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When an organization becomes a high performance organization (HPO), it is able to outperform comparable organizations for an extended period of time, thereby ensuring its long-term survival. It is therefore imperative for these organizations embarking on an HPO transformation to be aware of the factors that will help make this transformation successful. Unfortunately the current literature does not provide these factors; one can only find factors influencing large-scale transformations. It could be argued that becoming an HPO is a large-scale transformation, but this leaves the question open whether there are specific factors that are important for this specific type of transformation.

The purpose of this paper is to answer the research question “What are the main factors which theoretically and in practice best support a successful HPO transformation?” This question was answered using the results of a review of the literature on large-scale transformations and a review on the applications of de Waal’s HPO Framework in practice.

Eleven theoretical and eight practical success factors were found. These factors matched for 63.6 per cent, indicating there is a moderate overlap between what the theory predicts and what can be noticed in practice. In addition, the practical cases indicated there are two success factors that are specifically important for an HPO transformation.

The study results contribute to the theory, as they show what is and is not important for a specific large-scale transformation such as an organization transforming into an HPO. The practical contribution of the study lies in the fact that organizations now know which factors to pay attention to in order to increase their chances on a successful HPO transformation.

The purpose of this paper is to answer the research question “Is the high-performance organization (HPO) Framework suitable for non-governmental private sector organizations, specifically the affiliates of international companies operating in the ICT sector in Egypt?”

The research concerns a replication study in which the HPO Questionnaire was used to collect data, and factor analysis was applied to evaluate the reliability and consistency of the HPO Framework. The research approach was the same as applied by de Waal et al. (2016), but this time the research population consisted of affiliates of international ICT companies, instead of local ICT companies as in the de Waal et al. (2016) study.

Data gathered by means of the HPO Questionnaire from managers of these affiliates were used to evaluate the reliability and internal consistency of the HPO Framework. The confirmatory factor analysis was done twice, once for the original 35-characteristic HPO Framework and once for the 26-characteristic HPO Framework as proposed by de Waal et al. (2016) for Egyptian local ICT companies. The study results clearly show the applicability of the original 35-characteristic HPO Framework for measuring the organizational strength and identifying performance-gaps of ICT companies that are affiliates of international organizations operating in Egypt.

This study adds to the growing HPO literature on developing countries and helps Egyptian ICT companies to adopt high-performance practices to be able to contribute more to the economic development of Egypt.

Many models for designing a high-performance organization (HPO) have been proposed in the past decades. However, not much information can be found in the extant literature on whether these models actually improve the results of an organization over time in a sustainable manner. The purpose of this paper is to evaluate whether de Waal’s (2012) HPO framework does help organizations increase their performance in a sustainable manner.

De Waal’s HPO framework was applied at Nader & Ebrahim S/O Hassan (NEH), a Philippine banana producer and exporter. In 2013, a first HPO diagnosis was conducted, in which the HPO status and possible improvements were identified. This application entailed conducting a questionnaire, holding interviews, and organizing a feedback workshop with management and employees. The aim was to identify possible improvements which the organization could implement in order to achieve high performance. Subsequently, NEH started to work on these improvements, and in 2015, a second diagnosis followed.

The second HPO diagnosis showed that both NEH’s HPO scores and organizational results had gone up considerably. The research results also showed which of the interventions, which NEH applied during working on the improvements, were most effective.

Virtually all of the HPO frameworks and models described in the literature have not been tested scientifically on their effectiveness. Thus, the research into the workings and effectiveness of de Waal’s framework belongs to an exclusive and limited set of longitudinal research studies which actually brings the study of effective performance models further.

Purpose: The study described in this paper develops an evaluation model aimed at investigating the relationships between knowledge management and objective and perceived organizational high performance. Design/methodology/approach: A comprehensive review of theory, research and practices on knowledge management and high performance develops a model that forms the basis of the study. The model was operationalised in financial institutions in Uganda, and was used as the basis to develop the hypotheses that are tested in the study. Findings: suggests that competitive advantage is a significant predictor of high performance and that the high performance organisation framework is a mediator of knowledge management and high performance. Originality: Among the few empirical studies relating knowledge management and its integration in financial institutions for achieving sustained competitive advantage and high performance. Limitations: The study used a small sample which limits the generalisation of the results. Practical implications: The results may provide a sound basis for making an analysis of KM behaviour and high performance in financial institutions.

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.

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.

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.

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.

In the past decades, there has been much research into ways organizations can become high-performing. Research into ways organizations can stay high-performing, especially in challenging times, is much less prevalent. The purpose of this study is to look at ways that high-performance organizations (HPOs) use in practice to stay high-performing.

The approach of this study consisted of a qualitative matching of the theoretical ways organizations can foster organizational grit – strengthen stamina and resilience of employees to keep achieving results and to persevere in the face of setbacks – with the empirical ways three case organizations in practice used to stay high-performing.

The literature review yielded 9 ways to foster organizational grit, while the empirical research provided 12 ways HPOs used to stay high-performing. What the literature highlighted was matched in such a way that these practical ways to stay high-performing can be understood as solutions/alternatives with which to foster grit in the organization in a practical manner.

HPOs are quite rare and being able to follow them closely for a prolonged period of time is even more unique. Therefore, this study can be seen as adding a unique piece to the puzzle of how to stay HPO and how organizational grit can be fostered and strengthened.

