Sowing the seeds of subsidiary influence: Social navigating and political maneuvering of subsidiary actors

Research Summary: This paper emphasizes 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 and 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 microlevel skills individual subsidiary actors draw upon to influence the development of their mandates. This article 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 skills to establish increased interaction and communication with key corporate decision makers, whereas political skill is used to develop a variety of influence tactics.