Overcoming the Liability of Outsidership—The Challenge of HQ of the Global Firm

We conceptualize the global firm as being a loosely coupled network of far-flung subsidiaries with hierarchically acting headquarters (HQ) that design a global organization to ensure support of its global strategic agenda. We argue that the process of HQ management in the global firm is a process characterized by uncertainty. Drawing on the Uppsala model for managing under uncertainty, we suggest that the source of uncertainty is a liability of...