Diagnosing Maltese Organisations Using the High Performance Organisation Framework

Abstract

Malta’s introduction into the EU increased the competition in the country considerably and local companies as well as foreign subsidiaries have been forced to keep up with international quality standards in operations and human resources, with mixed results. As a consequence, Maltese organisations have been looking for a holistic improvement technique. In this article we investigate whether the High Performance Organisation (HPO) Framework, a scientifically validated technique to evaluate the performance of an organisation and identify possible performance problems and improvement possibilities, is a useful technique to help Maltese organisations in this respect. The research was conducted as part of a 2-day managerial course in Malta on HPOs. Before the course started, the participants were asked to complete the internet-based HPO questionnaire on their own organisation. During the course, the HPO scores of Maltese organisations, consisting of the average of the participants’ scores, were reviewed and an in-depth analysis of the scores on the HPO factors and their characteristics was made. Attention areas were identified and draft recommendations were drawn up. The content of the HPO Action Plan was discussed and ways to approach an HPO transition in Maltese organisations were reviewed. Theoretically, the research contributes to the HPO literature as it is the first study using the HPO Framework in Malta. Practically, the research results provide Maltese managers with a technique to improve their organisations considerably and make them more competitive.