Subsidiary Initiatives in International Research and Development: a Survival Analysis

My dissertation examines why subsidiary initiatives differ with respect to their probability of survival and identifies initiative-related factors which cause this difference. I conduct this examination within the context of the global research and development (R&D) organisation of a multinational company (MNC). My research therefore intends to answer the research question: What determines the probability of survival of an initiative sent by a foreign R&D subsidiary? The findings show that initiative survival is positively influenced by social and geographical closeness of the sending R&D subsidiary to headquarters, by the initiative's alignment with the firm's core areas of activity, and by the manager's past success record, i.e. the number of already recognised initiatives sent by that manager. Moreover, initiatives that propose exploitative innovation are more likely to survive than initiatives that propose exploratory innovation. However, inter-subsidiary collaboration is found to have no significant influence on initiative survival. Finally, I discuss the implications of these findings for theory development and management practice.