What Happens when Subsidiaries Go through a Change? Impact of Gaining an R&D Mandate on Subsidiary Managers’ Activities and Subsidiary Innovation.

Memar, Noushan; Andersson, Ulf; Gillmore, Edward

Abstract

The disaggregation of value chains in multinational enterprises, particularly the dispersion of R&D activities to preferentially situated subsidiaries, has pushed forward the importance of research on subsidiary innovation capabilities. However, extant studies are mainly on a subsidiary level, and few consider the key individuals in the subsidiary and activities of subsidiary managers and their influence on subsidiary innovation. This study investigates how the exogenous change of gaining an R&D mandate affects subsidiary innovation via changes in subsidiary managers’ activities. A more pertinent understanding of subsidiary managers’ activities and their influence on increased innovation is helpful for subsidiary managers implementing an R&D mandate into their existing portfolio of activities and contribute to the MNE resilience during change and crises of the uncertain global order. We investigated 98 globally dispersed Swedish MNE subsidiaries. The results indicate that subsidiary managers’ activities aimed internally towards MNE actors hamper innovation, whereas the subsidiary managers’ activities towards the external MNE environment has an insignificant effect on the innovation of the subsidiary post gaining an R&D mandate. Further, the results show that the degree of the newness of the gained R&D mandate has no impact on the subsidiary managers’ innovation-enhancing activities.

Citation

Memar, N., Andersson, U., & Gillmore, E. (2022). What Happens when Subsidiaries Go through a Change? Impact of Gaining an R&D Mandate on Subsidiary Managers’ Activities and Subsidiary Innovation. In S. Batas, O. Kuivalainen, & R. R. Sinkovics (Eds.), . Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-95527-4_9

• Online Publication Date: Apr 2, 2022
• Publication Date: Apr 2, 2022
• Deposit Date: Oct 15, 2024
• Publisher: Springer
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• ISBN: 9783030955274
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-95527-4_9
• Public URL: https://durham-repository.worktribe.com/output/2959538