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The ability of an organisation’s headquarters (HQ) to bring value to and manage a globally dispersed multinational enterprise has been questioned in the existing literature. The purpose of this paper is to suggest that HQ-subsidiary distance is an important factor that affects such ability; this report also investigates the impact of distance on the HQ’s network management capabilities in the context of a global organisation’s evolution.

In this study, a single company was chosen to take part in a retrospective, longitudinal case study that highlighted two embedded product cases. The concept of distance was viewed as a variety of distance dimensions existing between the HQ and its subsidiaries.

The results indicated that distance impacted the effectiveness of the HQ’s network management capabilities by affecting HQ-subsidiary interaction and, consequently, shaping HQ’s knowledgeability about the subsidiaries’ operations. Moreover, the results suggested that the impact of such distance may shift from positive to negative over the course of a global organisation’s evolution.

Although this study was explorative, some generalisability to industrial-goods companies of Scandinavian origin that have transferred activities to their owned subsidiaries may be expected. Further replication of the study using multiple case companies across various industries and countries is desirable.

This work extends the understanding of technological distance, sheds light on the conditions necessary for the HQ of a globally networked organisation to engage in value creation in the context of its evolution and contributes to the overall appreciation of distance as a factor that comprises multiple dimensions.

The purpose of this paper is to advance the understanding of factors that affect offshoring performance results. To do so, this paper focuses on the access to location-specific advantages, rather than solely on the properties of the offshoring company, its strategy or environment. Assuming that different levels of synergy may exist between particular offshoring strategic decisions (choosing offshore outsourcing or captive offshoring and the type of function) and different offshoring advantages, this work advocates that the actual fact of realization of certain offshoring advantages (getting or not getting access to them) is a more reliable predictor of offshoring success.

A set of hypotheses derived from the extant literature is tested on the data from a quantitative survey of 1,143 Scandinavian firms.

The paper demonstrates that different governance modes and types of offshored function indeed provide different levels of access to different types of location-specific offshoring advantages. This difference may help to explain the ambiguity of offshoring initiatives performance results.

Limitations of the work include using only the offshoring strategy elements and only their limited variety as factors potentially influencing access to offshoring advantages. Also, the findings are limited to Scandinavian companies.

The paper introduces a new concept of access, which can help to more reliably predict performance outcomes of offshoring initiatives. Recommendations are also provided to practitioners dealing with offshoring initiatives.