2020-12-032020-01-010123-5923WOS;000576375500006SCOPUS;2-s2.0-85092666662http://hdl.handle.net/10784/24637Multi-business firms are managed from headquarters to generate new value and to reduce costs. Possibly, the scarcity of information in the academic literature on the operation of headquarters is due to the difficulty of access to companies. Therefore, this text proposes an analytical framework on the roles of headquarters that integrates academic and consultant literature. This framework is contrasted with the results of a qualitative research of 21 Colombian multi-business firms, oriented by the question: What are the roles played by the headquarters of a multi-business firm? The findings complement the literature on roles of headquarters as it integrates the functions, control types and autonomy degree, and it questions the typology presented. © 2020 Universidad ICESI. Published by Universidad Icesi, Colombia. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).spahttps://v2.sherpa.ac.uk/id/publication/issn/0123-5923info:eu-repo/semantics/articleColombiaHeadquarterHeadquarter functionsHeadquarter rolesMulti-business firms2020-12-03Rivas-Montoya L.M.Londoño-Correa D.10.18046/j.estger.2020.156.3678