Globalization of the Multinational enterprises and the disaggregation of the R&D value chain has pushed forward the importance of research on subsidiary innovation from micro processes i.e., activities of subsidiary managers. By building on MNE middle managers framework and its line of research (e.g., Dutton & Ashford, 1993; Dutton, Ashford, O'Neill, Hayes & Wierba, 1997; Delany, 2000; Dutton, Ashford, O'Neill & Lawrence, 2001; Boyett & Currie, 2004; Wooldrige, Schmid & Floyd, 2008; O'Brien, 2014; O'Brien, Scott, Andersson, Ambos, & Fu, 2019), this project put the "subsidiary managers" box under magnifier and investigates how exogenous change of R&D mandate gain affects subsidiary innovation via change in subsidiary managers activities. We test this on data collected from 98 Swedish subsidiaries dispersed globally. The results of the T-test and the multiple regression show that there is no difference in the change of subsidiary managers activities due to the degree of the newness of the gained R&D mandate. Secondly, results indicate that subsidiary managers facilities innovation through external activities with local counterparts while internal activities of subsidiary managers toward sister subsidiaries hinder the innovation. Our findings challenge the value of upward activities after gaining an R&D mandate since this direction of activity was insignificant.