Purpose – Although it has been proved in the macro level, that institutional quality (IQ) has significant influence on a country's economic growth, international trading, resource allocation, development strategy and others, its direct influence on micro level, or firm level still remains ambiguous. In this article, the authors aim to focus on the influence of IQ of a company's original region on its financial performance. The authors choose H share companies as the sample and try to answer an interesting question that whether original region matters during the development of a company in abroad stock market. Design/methodology/approach – This article uses a panel data of 120 H share firms, each ranges from 2005 to 2009. First, the authors use sectional analysis by SPSS19.0 to test the correlations and primary relationship among variables. Then, the authors use ordinary linear square (OLS) regression model to test the hypotheses with cross-sectional to reveal the primary results. In the end, the authors use STATA 11.0 to test panel data to decide the final results. Findings – The authors concluded that private sector development and product market development have positive effects on corporate financial performance, while laws and regulations development have negative effect. Type of the first shareholder plays an important role partly between region IQ and corporate financial performance: to governance-CFP relationship, non-state shareholders perform better than state ones; to product market-CFP relationship, state shareholders perform better non-state ones. Practical implications – In practices perspective, this conclusion is also inspirative. This study has implications for executives, too, and should help them to better manage their ownership structure. The results suggest that managers should choose first shareholder with critical thinking. Another way, this study has implications for governments-company interactions. It suggests that governments should engage in building an institution with high quality, so that every company will benefit from it. Originality/value – This article is the first research on region-level relationship between IQ and corporate financial performance, which is consistent with the multi-level structure of institution concept. And the authors employ H share companies as the sample, which revealed more about the conflict between governance and market embedded in regional institution.
