Developing a scale for measuring high performance partnerships

Abstract

Purpose

The importance of partnerships to organizational success has increased considerably the past decennia and many organizations strive at creating high-performance partnerships (HPPs). For this to happen, organizations in the partnerships have to be of high quality and their collaborations should be world-class. Whereas the factors that create high-performance organizations (HPO) are by now reasonably well established, the HPP factors are still unclear. The purpose of this paper is to develop a scale for measuring the factors of importance for creating and maintaining HPPs, and relates these factors to the factors of the HPO framework and to the success of the partnership.

Design/methodology/approach

During a literature study ten potential factors of importance for creating and maintaining HPPs were identified. These potential factors were put in a questionnaire, together with the factors that create the HPO and the factor that measures the success of the partnership. This questionnaire was administered to a cable company, which was working on becoming an HPO, and four of its main suppliers. The data were subjected to a factor analysis which yielded a HPP framework consisting of three factors and 19 underlying characteristics. In addition, these HPP factors were put in a regression analysis with the factors of the HPO framework and the success of the partnership factor.

Findings

The research results show a strong relationship between three HPP factors, the five HPO factors, and the success of a partnership factor.

Research limitations/implications

This research adds to the literature by extending the concept of HPOs to the value chain these HPOs operate in. Thus the research into the factors of successful partnerships has been brought forward. The practical benefit of the research is that organizations can use the HPP factors to increase the quality of the partnerships they have with their suppliers and customers.

Originality/value

There is much literature on partnerships but not so much on partnerships between organizations which strive to become a HPOs, and in the process need to create partnership of high quality.

Citation

de Waal, A., Goedegebuure, R. and Hinfelaar, E. (2015), "Developing a scale for measuring high performance partnerships", Journal of Strategy and Management, Vol. 8 No. 1, pp. 87-108. https://doi.org/10.1108/JSMA-07-2014-0065