diff --git a/src/it/MINVOKER-330-realative-mavenExacutable/pom.xml b/src/it/MINVOKER-330-realative-mavenExacutable/pom.xml
new file mode 100644
index 00000000..ae7d2cac
--- /dev/null
+++ b/src/it/MINVOKER-330-realative-mavenExacutable/pom.xml
@@ -0,0 +1,60 @@
+<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
+
+<!--
+Licensed to the Apache Software Foundation (ASF) under one
+or more contributor license agreements.  See the NOTICE file
+distributed with this work for additional information
+regarding copyright ownership.  The ASF licenses this file
+to you under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the
+"License"); you may not use this file except in compliance
+with the License.  You may obtain a copy of the License at
+
+  http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
+
+Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing,
+software distributed under the License is distributed on an
+"AS IS" BASIS, WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY
+KIND, either express or implied.  See the License for the
+specific language governing permissions and limitations
+under the License.
+-->
+
+<project xmlns="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xsi:schemaLocation="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0 http://maven.apache.org/maven-v4_0_0.xsd">
+  <modelVersion>4.0.0</modelVersion>
+
+  <groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins.invoker.its</groupId>
+  <artifactId>minvoker-330</artifactId>
+  <version>1.0-SNAPSHOT</version>
+  <packaging>pom</packaging>
+
+  <description>
+    Test to check for usage of relative path in mavenExecutable.
+  </description>
+
+  <properties>
+    <project.build.sourceEncoding>UTF-8</project.build.sourceEncoding>
+  </properties>
+
+  <build>
+    <plugins>
+      <plugin>
+        <groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
+        <artifactId>maven-invoker-plugin</artifactId>
+        <version>@project.version@</version>
+        <executions>
+          <execution>
+            <id>integration-test</id>
+            <phase>initialize</phase>
+            <goals>
+              <goal>run</goal>
+            </goals>
+          </execution>
+        </executions>
+        <configuration>
+          <mavenExecutable>mvn</mavenExecutable>
+        </configuration>
+      </plugin>
+    </plugins>
+  </build>
+
+</project>
diff --git a/src/it/MINVOKER-330-realative-mavenExacutable/src/it/project/pom.xml b/src/it/MINVOKER-330-realative-mavenExacutable/src/it/project/pom.xml
new file mode 100644
index 00000000..e83b4293
--- /dev/null
+++ b/src/it/MINVOKER-330-realative-mavenExacutable/src/it/project/pom.xml
@@ -0,0 +1,28 @@
+<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
+
+<!--
+Licensed to the Apache Software Foundation (ASF) under one
+or more contributor license agreements.  See the NOTICE file
+distributed with this work for additional information
+regarding copyright ownership.  The ASF licenses this file
+to you under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the
+"License"); you may not use this file except in compliance
+with the License.  You may obtain a copy of the License at
+
+  http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
+
+Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing,
+software distributed under the License is distributed on an
+"AS IS" BASIS, WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY
+KIND, either express or implied.  See the License for the
+specific language governing permissions and limitations
+under the License.
+-->
+
+<project xmlns="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xsi:schemaLocation="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0 http://maven.apache.org/maven-v4_0_0.xsd">
+  <modelVersion>4.0.0</modelVersion>
+  <groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins.invoker.its</groupId>
+  <artifactId>minvoker-330</artifactId>
+  <version>0.1-SNAPSHOT</version>
+  <packaging>pom</packaging>
+</project>
diff --git a/src/main/java/org/apache/maven/plugins/invoker/AbstractInvokerMojo.java b/src/main/java/org/apache/maven/plugins/invoker/AbstractInvokerMojo.java
index 4a3bd354..84bf5b79 100644
--- a/src/main/java/org/apache/maven/plugins/invoker/AbstractInvokerMojo.java
+++ b/src/main/java/org/apache/maven/plugins/invoker/AbstractInvokerMojo.java
@@ -429,7 +429,7 @@ public abstract class AbstractInvokerMojo extends AbstractMojo {
      * @since 1.8
      */
     @Parameter(property = "invoker.mavenExecutable")
-    private File mavenExecutable;
+    private String mavenExecutable;
 
     /**
      * The <code>JAVA_HOME</code> environment variable to use for forked Maven invocations. Defaults to the current Java
diff --git a/src/main/java/org/apache/maven/plugins/invoker/InvokerProperties.java b/src/main/java/org/apache/maven/plugins/invoker/InvokerProperties.java
index 08721a0f..5901ad58 100644
--- a/src/main/java/org/apache/maven/plugins/invoker/InvokerProperties.java
+++ b/src/main/java/org/apache/maven/plugins/invoker/InvokerProperties.java
@@ -153,8 +153,10 @@ public void setDefaultProfiles(List<String> defaultProfiles) {
      * Default value for mavenExecutable
      * @param defaultMavenExecutable a default value
      */
-    public void setDefaultMavenExecutable(File defaultMavenExecutable) {
-        this.defaultMavenExecutable = defaultMavenExecutable;
+    public void setDefaultMavenExecutable(String defaultMavenExecutable) {
+        if (StringUtils.isNotBlank(defaultMavenExecutable)) {
+            this.defaultMavenExecutable = new File(defaultMavenExecutable);
+        }
     }
 
     /**
diff --git a/src/test/java/org/apache/maven/plugins/invoker/InvokerPropertiesTest.java b/src/test/java/org/apache/maven/plugins/invoker/InvokerPropertiesTest.java
index 2ba1d78c..8db6c396 100644
--- a/src/test/java/org/apache/maven/plugins/invoker/InvokerPropertiesTest.java
+++ b/src/test/java/org/apache/maven/plugins/invoker/InvokerPropertiesTest.java
@@ -216,7 +216,7 @@ public void testConfigureRequestMavenExecutable() {
 
         InvokerProperties facade = new InvokerProperties(props);
         File aDefExecutable = new File("defExecutable");
-        facade.setDefaultMavenExecutable(aDefExecutable);
+        facade.setDefaultMavenExecutable(aDefExecutable.toString());
 
         props.setProperty("invoker.mavenExecutable", "aPropExecutable");
         facade.configureInvocation(request, 0);