The purpose of this paper is to examine how headquarters’ managers perceive – cultural, administrative, geographic and economic (CAGE) – distance between countries and its influence on the strategy of international subsidiaries.,This study applies the transaction cost and behavioural theory and presents an exploratory and qualitative methodology approach through six semi-structured in-depth interviews to evaluate managers’ perceptions of distance between countries.,The research findings show that cultural and economic distances indeed have a major influence on subsidiary strategy and a smaller impact of administrative and geographic dimensions, which results into forced changes on the marketing-mix, i.e. product, price, design and brand, as well as on the level of autonomy granted to foreign subsidiaries.,The limitation is related to the home country and the entry mode of foreign direct investment. The findings presented here reflect the nature and behaviour of Portuguese companies with subsidiaries.,The research provides recommendations for managers to be aware of the influence of more than one dimension of distance between countries to improve their decision-making of standardisation-adaptation strategy for foreign subsidiaries. Furthermore, the study stresses that managers’ perceptions may lead to the conclusion that proximity and knowledge of foreign markets does not make international business easier.,This empirical research not only tests the transaction cost theory and behavioural theory on managers’ decisions to invest abroad but also promotes organisational changes to achieve the suitable strategy for international subsidiaries. The study contributes to the area of international business by positing six research propositions concerning distance between countries to be tested in future studies.

中文翻译：

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子公司战略和管理者对与国外市场的距离的看法

限制与母国和外国直接投资的进入方式有关。此处提出的发现反映了葡萄牙设有子公司的公司的性质和行为。该研究为管理人员提供建议，使他们意识到国家间距离的一个以上维度的影响，以改善其针对外国公司的标准化适应战略的决策。子公司。此外，研究强调，管理者的看法可能会得出结论，即外国市场的亲近性和知识并不能使国际业务变得更容易。这一实证研究不仅测试了交易成本理论和行为理论对管理者进行海外投资的决定，而且还促进组织变革，以实现适合国际子公司的战略。