“Subsidiary Strategy in the Modern Multinational: Managing Disruptive Change and Complexity”

Call for Papers – Special Issue: “Subsidiary Strategy in the Modern Multinational: Managing Disruptive Change and Complexity”

Journal: International Business Review
Publisher: Elsevier
Impact Factor: 6.1 | CiteScore: 11.6
Submission deadline: 30 September 2026

This special issue refocuses attention on the subsidiary as a core unit of strategy‑making within the modern multinational enterprise (MNE), asking how subsidiaries navigate geopolitical turbulence, digitalisation, ecological pressures, and organisational complexity while balancing alignment with headquarters and autonomous strategic action. It seeks to re‑theorise and empirically unpack what subsidiary strategy is today, how it is enacted, and how it contributes to MNE evolution in an age of deglobalisation, techno‑geopolitical disruption, and value‑chain reconfiguration.

Why this issue matters

• Despite lively debates about whether the subsidiary remains analytically relevant, it still functions as the legal, organisational, and operational anchor through which MNEs access markets, transfer knowledge, and drive innovation.

• Much of the literature has fragmented into isolated studies of subsidiary role, mandate, autonomy, influence, and embeddedness without integrating these into a coherent conception of subsidiary strategy; the field now faces a “coherence crisis” akin to the 1990s debate on what “strategy” actually means.

• At the same time, digital surveillance, geopolitical tightening, protectionism, and AI‑driven coordination are reshaping the autonomy–control balance, making it crucial to understand how subsidiaries strategise under constraints and exploit new forms of influence and legitimacy.

Core themes and research questions

The SI welcomes conceptual and empirical work—including case studies, multi‑level modelling, and meta‑analytic work—that re‑roots subsidiary strategy in the core principles of strategy while engaging with contemporary MNE realities. Key themes include:

• An integrated view of subsidiary strategy

  • How do initiative‑taking, lobbying, resource‑orchestration, and network‑building cumulate into mandate gains or losses over time?

  • When do autonomy, initiative, embeddedness, and influence reinforce each other versus contradicting each other?

  • How do internal competition and survival logics among peer subsidiaries shape strategising behaviour?

• Geopolitics and subsidiary strategy

  • How do sanctions, investment‑screening regimes, and protectionism reshape subsidiary capability trajectories and knowledge‑transfer paths?

  • What dynamic capabilities enable subsidiaries to sense and adapt to geopolitical risk without triggering HQ backlash?

• Digitalisation, AI, and control

  • How do AI‑enabled monitoring and coordination tools shift the autonomy–control equilibrium and subsidiary strategic distinctiveness?

  • Which digital configurations enhance subsidiaries’ bargaining power and innovation capacity?

• Identity, legitimacy, and non‑market strategy

  • How do subsidiaries manage identity (distinct, nested, covert, leader‑centric) and build legitimacy vis‑à‑vis headquarters, host‑state institutions, and local communities?

  • How do non‑market strategies (corporate political activity, CSR, and stakeholder engagement) complement or substitute market‑side strategies at the subsidiary level?

• Microfoundations of subsidiary managers’ agency

  • How do leadership coalitions, principal–agent tensions, and multi‑level accountability shape subsidiary strategy processes?

  • What leader attributes and internal political practices expand the subsidiary’s strategic space under bounded rationality?

• Context‑specific and cross‑cutting extensions

  • How does subsidiary strategy differ for emerging‑market MNEs, product divisions, national subsidiaries, or advanced‑technology clusters?

  • What explains resilience or decline of subsidiary strategic roles under turbulence?

The Guest Editors particularly commend the Perspective article by Andersson, Ryan, Giblin, and Gillmore (2025) as a reference point for the SI’s conceptual framing.

Guest editors

• Prof. Ulf Andersson, Mälardalen University, Sweden

• Assoc. Prof. Paul Ryan, Trinity Business School, University of Dublin, Ireland

• Assoc. Prof. Majella Giblin, University of Galway, Ireland

• Assoc. Prof. Edward Gillmore, University of Durham, United Kingdom

Submission details

• Submission platform: International Business Review via Editorial Manager:
  https://www.editorialmanager.com/IBR

• When submitting, select article type “VSI: Subsidiary Strategy”.

• Submission deadline: 30 September 2026

• All submissions will undergo double‑blind peer review under the journal’s standard procedures.

This special issue is ideal for international‑business, strategic‑management, and organisational‑theory scholars interested in re‑theorising subsidiary strategy as a dynamic, integrative process at the heart of the modern multinational.

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