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Autonomy Within Business Groups: A Meso Perspective for Evaluating Intra-group Interlocks (IgI) and Internal Flows
Simone Ambroselli
Pages - 110 - 130     |    Revised - 30-11-2022     |    Published - 31-12-2022
Volume - 13   Issue - 3    |    Publication Date - December 2022  Table of Contents
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KEYWORDS
Business Groups, Firm Autonomy, IgI, Internal Flows, Conceptual Study.
ABSTRACT
This conceptual paper aims to contribute to the stream of research on autonomy within business group proposing a new perspective by switching the level of analysis from the subsidiaries to an intermediate level based on subsets of firms belonging to the same group. Literature findings concerning two devices for control and coordination of business groups, Intra-Group Interlocks (IgI) and internal flows, have been reviewed to find the concepts have been applied to offer an improvement in understanding the concept of autonomy for affiliated-group firms. Within the subsidiary-management literature, internal flows have been greatly used by scholars as one of the main determinants able to explain the autonomy of the subsidiaries. Less attention has been devoted to the IgI phenomenon even if some interesting findings concerning corporate group governance research on the degree of separation between management and control in holding-subsidiaries relationships can be integrated and adapted offering new theoretical lenses on the concept of autonomy. Considering business groups with more subsidiaries engaged in different activities, the paper offers two propositions able to reveal previously unaddressed aspects of the autonomy within business groups and new hints for further research in this area.
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Mr. Simone Ambroselli
Istat, Italian National Institute of Statistics, Rome, 00184 - Italy
simamb74@gmail.com


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