High-performance organisational assessment : a South African case study

A fundamental shift occurred in the global economy during the last three decades and even more so in the period since the 2008 financial crises. As a result of the advancing technology, national economies no longer self-contained entities protected from international competition by geographical distances, times zones, languages barriers, government regulations and culture or business systems. The effect of globalisation has further manifested in the global economic slow-down since 2008, where spending is constrained and consumers have become more discerning in their value considerations. The dual challenge of globalisation of competition and global economic slow-down is increasingly forcing businesses to do some introspection not only in terms of their cost structures, but also in terms of their value propositions in search of sustainable organisational success. Given the limited influence that businesses have over its external environment, an internal perspective is proposed where this problem is approached by means of a high-performance evaluation case study. The aim is to identify constraints that have resulted from more recent responses to market challenges and to establish which interventions to elevate in order to alleviate such constraints. It is proposed that if management and organisational practices that organisations employ in their daily functions affect the discretionary effort that employees contribute, then organisations should be able to gain insight into variations in organisational performance through evaluating and understanding these practices. This treatise focusses on organisational characteristics that drive high performance and propose interventions to enhance the environment for the development of a high performance culture within a single organisation. The research topic fell within the quantitative paradigm with data being collected through the use of a questionnaire. The results were analysed and interpreted to ascertain how current practice aligns with the theory. Recommendations are submitted within the context of the prevailing literature on the subject of high performance organisations and the related high performance characteristics of the organisation as based on the empirical dat