Financial Consequences in Foreign Subsidiary Manager Performance Evaluations

This explorative study contributes to the limited body of knowledge on the financial impacts of using multiple forms of controls in managerial performance evaluations. The study explores (1) how short-term profitability is affected by headquarters' emphasis on financial, nonfinancial and selected behavioral controls in the performance evaluation of overseas subsidiary managers, and (2) whether the effects of such evaluations vary with perceived environmental changes. Documentary and survey data for a sample of multinational companies headquartered in Finland propose that the emphasis of financial controls by top management improves short-term profitability more than an emphasis on nonfinancial or behavioral controls. Simultaneous emphasis of all three types of controls does not significantly increase short-term profitability over an emphasis on financial controls, because the positive effect of behavioral controls is mostly offset by a negative effect of nonfinancial controls. Perceived environmental changes appear to moderate the relationship between the headquarters' emphasis on nonfinancial controls and short-term profitability. These findings imply that in the short-term and regardless of the environmental contingencies analyzed, financial controls are more effective than nonfinancial or behavioral controls in improving profitability, but packages comprising financial and behavioral (action accountability) controls in particular can improve short-term profitability even more.