Factors of high performance in Portugal

Abstract

Purpose Ever since Portugal joined the European Union, Portuguese organisations have been struggling with both the challenges of new competitors flooding in from other European countries and taking advantage of the opportunities the new enlarged integrated market offered them. This is because Portuguese companies have in general low average rates of productivity growth while they lack techniques to improve not only these rates but also overall organisational performance. The purpose of this paper is to discuss whether the high-performance organisation (HPO) framework, a holistic improvement technique developed on the basis of worldwide data, is valid for the Portuguese context and therefore can support Portuguese organisations in their efforts to achieve better performance. Design/methodology/approach Managers in Portuguese organisations, which were found in the Spain balance sheet analysis system database, were approached to fill in the HPO questionnaire on their company. In total, data was received from 163 organisations. This data was subsequently statistically analysed using a confirmatory factor analysis. Findings The study shows that the 35 items of the HPO framework are valid for the participating Portuguese organisations and as such form a reliable HPO framework for these organisations. Thus, the HPO framework can be reliably applied at Portuguese organisations to evaluate their current level of organisational performance and to propose recommendations to improve performance. Originality/value This research study fills the gap of the currently rather limited literature on the application of holistic and effective improvement techniques in Portugal, and as such future researchers can use the framework to conduct a more in-depth study of performance gains in the Portuguese context. Portuguese managers now have at their disposal a holistic improvement technique validated for their context, so they can use the HPO framework with confidence to start improving their own organisations.

How to stay high-performing: developing organizational grit

“…The objective of developing the HPO framework was to identify, in a holistic manner, the factors that affect the sustainable high performance of an organization and to incorporate these in a framework, which could be used by organizations in an uncomplicated way to evaluate and improve themselves (Santos and de Waal, 2020). The research was conducted in two phases (de Waal, 2012a(de Waal, , 2012b.…”

“…With a statistical analysis, 35 characteristics with both a significant and a strong positive relation with organizational performance were extracted, identified and categorized into five factors. These factors have, since 2007, been validated for many countries, based on data collected worldwide from more than 55,000 respondents from profit, non-profit and governmental organizations (Santos and de Waal, 2020). It is important to note that, in essence, the HPO factors remain unchanged regardless of the type of organization being diagnosed, the type of industry involved or the country in which the organization is based.…”