Perception Gaps between Headquarters and Subsidiary Managers : Differing Perspectives on Subsidiary Roles and their Implications

In the past decades, the notion of differentiated subsidiary roles within multinational network corporations has inspired a considerable amount of research. Surprisingly, the question of whether headquarters and subsidiary managers perceive a certain subsidiary’s role in the same way has been neglected. Andrea Daniel not only compares headquarters and subsidiary managers’ perceptions of a subsidiary’s role, but she analyzes the implications of perception gaps for the headquarters-subsidiary relationship. The author develops a novel conceptual framework that allows to examine headquarters-subsidiary relationships and, in particular, the subsidiary role concept. This framework proposes headquarters-subsidiary conflict as the main implication of perception gaps.