The ownership record. A qualifying relationship between the two entities is the threshold condition, and no description of managerial duties can substitute for it.
Relationship, then year, then duties
Petitions built the wrong way around spend months on the job description and then fail on the corporate structure. The sequence that matches the law puts the relationship first: parent, branch, subsidiary or affiliate, evidenced by share registers, articles or partnership agreements rather than by a chart. Second comes the qualifying year, which is proved by payroll and employment records covering one continuous year abroad within the three preceding years.
Only then does the character of the U.S. role matter, and there the question is whether the work is primarily managerial or executive as it will actually be performed. Family businesses with several related companies often discover at the first step that the entity employing the transferee is not the entity that owns the U.S.
venture, which is a solvable problem but only if it is found early.