Today indeed MNEs are relying on the knowledge of many countries around the globe. Considering this, many MNEs fine-slice their value chain even R&D activities and send them across different subsidiaries [1, 2]. Although international R&D is not a new phenomenon [3] but interestingly, there is little evidence on how R&D mandate gain of the subsidiary increases the likelihood of subsidiary innovation. In this study, we explain the strategic boundary spanning activities of subsidiary’s managers ex-post gaining an R&D mandate on strategic learning of the subsidiary to explain the effects of these activities and capability enhancements on the subsidiary’s innovation. This research contributes to the existing literature by studying the effects of subsidiary managers’ different activities on subsidiary innovation. Additionally, this study enables the HQs’ executives to foresee the innovation potential of a subsidiary and at the same time gives the subsidiary’s managers, the ability to maximize innovations by designing an appropriate strategy within their internal and external environments during the change period.