The role of trust between the parent companies of international joint ventures (IJVs) is re-examined, and it is suggested that trust between parents is not only a major predictor of the achievement of financial and non-financial goals by IJVs as reported in the literature, but also moderates the relationship between IJV performance and certain contextual factors. Based on the responses of senior executives of IJVs and their parent companies in China, it is confirmed that trust influences IJV performance. The moderating effects of trust on the relationships between IJV performance and local reliance and the experience of executives were confirmed for the senior executive sample, but the moderating effect of cultural distance was not consistent between the firm-level and country-level measures. There was no significant result regarding these moderating relationships for the parent sample, except local reliance.