Influence of multinational companies’ organizational structure on parent company performance: based on empirical data of listed companies in China

It is a great interest of scholars and corporate managers that how to establish overseas subsidiaries and adopt an optimal organizational structure when a multinational company is in the process of internationalization. As a representative emerging market country, Chinese multinational corporations have their own specific characteristics in the management of overseas subsidiaries. This paper analyzes the impact of the international organization structure of Chinese multinational corporations on business performance. It defines the international organization structure of multinational corporations, analyzes the characteristics of different international organization structures. And it selects the data of the top 200 listed companies in China ranked by overseas income for empirical analysis. It is found that if the organizational structure of Chinese multinational corporations is more centralized, the performance of parent company's business performance will be better. And the accumulation of parent company's international experience will promote the impact of “centralized” organizational structure on performance. In the further research, it is found that technology-oriented internationalization and government holding are main reasons for the differences in the performance between Chinese multinationals and developed countries’ multinationals. So, Chinese enterprises could consider adopting a “centralized” organizational structure to managing overseas subsidiaries and continuously enrich their international experience for management.