Abstract: Abstract: The innovation capability is becoming more and more important for International Joint Venture (IJV) to build and maintain a competitive advantage. Host parent firms, which are in a vulnerable situation of technology and management in relation to the foreign parent company, must seek effective management ways to control over IJV in order enhance the learning and performance of IJV. This issue is urgent to solve both in theory and in practice, and is in the forefront of related research area. The impact of mechanisms for the formal and informal control by the host parent company on IJV technical innovation is discussed with 96 samples of IJV in South China. The results show that social control by the host parent company contributes to IJV internal knowledge integration and management innovation positively; knowledge integration played a role of intermediary in this process. It is proved that there exist mutual positive relations between formal and informal control of host parent companies, and formal control of host parent firms has a direct positive effect on IJV’ technical innovation.

Key words: IJV, technical innovation, formal control, informal control