Although some managers see themselves (or others) as having considerable autonomy to drive outcomes, the general feeling within GlobeCo is that the autonomy of the individual is clearly bounded. That is there are issues where they can act reasonably autonomously and others where this is not possible.
Frequently, managers expressed the view that had autonomy only in part of their role – that is that they believed that there were certain issues where they have autonomy. This is
reflected in comments such as “in this role I have some freedom”. Another commented:
“Do I have much autonomy there? Yes and no, and I think I'm still trying to find
where the line is… So, like, actually I have, as long as I make the right call I have loads of autonomy! [Laughing.] Does that make sense?”
However, the boundaries within which managers are working are neither pre-defined or stable. Rather, they evolve depending upon performance, experience and others understanding. One manager talked of his experience in a role taking responsibility for the Programme Management Office (PMO):
“When you first take over the role and … the PMO was shit.... Did I have a huge amount of autonomy? No not really – I had to check a lot of stuff with [the VP Finance] and get stuff done and actually Theo was a real pain in the backside… But
when, once it was operating [well], I had huge autonomy in that space. You know, to define what I want to do, how I want to deliver it, all those kind of things… Now to a certain extent that's trust because we've fixed it.”
While these illustrations reflect boundaries imposed in the relationship between the Director and his boss, respondents more broadly reflected upon the multiplicity of constraints that provided the ‘framework’ within which they had freedom to act:
“What is power? In a way we talk about freedom within a framework. So I know there are certain things which I can't do, so that might be authorisation limits as to individual items of spend that I can authorise, that I can't authorise. Obviously, total budget control is an issue. Staff recruitment, there is a limit to how many people I
Power and Coordination in the Multinational Company Page | 155 can recruit in which country. But on the other hand, it's my choice who I recruit in any area. I don't have anyone else looking immediately over my shoulder. Choices that we make within a framework are mine, and I feel quite comfortable with that.”
While the ‘boundaries’ that give ‘freedom within a framework’ may be formally defined, they
may also be much more informal. The Chief Executive of one high performing subsidiary talked about how his team are empowered, and referred to the importance of them knowing the boundaries within which they could operate –which he referred to as ‘guard-rails’:
“A key thing to unleash the power of our organisation is if the people have a feeling
that what they do matters, and they have the power to … actually end up doing it
and they actually just execute it… They just did it, because they have the autonomy, they know what we want to do, they know what the 'guard-rails' are, and they have the autonomy and they feel empowered to actually do it.”
Furthermore, taken-for-granted cultural understandings provide significant boundaries upon managers’ ability to act alone. Indeed, Tim, the Service Line Director who talked above about having ‘control’ went on to say:
“At the same time in the work I do you cannot ignore the local stakeholder
management. If I fit out a new office in X, I can't ignore the Chairman of X and I can't
ignore the SVP Finance and HR of X because they are key stakeholders”
Indeed, this sense that others who are affected by your actions have some legitimate right to be involved in the process and restrict your autonomy seems all pervasive within GlobeCo. Indeed, one VP commented that:
“Even though we might be inserted in decision rights, it is more to make sure that we are coordinating and driving, as opposed to just autonomously making the decisions that we think make the most sense, because we always have to align back
with that business.”
There may be no formal requirement or rule that restricts this VP in his autonomy, rather it is through a shared sense of understanding within GlobeCo that means that his team must “align” with the business.
As such, this section highlights that despite the interdependent nature of GlobeCo, there are many situations where individuals believe that they, and others, can act with autonomy – and can control outcomes through the deployment of key resources and the enactment of others.
Power and Coordination in the Multinational Company Page | 156 However, there are clear boundaries to this – limiting the apparent autonomy to certain issues.
Such boundaries may be formally expressed through GlobeCo’s processes and structures, but
as importantly, also seem to be the product of shared understandings of where others need to be involved within the decision process.