Headquarters−Subsidiary Interdependencies and the Design of Performance Evaluation and Reward Systems in Multinational Enterprises
研究了跨国公司总部与子公司相互依赖程度如何影响绩效评价和奖励体系，发现相互依赖增加时，总部更采用参与式评价并考虑不可控因素，但仍依赖会计指标进行公式化薪酬。
This study investigates the impact of headquarters–subsidiary interdependencies on performance evaluation and reward systems in multinational enterprises. Headquarters–subsidiary interdependencies refer to the extent to which headquarters and subsidiaries depend on each other to accomplish their tasks. When headquarters–subsidiary interdependencies are present, it becomes more difficult to reward the performance of subsidiary managers because these interdependencies induce noise on subsidiary-level accounting performance measures, while at the same time high levels of goal alignment between headquarters and subsidiary managers are required. Based on survey data from 82 foreign subsidiaries operating in Belgium with headquarters in 14 different countries, our partial least squares path modelling results show that as headquarters–subsidiary interdependencies increase, headquarters use more participative performance evaluation and consider more the effects of uncontrollable factors on subsidiaries' performance when rewarding subsidiary managers. More importantly, while prior research suggests that interdependencies induce noise on unit-level accounting performance measures, our results indicate that participative performance evaluation may mitigate the noise so that headquarters still rely on subsidiary formula-based compensation using accounting measures to reward subsidiary managers.