A QCA Crisp set study in matching Cross Managerial Alignment with ERP implementation outcome, leading or misleading subsidiary-innovations

Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA) is the most important methodological innovation in management and social science in the last two decades (Fiss et al., 2016). This paper attempts to use this innovative research method to study innovation in a Parent-Subsidiary ERP implementation project. A Crisp set QCA study is used to study 18 company-wide system projects in subsidiaries of a Multinational Enterprise (MNE). The generic applications of the innovation projects enabled the study to have a common denominator to gauge the innovation resulting in a variance of planned and actual completion dates. Although the data collected was from a completed projects log, the study took a subsidiary-innovation approach to measure the managerial alignments and the possible application of agency theory. Keywords: Subsidiary innovation, Parent-Subsidiary relations, Agency theory