Organizing for Global Competitiveness: The Corporate Headquarters Design

How should you organize corporate headquarters to compete successfully around the world? This survey shows how 89 organizations do it.

Document Highlights

This report analyzes the role and the organization of the corporate headquarters activity in large multinational corporations. A survey of 89 North American and European-based firms provides detailed information on corporate practices. The survey data is complemented and enriched by corporate profiles of the headquarter operations of five leading multinationals. Additional analyses include assessing the performance of a corporate headquarters, the relationship between the role of a headquarters and a firm’s stages of evolution, and discussion of the most important external and internal influences that impact corporate headquarters design.