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Multinational Enterprise Parent-Foreign Subsidiary Governance, Bassam Elias Farah

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

This dissertation investigates how a multinational enterprise’s (MNE) corporate headquarters governs its foreign subsidiaries. It draws on agency theory, prospect theory, and corporate governance literatures to develop a framework that describes select MNE parent-foreign subsidiary governance mechanisms expected to predict foreign subsidiary performance, measured as foreign subsidiary survival and profitability.

To test this framework, I first conducted a pilot Canadian study. It was followed by the main multi-country study. The Canadian study used mixed methods. It analyzed quantitative data, compiled from different sources, and qualitative data, collected through personal interviews with subsidiary managers. The main multi-country study used survival analysis …