No. Assess the applicant’s actual principal duties and authority after identifying the work others perform. Outsourcing is context rather than an automatic classification.
Examine the remaining role
A person can still perform substantial operating work even when some administration is contracted out. Explain real responsibilities without recasting every customer task as management.
L-1A managerial or executive capacity can rest on managing an essential function rather than supervising staff directly, but the function itself — not the title — must be primarily managed at a senior level, with decision-making authority over its goals and results. An affiliate relationship depends on the same person or entity owning and controlling both companies, so a venture split evenly with an unrelated American family usually fails unless a shareholders agreement or other instrument gives the Canadian side actual control. The regulation requires the foreign entity to be doing business, meaning the regular and systematic supply of goods or services, so the petition must show what is still running rather than pass over the closure in silence. The classification also requires one continuous year of qualifying employment with the organisation abroad within the three years preceding the filing, in a managerial, executive, or specialized-knowledge capacity, so a founder who ran the company informally still needs that period evidenced.