Although the empirical research with more than one subsidiary studies is not rare, how to design a high-level multiple studies research is still not clear. Based on knowledge creation perspective, a general framework including three patterns of multiple studies design was developed, including the parallel pattern, the sectional pattern, the serial pattern. Based on the framework, this paper analyzes typical 112 subsidiary studies from 39 articles published in 4 major international management journals. The results show that the serial pattern, the parallel pattern and the sectional pattern account for 33.33%, 23.08%, 12.82% respectively. Besides, the proportion of the hybrid pattern-combining more than one pattern is 30.77%. Moreover, we also give examples to introduce the subclasses of each pattern, and analyze the relationship of the subsidiary studies. Finally, by introducing the three patterns, this paper offers several implications on how to design the multiple studies for future research.