Changes in equity ownership between international joint venture (IJV) partners over an IJV life-course represent important relational dynamics. We examine each occurrence of equity ownership change for two salient temporal properties: frequency (how often ownership change occurs) and directional reversal (when a partner buys and then sells, or vice versa, equity shares from another partner). Building on the social exchange perspective, we propose that initial equity imbalance between the partners and a partner’s country’s collectivist culture has an imprinting effect on the likelihood of ownership change for both temporal properties. We developed a data set consisting of all equity changes in 200 Japanese automotive suppliers’ IJVs and found support for our hypotheses. Our findings contribute to IJV research by shedding light on temporal aspects of equity ownership change over an IJV’s life course as well as the underlying exchange dynamics and the stability of alliance equity ownership distribution among...