What Do We Know About Corporate Headquarters? A Review, Integration, and Research Agenda

Abstract

During the past five decades, scholars have studied the corporate headquarters (CHQ) – the multidivisional firm’s central organizational unit. The purpose of this article is to review the diverse and fragmented literature on the CHQ and to identify the variables of interest, the dominant relationships, and the contributions. We integrate, for the first time, the existing knowledge of the CHQ into an organizing framework. Based on a synthesis of the literature, we identify major shortcomings and gaps, and present an agenda for future research that contributes to our understanding of the CHQ and the multidivisional firm.

Keywords: Corporate headquarters, corporate parent, corporate center, corporate strategy, multidivisional firm, multibusiness firm, multinational corporation