Participation

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Another important finding supporting former Hedlund’s several studies is that the Nordic MNEs have a significant level of subsidiary autonomy. Hedlund (see, i.e., 1980 and 1986) argues it to be a cultural aspect as is expected on different Nordic MNEs in different industries. As against, Pisoni et al. (2010) and Garnier (1982) argue on a general level that the subsidiary independence to decide about the strategic questions is related to the environment and the maturity of the subsidiary.

However, this can be today criticised as there are many MNEs without a parent-daughter structure;

thus, geography is not the primary dimension to define an organisation. Therefore, the cultural influence could explain better the findings also in this study. The culture can impact, for example in the trust in the organisation. Thanetsunthorn and Wuthisatian (2019) argued in their study that national culture has a link with trust in the business organisation. They also argued that high individualism and high long-term orientation support the environment with trust among people. In contrast, countries with high power-distance and high uncertainty avoidance appear less exhibit of trust. According to the Hofstede insights country comparison, both Finland and Sweden are countries with high individualism and low power distance. Sweden also has relatively low uncertainty avoidance and a higher long-term orientation, which would indicate high support for trusting national culture. However, Finland does not seem to have a strong indication, but that could have at least a partial explanation. To conclude, the culture may have a role through trust why some companies, especially in some countries, tend to have more autonomous subsidiaries, and it may be explained by the level of trust in the country, at least partially.

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his case, companies the profit and loss responsibility fell for the subsidiaries or for the corporation.

However, as Hedlund described Swedish or moreover Nordic companies as very autonomic where the subsidiaries can work independently, it causes inconsistency. Nonetheless, Hedlund did not separate different types of strategic decisions, which is crucial for the results. The findings of this study reveal that the participation for corporate-level strategic decisions is still relatively small, but the business area and its lower organisational levels can decide from their own business relatively independently.

The business units and business lines seemed to be relatively satisfied with the current situation, which seems different from Hedlund’s findings. In my study, there were some wishes to increase the participation and especially to change the nature of it. However, the participants did not wish, for example, more involvement in the corporate level decisions, and they trusted that their voice is heard in the executive team through the head of the business area. The participant felt that they do not need to participate in that as there is the top management for that. Thus, it raises the question, what is the optimal level of participation? For example, the size, headcount, and legal ties do not enable each employee to be directly heard in the strategic decision because it would not be cost-efficient. Sometimes, the major strategic decisions such as mergers and acquisitions can not be discussed publicly, which often leads to the use of representatives such as executive teams.

However, reflecting on Hedlund’s 1980 study, the international subsidiaries did not seem very satisfied as there was not much participation in the strategic decisions. In addition, the opinion of the HQ side about participation has changed dramatically. Whereas in Hedlund’s study, the dominant opinion from the HQ side seemed to be that the subsidiaries should not be involved, and their main focus is to “sell like hell” (Hedlund, 1980, 26), in this study, the HQ was interested in the inclusivity and diversity of the decision-makers. The case company in my study seemed to value the insights that people who are closed to the customer would have about the business, and that perspective did not rise from Hedlund’s paper. Therefore, together with actual participation, the attitude towards the subsidiaries and their knowledge seems to have changed radically. One explanation could be the subsidiary maturity that Pisoni et al. (2010) described: through the years, the subsidiaries can have higher knowledge and understanding of the business. Perhaps presenting this knowledge, the subsidiaries or sub-units can have made the HQ understood the tacit knowledge that the subsidiaries hold. Mees-Buss et al. (2019) argue in their study that the MNEs evolve because the focus is on maximising global efficiency. Therefore the organisational structure

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and the decision-making power are divided to serve the efficiency. That may lead too that the decision-making power is not held in the HQ only because of formality.

The study's key finding responds to the question, “How do the international subsidiaries participate in the strategic decision-making in the MNE? are multifaceted. Participation is not only being a member of the making team. As was presented in chapter 4.7.2, the strategic decision-making process consists of many phases, and participation can happen in different ways in the different phases of the process. From the organisation's perspective, it is essential to understand that the stakeholders or subunits cannot always participate as they wish. As Hedlund (1980) argued in his paper, the HQ should initiate and encourage different individuals to participate as it is considered superior in the organisational hierarchy. The change starts from the HQ, and only after the subunits can they be more proactive. Thus, if a company wishes more involvement from the subsidiaries, it should initiate it from the corporate level.

As Elbanna (2006), Mintzberg et al. (1976) and Eisenhardt and Bourgeois (1988) presented, one important aspect of communication and participation in strategic decision-making is called politics. In this study, participants could not name it as politics but based on their descriptions of the information gathering and communication in the strategic decision-making, it can be undoubtedly called politics as described before in the literature. To this extent, it seems that the subsidiary participation both in the international and local context, especially in the phases of identification and information gathering, is politics. The people who create the need for the decision are choosing what kind of things they bring up. Also, whenever it is the matter of information gathering, the external stakeholders can choose subconsciously or consciously what they tell, highlight and suggest as in information and the choice. They can lobby some ideas or even hide some information if that could harm them. Thus, it seems that the participation of the subsidiaries and other sub-units is politics except if they are decision-makers by themselves.

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