Document Type
Article
Publication Date
12-1-2015
Abstract
This study examines the factors influencing subsidiary top manager’s compliance with their head office’s instructions. Our grounded theory qualitative study is based on twenty four (24) interviews with subsidiary top managers from various industries. Shared meaning and the lack of shared meaning explained incidences of compliance and non- compliance respectively. Surprisingly the lack of shared meaning in many instances resulted in better business outcomes for the subsidiary. Shared meaning resulted when there was meaningful consultation, a positive personal relationship and trust between subsidiary top managers and head office personnel. On the other hand, a lack of shared meaning existed when there was little oversight or monitoring by head office personnel of subsidiary top managers actions especially during times of subsidiary success, a difference in understanding local conditions, a difference in assessment of subsidiary’s skill capacity, and a lack of the desired level of autonomy for the subsidiary top manager. We present a model and a theory that counter intuitively illustrates the power of subsidiary top manager’s non-compliance delivering business success together with a few factors which gained subsidiary top manager’s compliance. It is imperative that head office personnel of multinationals are cognizant of these discoveries in order to better their chances of business success. Our findings contribute to the understanding of factors influencing compliance with head office’s instructions and also to the desirous business effects non-compliance with the same can have. These findings can potentially be applied to other aspects of social sciences.
Keywords
management, executives, Weatherhead School of Management, compliance, subsidiary top managers, head office, shared meaning, consultation, autonomy, assessment of skill capacity, assessment of local conditions
Rights
© The Author(s). This is an open access work distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/) which permits non-commercial reuse, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License
Department/Center
Design & Innovation
Recommended Citation
Fraser, Arron M., "When Disobedience Delivers Success: Factors Influencing Subsidiary Top Manager's Compliance With Multinationals Head Office's Instructions" (2015). Student Scholarship. 528.
https://commons.case.edu/studentworks/528