The recent literature on corporate governance has focused mainly on ownership structure. Since the turn of the century, several researchers have studied this issue and examined it from a number of complementing and opposing angles. Indeed, many researchers have placed a significant amount of focus on the relationship between ownership structure and firm performance. However, there have been few systematic literature reviews addressing this issue. Therefore, this systematic literature review will bridge the existing research gaps on the ownership structure/firm performance relationship. We investigated the articles published between 2012 and 2021, focusing on the terms “ownership structure” and “performance” on the Scopus database. To prepare this systematic literature review, the PRISM framework and its suggestion with rigorous methodology were followed. From the Scopus database, 1750 articles from more than 150 publications registered in more than 30 sources were the subject of our initial bibliographic search. After the final crucial review of the PRISM framework, 60 articles were selected for further investigation. The Endnote software application organizes the uploaded articles before transferring them to MS Excel, NVivo10 software, and VOS viewer for a systematic literature review of the article’s components. It was inferred from the systematic literature review analysis that Malaysia, the USA, Taiwan, the UK, and Indonesia are the most prominent countries in this research domain. In addition, this study proposed a research model on ownership and firm performance. Finally, this will be considered as a contribution to the analysis of the scientific review of the literature on ownership structure and performance.