failure, but we focus on a common situation where partner firms’ expectations about each other’s performance are not met. Our case is a major Sino-New Zealand dairy IJV in a Limbo-like state of severe sensemaking discrepancy. Here, managers struggled to perform strategy effectively in a context of mutual misunderstanding and profound miscommunication, rooted in sensemaking differences. Using a strategy practice lens, we explore how this sensemaking discrepancy arose over organizational identity, learning and experience, strategizing, communication and trust. This eroded meaningful cooperation over strategy, leading to disjointed collaboration: a new concept capturing a state of compromised engagement, where the IJV continued operationally, but collaboration became increasingly difficult. We provide a theoretical framework to help understand sensemaking discrepancy in IJVs, based on a reconceptualization of sensemaking discrepancy in terms of own and others’ expected and perceived performance. We also offer essential practice-based insights into cognitive barriers to strategy collaboration.

国际业务中的一个主要问题是为什么许多国际合资企业 (IJV) 未能达到合作伙伴的期望。研究为什么 IJVs 表现不佳主要集中在合作伙伴的股权、资源、技术知识和文化价值观之间的差异，但很少关注内部意义建构冲突。我们解决了这一研究差距：具体来说，管理者对他们自己和他们的合作伙伴管理者在战略实践方面的感知绩效的感知，以及感知对协作的影响。一些 IJV 研究考察了彻底的组织失败，但我们关注的是一种常见情况，即合作伙伴公司对彼此绩效的期望没有得到满足。我们的案例是一家大型的中新合资乳制品公司，它处于一种严重的意义建构差异的类似地狱般的状态。这里，经理们在相互误解和严重误解的背景下努力有效地执行战略，其根源在于理解差异。使用战略实践视角，我们探讨了这种意义建构差异是如何在组织认同、学习和经验、战略制定、沟通和信任方面产生的。这侵蚀了有意义的战略合作，导致脱节协作：一个新概念捕捉了一种妥协的参与状态，在这种状态下，IJV 继续运营，但协作变得越来越困难。我们提供了一个理论框架来帮助理解 IJV 中的意义建构差异，该框架基于对自己和他人的预期和感知绩效的意义建构差异的重新概念化。我们还针对战略协作的认知障碍提供基于实践的重要见解。