Regional head quarter’s dual agency role:
micro-political strategies of alignment and self interest
Conroy, Kieran M., Collings, David G.ORCID: 0000-0003-1252-7080 and Clancy, Johanna
(2017)
Regional head quarter’s dual agency role:
micro-political strategies of alignment and self interest.
British Journal Of Management, 28
(3).
pp. 390-406.
ISSN 1045-3172
Increased research focus on the networked perspective of the MNE reflects a greater
delegation of responsibility from corporate headquarters (CHQ) to subsidiary and
intermediary units such as regional headquarters (RHQ). This shift has increased the intensity
of political interactions between key actors within the MNE. Despite the recent rise in studies
on the micro-political perspective of the MNE, to date little empirical work has explored this
issue in the context of the CHQ-RHQ relationship. Drawing insights from agency theory and
micro-politics, we focus on the context in which RHQs develop micro-political strategies in
order to manage the flow and exchange of knowledge with CHQ. We show how RHQ may
exhibit a ‘dual agency’ role when dealing with CHQ, in that it is characterised as a principal
and agent, each requiring different micro-political knowledge strategies. As a principal, RHQ
will develop micro-political knowledge strategies to increase alignment with CHQ. As an
agent, RHQ develops micro-political knowledge strategies to pursue its own self-interests.
Having identified different RHQ agency roles, we develop a conceptual model that outlines
how alignment and self-interest seeking behaviours from RHQ manifest through different
micro-political knowledge strategies in its agency relationship with CHQ.