Multinational corporations (MNCs) are proactive, entrepreneurial, and decentralized organizations. They seek to incorporate and leverage knowledge from their foreign subsidiaries. Initiatives in which subsidiaries pursue new business opportunities are one way that subsidiaries contribute to MNCs' knowledge stocks, but prior research suggests that few subsidiary initiatives secure headquarters approval. We argue that the extent to which initiatives are accepted by the headquarters of an MNC depends on a range of relational and contextual conditions that configure in complex ways. Using a neoconfigurational approach, we identify five equifinal configurations associated with the acceptance of subsidiary initiatives. We advance theory of subsidiary management by uncovering how subsidiary activities gain traction within the MNC.

跨国公司 (MNC) 是积极主动、具有创业精神和去中心化的组织。他们寻求吸收和利用其外国子公司的知识。子公司寻求新商机的举措是子公司为跨国公司的知识储备做出贡献的一种方式，但先前的研究表明，很少有子公司举措能够获得总部的批准。我们认为，跨国公司总部接受倡议的程度取决于以复杂方式配置的一系列关系和背景条件。使用新配置方法，我们确定了与接受附属计划相关的五个等最终配置。我们通过揭示子公司活动如何在跨国公司内获得牵引力来推进子公司管理理论。