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Management International Review

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01.04.2011 | Research Article

Achieving Subsidiary Integration in International Innovation by Managerial “Tools”

verfasst von: Asst. Prof. Marcus Matthias Keupp, PhD Cand. Maximilian Palmié, Prof. Oliver Gassmann

Erschienen in: Management International Review | Ausgabe 2/2011

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Abstract

Our study articulates and empirically tests a theory of how the parent firm of a multinational corporation (MNC) can achieve global integration of subsidiaries into the MNC’s intrafirm network by using managerial “tools” to manipulate the MNC’s formal organizational architecture.
Taking a subsidiary’s performance as an observable criterion to measure the success of its integration into the global intra-firm network, the model is tested on a unique dataset of 287 international R&D subsidiaries.
Our findings suggest that the parent firm can actively improve a subsidiary’s performance and hence its integration by encouraging knowledge asset transfer, by granting the subsidiary a mandate for undertaking activities on behalf of the corporation as a whole, and by providing it with more operational autonomy.
These findings open up a deep perspective of how subsidiary integration can be achieved by appropriate managerial “tools” in the context of international innovation. We discuss the implications of these results for the literature and for managers.

Vorheriger Artikel Does IT Integration Really Enhance Supplier Responsiveness in Global Supply Chains?

Nächster Artikel Organizational Responses to Regional Integration Among MNEs in Latin America

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The results of these calculations are not reported here due to limitation of space, they are available from the corresponding author.

That is, the scale is calculated without the specific item in question to avoid inflating the correlation.

We used oblique rotation because we expected the emerging factors to be theoretically related (Hair et al. 1998).

Both the Bartlett test of sphericity (χ² =2935.726 with 253 d.f., p = 0.000) and the Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin measure of sampling adequacy (MSA = 0.8016, “meritorious”) indicated the data matrix was eligible for factor analysis. A factor was retained prior to rotation if its eigenvalue was greater than unity (Kaiser-Guttman criterion).

The results of the robust OLS analyses are available from the corresponding author upon request.

While model fit is still acceptable when country dummies are included as well, we prefer to omit them since their inclusion does not significantly change the pattern in which the SEM supports our hypotheses.

We are grateful to an anonymous reviewer for pointing our attention to this issue.

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Titel: Achieving Subsidiary Integration in International Innovation by Managerial “Tools”
verfasst von: Asst. Prof. Marcus Matthias Keupp
PhD Cand. Maximilian Palmié
Prof. Oliver Gassmann
Publikationsdatum: 01.04.2011
Verlag: SP Gabler Verlag
Erschienen in: Management International Review / Ausgabe 2/2011
Print ISSN: 0938-8249
Elektronische ISSN: 1861-8901
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11575-011-0072-5

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