Headquarters’ Roles and Interventions in Subsidiaries: A Systematic Review

Nowadays, parent companies play a strong role in the economy of countries. They are characterized by a portfolio of businesses managed and coordinated by a corporate headquarters (HQ). For success of a parent company, HQ should create value for whole firm. But the question is that which roles and interventions a HQ must do to create value-added. Thus, this paper aims to develop a theoretical framework of HQ’s roles and interventions, as well as of situational factors that affect these roles and interventions. This paper applied the systematic review; thus, 31 articles (from 1962 to 2017) associated with HQ and corporate strategy in two databases (EBSCO and WOS) were systematically analyzed. After examining the articles, 3 roles and 21 interventions for HQ were identified. Moreover, 2 groups of situational factors namely “business characteristics” and “HQ characteristics” which have significant impact on HQ’s roles and interventions were determined. All roles do not result in value-added. Sometimes HQ’s interventions prevent value destruction and occasionally destruct value in subsidiaries.