The authors make a contribution by empirically proving the central tenet of fit of organizational information processing theory (OIPT).

The authors introduce the profile deviation methodology in the context of international management.

The results show that foreign companies in China face different levels of information processing requirements.

Each level requires another combination of information processing capacities.

The results confirm that a fit between information processing requirements and information processing capacities of companies is required to achieve higher performance in China.

The study proposes an alternative way to measure the strategic quality of companies.