Subsidiary Initiative Taking in Multinational Corporations: The Relationship between Power and Issue Selling
研究了德国跨国公司法国子公司如何通过议题推销策略争取总部批准，发现子公司权力越弱越需要议题推销，但仅靠推销不够，还需结合自身权力。
This paper investigates the political maneuvering that accompanies subsidiary initiative taking in multinational corporations. On the basis of an explorative empirical investigation of subsidiary initiative taking in the French subsidiaries of six German MNCs, the paper explores the activities that subsidiaries undertake to sell their initiatives, and the relationships among issue selling, subsidiary power and headquarters’ hierarchical power. The findings suggest that the use of issue-selling tactics is common when subsidiaries engage in initiative taking. In addition, the paper demonstrates that a low degree of issue selling is needed to obtain approval of an initiative in less asymmetrical headquarters–subsidiary power relationships (i.e. relationships in which subsidiaries are relatively powerful). In cases where power relationships are highly asymmetrical, issue selling is a necessity, but it is hardly a sufficient condition for obtaining headquarters’ approval. This renders issue selling to a second-rank power in subsidiary initiative taking, as it only works in conjunction with subsidiary power.