The purpose of this study is to help managers in their constant quest to create and implement new sources of competitive advantage and ways to achieve sustainable high performance to become a high performance organization (HPO) – defined as an organization that achieves financial and non-financial results that are exceedingly better than those of its peer group over a period of five years or more to by focusing in a disciplined way on issues of genuine importance to the organization. One way to become an HPO is by applying the HPO Framework, which has been validated in multiple countries and shown to indeed help organizations to improve their performance. However, a change approach for implementing the HPO Framework that is valid in different contexts has not been developed to date. Such an approach is important as change initiatives suffer from a high failure rate.

The goal of this research was to identify an appropriate change approach for implementing the HPO Framework. A theoretical framework for an HPO change initiative was constructed, which subsequently was tested at an organization undergoing a transformation to become an HPO.

The results show that the theoretical approach in practice was indeed useful at the case company. A continuous rate of change is needed to implement a corporate-wide change strategy that will enable the organization to constantly adapt to the demands of its business environment. The scale of the transformation differs for each HPO change initiative, depending on the results of the HPO diagnosis. Directly after the HPO diagnosis and at the beginning of the HPO transformation, a planned approach predominates; conversely, while maintaining the HPO, the emergent approach predominates.

This study is relevant by enabling managers to learn the essentials of a change approach for creating an HPO in the present-day business environment. Based on these essentials, managers can start to develop a change approach that is appropriate for creating their own HPO.

The theoretical relevance of this paper is that, although much literature exists concerning approaches for organizational change initiatives, no change approaches specifically designed for creating an HPO can be found in the literature. This paper provides such an approach.

The Dutch agricultural sector nowadays experiences many challenges. To deal with these, the sector has been interested in finding ways to improve performance. Mostly, the improvement research has concentrated in the areas of innovation of products and quality, supply chain management, cooperatives, entrepreneurship and human resources. However, hardly any research has been done into ways to strengthen the internal organisation, encompassing the quality of management, employees and processes and systems of the agriculture company. This paper aims to address this research gap by evaluating whether the high performance organisation (HPO) framework, a scientific validated analysis and improvement technique, can be used to help agricultural enterprises to strengthen their internal organisation.

The HPO Questionnaire was applied at four Dutch horticulture companies to evaluate their performance. Subsequently, at each company, interviews were held to obtain more information about the scores. Then, a workshop was organised with the management of all four companies to discuss the study results.

The workshop showed that the framework was suitable for the participating companies to start improving their organisations, as management of all four companies agreed that the analysis and recommendations, derived from analysing the questionnaire data and the interviews, were highly relevant to their business.

As there is no holistic organisational evaluation and improvement technique which looks specifically at the internal organisation of horticulture companies, available for the agricultural sector, the application of the HPO Framework in this sector is the first of its kind.

Nowadays, it is rare to find an organization that operates in isolation, without the need to partner with other organizations. Partnerships offer firms access to new technologies, markets, and knowledge. During the process of transforming into a high performance organization (HPO), an organization will eventually find itself operating within a bigger value chain. The purpose of this paper is to identify the factors and practices that can help Egyptian ICT companies to become better members in such a partnership, in a way that enables full benefit to be gained from the partnership.

The study used a questionnaire based on the high performance partnership (HPP) framework that has previously been validated in the Western and Asian contexts. The questionnaire was distributed to seven Egyptian ICT organizations who partnered with each other, after which a exploratory factor analysis (EFA) was performed on the collected data to identify the factors that influence the success of partnerships between Egyptian ICT companies.

The EFA showed that five (of the original ten) factors from the HPP Framework achieved a high reliability while 47 of the original 54 underlying characteristics applied in the Egyptian ICT context. In addition, these five HPP factors had strong positive relations with the success of the partnership as perceived by partners. Interestingly, the HPO scores of individual partners also had a positive effect on the perceived success of the partnership.

This study fills the lacuna that currently exists in empirical research about organizational performance practices in Egypt. The study also has practical implications, as management of Egyptian ICT companies are now able to undertake focused improvement actions to increase the success of the partnerships into which they enter.

Private telecommunication companies in Yemen face huge challenges to improve their competitive position. Many of them suffer from performance management systems (PMS) that are not aligned nor integrated and do not give adequate support. This research aims at identifying the current state and quality of PMS in Yemeni private telecom companies and developing recommendations that will assist in improving their performance and competitive position.

As research tools, the performance management analysis – used to measure the quality of a PMS – and the high performance organization (HPO) framework – used to measure the quality of an organization and thereby its ability to achieve sustainable high competitive performance – are applied at three Yemeni private telecom companies.

There is a considerable performance gap between the actual and the ideal PMS in the Yemeni private telecom companies; this performance gap is highly correlated with competitive performance in a negative relationship. Both the structural and behavioral dimensions’ performance gaps have a significant impact on competitive performance, with the impact of the behavioral dimensions being considerably higher than that of the structural dimensions.

The current academic literature on HPOs and PMS in Yemen is scarce. This study adds knowledge to these areas, and thus provides a basis for further study. This research results also help managers of the Yemeni private telecom companies to take strategic action to redesign and implement new and improved PMS to increase their competitive performance.