Abstract: The strategy literature has shown that headquarters involve themselves into subsidiary operations to add value. Yet, little is known about the extent to which multiple headquarters do so. Therefore, we investigate antecedents of corporate and divisional headquarters’ involvement in innovation development projects of subsidiaries. Analyses of 85 innovation development projects reveal that dual innovation importance (innovation that is important for the division and the rest of the firm), and dual dual embeddedness (innovating subsidiary is embedded both within the division and in the rest of the firm) lead to greater dual headquarters involvement, especially when the innovation development network is large. The results contribute to the literature on complex parenting and theory of selective headquarters involvement.

Abstract: Bottom-up processes of value creation are largely undertaken by temporal networks of actors – networks composed to accomplish a specific task. This study examines such temporal networks in the context of subsidiary-driven problem solving and how their composition, specifically headquarters involvement, influences the ability to achieve solutions effectively and to contribute to MNC competence development. Using data of 67 problem solving networks, results indicate that headquarters involvement tends to destroy value although this effect depends on their involvement behavior during solution finding and solution implementation. By advancing understanding of how problem solving networks operate, our study illuminates an important way of organizing and shows that certain hands-on parenting activities exerted by headquarters in their increasingly important entrepreneurial role are actually counter-productive.

Abstract: The ability of some subsidiaries to negotiate with headquarters and manipulate the power structures of the MNC is broadly accepted but little is known about the role of the subsidiary general manager in this process. We suggest that tensions between the headquarters and subsidiary perspectives demand a new lens for analysis and build an organising framework for subsidiary management strategic activity by extending the Floyd and Wooldridge middle manager perspective of strategic influence activities. A framework is proposed based on the vertical and horizontal strategic roles of middle managers. The study makes two important contributions, firstly by confirming the appropriateness of the framework, and secondly by testing the antecedents and outcomes of the eight vertical and horizontal MNC middle management roles.

Abstract: This paper explains why certain practices are highly coupled by the subsidiaries of MNEs and others not by bringing together two types explanations related to the practices: their characteristics and their institutionalization level in the different fields the subsidiaries are embedded in. To investigate the prioritization and articulation of these antecedents, we supplement our quantitative analysis with a fuzzy set qualitative comparative analysis of 25 practices in 71 subsidiaries of an MNE. The preliminary results of our fuzzy set QCA suggest that practices characteristics and institutionalization level combine in explaining the coupling of the practices. However, while two practices’ characteristics –complexity and lack of value consistency- are central conditions for low coupling, high coupling depends mostly on high institutionalization in the subsidiary’s country and industry.