The Legitimacy of subsidiary issue selling:
balancing positive & negative attention from corporate headquarters
Conroy, Kieran M. and Collings, David G.ORCID: 0000-0003-1252-7080
(2016)
The Legitimacy of subsidiary issue selling:
balancing positive & negative attention from corporate headquarters.
Journal of World Business, 54
(1).
pp. 612-627.
ISSN 1090-9516
We consider how in issue selling, subsidiaries draw on different forms of legitimacy to attract
corporate headquarters’ (CHQ) positive attention and minimise negative CHQ attention.
Through case study evidence, we find that directing CHQ attention to subsidiary issues needs
to be executed as a balancing act through forms of subsidiary legitimacy, namely; the personal
legitimacy of key individuals at the subsidiary; consequential legitimacy vis-à-vis peer
subsidiaries; and linkage legitimacy in the local environment. We develop a typology of
subsidiary issue-selling roles and illustrate how negative CHQ attention results from a failure
to legitimise issue selling