Sowing the seeds of subsidiary influence: social positioning and political targeting approaches

Research summary This paper emphasises the social and political dimensions of subsidiary influence in strategically repositioning the subsidiary’s mandate. The specific skills subsidiary actors deploy in attempting to influence corporate headquarters have largely been neglected in existing literature. Drawing from a micro-political perspective, we provide a more nuanced, fine-grained understanding of subsidiary influence by illuminating how influence is augmented and enriched through the concomitant effects of subsidiary actors’ social and political skills. Using a multiple case study analysis, drawing on qualitative interviews, we illustrate how subsidiary actors’ social skills are used to continuously create, maintain and develop spaces of social engagement with corporate decision makers, whereas political skill involves the ability to leverage social spaces by developing specific influence tactics such as targeting, showcasing and framing. Managerial summary Subsidiaries of multinational companies play an increasingly dominant role in the global business environment. The role of the individual subsidiary actor in influencing corporate management is crucial to the development of the subsidiary mandate. Despite this, very little is known about the micro-level skills that individual subsidiary actors draw upon to influence the development of their mandates. This paper explores how subsidiary actors channel key social and political skills in strategically repositioning their mandates within the multinational enterprise. We find that subsidiary actors may use their social skill to establish increased interaction and communication with key corporate decision makers, whereas political skill is used to develop a variety of influence tactics