Non-equity joint ventures, also known as collaborative agreements, global strategic partnerships, and global strategic alliances, are a strategy for companies to work together to pursue a common goal. In other words, it is important to understand that in the context of this module the term collaborative venture is used interchangeably with non-equity JVs, strategic partnerships, and the like (Cavusgil, Knight & Riesenberger, 2020, p. 431; Kotabe and Helsen 2017, p. 282). However, the use of the term is not consistent in the literature, and other authors use collaborative venture for any form of collaboration, whether equity or non-equity based. This explains the different definitions you found in Google.