Corporate Parenting 1) explain what Corporate Parenting is? 2) Using examples, explain what Corporate Parenting is? How can Corporate Parents add value? 3) what are the different styles of Corporate Parenting?

1)      Corporate parenting is a term commonly in use to represent the responsibility of corporate management and council to care about the rights and responsibilities of employees and elected members of an organization. The corporate parent is delegated authority and power regarding some special responsibilities, therefore, they are the most responsible groups of people in an organization. The term parent is used for them because they play the role of parent and caretaker while to whom they care to play the role of children and young people. Corporate parenting, employees are given residential care. Corporate parents look after them and take care of their basic rights and requirements in the organization to make the organizational environment supportive for their growth and creativity. Corporate parenting is highly important in our dynamic business world. Employees discuss their issues and problems linked with specific job responsibilities and duties with their corporate parents to find out the right suggestions for the solution of these problems.  Because of corporate parenting employees and subordinates feel the confidence that they would be able to overcome barriers with the support of their corporate parents. Thus, conclusively it can be said that corporate parenting is a social work which is performed by corporate managers and corporate parents.   

2)      Corporate parenting is about taking care of subordinates. Corporate parenting encourages the relationship between employees and supervisors (or managers of the company). For instance, when organizational management develops a strategy for some specific groups of employees and that strategy goes against their benefits. In such a situation, the member employees of that specific groups visit corporate parents to get their suggestion regarding the problem they are facing. Good corporate parenting causes to support employees to resolve their issues concerning with workplace conflicts and cultural diversity. While on the other hand, bad corporate parenting system in an organization causes to increase issues for business unit managers regarding decision making. Thus the whole organizational system can be rotten. Take the example of corporate parenting system in Microsoft. When Skype was bought by the Microsoft Inc. the parent company set out the examples of good parenting by supporting employees of the subsidiary company. Respectively, Microsoft saw Skype as a valuable resource that can be used to replace Windows Live Messenger. Thus, as a result of this acquisition, their all weaknesses and limitations were turned into their strength and power in the targeted operational market.   

3)      Corporate parenting has several styles which are enlisted and discussed in detail here.  

Strategic planning style: In strategic planning style corporate parents pay attention to integration and communication-related issues. The corporate parent also deals with strategies developed for the business units of a subsidiary company. Strategic planning style of corporate parenting is adopted by Cadbury Schweppes.      

Financial Control Style: In this financial control style corporate parents work for the issues related to diversity and risk-averse. Corporate parents give importance to the internal growth of the parent company after the acquisition of the subsidiary. A fine example of financial control style following organization is Marconi (GEC).    

Strategic Control Style: In this style of corporate parenting, corporate parents play a different role as compared to the other above discussed corporate parenting styles. In this style corporate parent take the support of strategic decisions to ensure care for the children or subordinates.

Exploitative Corporate Parenting Style:  In this style, corporate parents use pools of resources to squeezes value from the acquired company.

Neglectful Corporate Parenting Style: In this style subsidiary companies does not require additional resources from the corporate parents. Similarly, parents also do not expect such requirements from the subsidiary.