Foreign Subsidiary Governance: Toward A Research Agenda

Abstract

Foreign subsidiaries have been well-studied in the field of management and international business. A small but growing research niche addresses on the governance of foreign subsidiaries particularly looking into board and top management team (TMT) compositions and roles. This paper aims to systematically review and integrate the literature on foreign subsidiary board and TMT. We first identify key parts of foreign subsidiary governance based on an examination of 58 relevant articles published during the years of 1990-2021. Second, we construct a framework to organize the articles with regard to antecedents and consequences of foreign subsidiary board and TMT structure and functioning. Third, we discuss the findings and identify the gaps in the current literature. We stress that foreign subsidiary governance is understudied and is quite fragmented across various business disciplines and institutional contexts. In particular, the complexities of how foreign subsidiary boards and TMTs are structured in conformance to home and host country challenges are not yet rigorously examined. Finally, we conclude by proposing new theoretical directions and research avenues. Keywords: foreign subsidiary corporate board, foreign subsidiary TMT, emerging markets, institutions.