Characteristics of High Performance Organizations

The recent economic downturn has caused tremendous upheaval in the business world. It has spurred many companies to self‐analysis and further organisational improvement. As a result, there is an increasing interest into the factors that determine sustainable organisational success. Managers all over the world are trying out various improvement concepts, seeing mixed results. One likely reason for this is the lack of consensus on the organisational characteristics that lead to high performance. Another reason may be that research into high performance is predominantly conducted in US companies, making it seem less relevant to management practice outside the North American continent. The research study described in this article aimed at identifying the factors which have a positive relation with organisational performance, through a literature review of 290 research studies into high performance and subsequent testing in 1470 organisations worldwide. The research yielded 35 characteristics – grouped into five factors – that have a significant correlation with high performance and seem to be generic for all types of organisations, industries and countries.