Cultural Change at a Shipbuilding Joint Venture in Vietnam: Hard or Soft Value for Partnership?

International joint ventures include two or more parties with different cultures and this joint venture practice has been employed in many international shipbuilding enterprises. Cultural differences may bolster the management and leadership to creative solutions to share knowledge and engage employees to drive attitude and behavior changes at organizational and individual levels. Change management is a pressing challenge in the intercontinental shipbuilding industry. Shipbuilding production has shifted significantly to Asian countries over the last four decades. This chapter illustrates how Dutch and Vietnamese managers have changed in three cultural dimensions of power distance, individualism and collectivism, and uncertainty avoidance in a shipbuilding joint venture in Vietnam. A culture change framework is developed to illustrate these changes over nine years of operation. This chapter recommends open communication in the organizational culture to foster employee engagement toward joint venture sustainability, technology usage to provide continuous trainings at home and host cultures for the competitive advantages, and the development of penalty-free policies as well as a low-risk-taking organizational culture with accountable autonomy for other joint ventures.