High cultural distance may make it harder for supportive relational norms to develop (Buckley & Carter, 2004: 372). A study by Luo (2005), showing the importance of shared perceptions of procedural justice to cooperative relationships, is particularly relevant. This study shows that, when cultural distance is high, a shared perception of procedural justice is even more important for alliance profitability; the reasoning is that, in the presence of cultural distance, managerial efforts to instill a shared sense of justice are crucial for reducing inter-partner frictions and hence avoiding or resolving inter-partner conflicts. Thus at high levels of cultural distance, the maintenance of a cooperative inter-partner relationship may be more resource-intensive, in turn rendering the generation of TSU more costly. Hence: