Strategy Variable in Subsidiary Research – the Case of Miles and Snow Typology
| Authors | |
|---|---|
| Year of publication | 2016 |
| Type | Article in Proceedings |
| Conference | Proceedings of the 15th European Conference on Research Methodology for Business and Management Studies |
| MU Faculty or unit | |
| Citation | |
| Field | Management and administrative |
| Keywords | Strategy; MNE; operationalisation; subsidiary strategy; strategy research |
| Description | The multinational subsidiary offers a unique context for studying company strategy, but, to date, current literature lacks a coherent approach. Subsidiary strategy is often studied from the headquarters' perspective. Frameworks applied to subsidiaries might be inappropriate, not reflecting the specifics of a MNE subsidiary. This can subsequently affect results of the research and our understanding of subsidiary strategy. Despite enormous development of subsidiary strategy research in the past few decades, there is very little guidance for researchers and managers. This article responds to this challenge by examining the operationalisation of strategy variable in subsidiary management research. A qualitative research among 46 subsidiary managers was conducted, using Miles and Snow strategy typology and a self-typing approach. Results show that the use of the existing operationalisation of strategy variable for subsidiaries is not without shortcomings. Respondents are often not able to choose a strategy for their subsidiary. Reasons are analysed and, adding to the previous works on subsidiary research, methodological recommendations are made for future subsidiary strategy research. |