Subsidiary Decision-making Autonomy: A Systematic Literature Review of The Determinants

Over the past decades, subsidiary’s autonomy has emerged as a focal point of research concerning Multinational Corporations (MNCs). The concept of autonomy has influenced the four research streams identified by the scholars within the subsidiary-management literature, Strategy-Structure, Headquarters-Subsidiary Relationships, Subsidiary Roles and Subsidiary Development, albeit with a different degree of intensity. However, despite the high number of contributions concerning this theme, only a few have dealt with the elements determining the autonomy of firms belonging to MNCs and a complete systematization of the empirical studies containing sets of variables able to explain subsidiary autonomy is still lacking. Aiming at contributing to fill this gap, a Systematic Literature Review methodology has been implemented to guarantee a rigorous procedure. The main findings of this paper are the identification of the explanatory elements for the autonomy, named differently by scholars during the forty years of this review, such as determinants, variables, or factors, and a further contribution in clustering them according to common characteristics. Research findings contribute to consolidate and synthetize the results into a comprehensive framework, providing the basis for further directions of future research concerning firm autonomy within business groups.