International Business: The New Realities, 5th Edition

Consortium

A consortium is a project-based, usually nonequity venture initiated by multiple partners to fulfill a large-scale project. It is typically formed with a contract that delineates the rights and obligations of each member. Work is allocated to the members on the same basis as profits. In a three-partner consortium, for example, if each party performs one-third of the work, then each earns one-third of the profits. Consortia are popular for innovation in industries such as commercial aircraft, computers, pharmaceuticals, and telecommunications, where the costs of developing and marketing a new product often reach hundreds of millions of dollars and require wide expertise. Boeing, Fuji, Kawasaki, and Mitsubishi joined forces to design ...