Abstract: Nowadays, with the growth of investment, expansion of scale, deep-going of reform of higher education in China, measuring the performance of organizations in colleges and universities is an ever-growing phenomena and this has increasingly drawn close attention on the performance relevant issues. However, there are even no universal theoretical frameworks for performance management in colleges and universities accepted by most of the researchers, due to complexity of organizational missions, multiplicity of characteristics, and diversity of stakeholders. This paper takes a perspective of organizational structure, and “division and coordination” which often define the operational pattern and management characteristics of an organization according to the modern organizational theory. After a detailed discussion of division and coordination roles of Chinese colleges and universities, a theoretical framework for performance management based on the organizational configuration is developed for Chinese colleges and universities, using the basic procedures of the usual strategic performance management.

Key words: organization structure, performance management, colleges and universities