Abstract: Many scholars at home and aboard conduct large amount of researches on the relationship between corporation governance and firm performance; however, the research involving the relationship between corporation governance and sales performance is rather rare. The whole sales performance is regarded as a multi-dimension construct, including profit rate of sales, growth rate of sales, and the rate of expenses to sales. The effects of governance structures on the whole sales performance are empirically studied using data from listed IT industry during the economic crisis period. Some new conclusions are found as follows: firstly, the general manager who is concurrently held by the chairman of the board is positively related to the whole sales performance, profit rate of sales, and growth rate of sales. Secondly, the ratio of holding stock by large stakeholders is negatively related to the rate of expenses to sales. The above conclusions disclose that the market is able to automatically moderate the conflicts between the board of directors and managers in the context of the shrinking economies, and it provides the enlightment for the IT companies to improve internal governance of corporations.

Key words: characteristics of board, ownership structure, executive compensation, whole sales performance