HPO Factors per Branch
The HPO study shows that there is a direct and positive correlation between the five HPO factors and the organizational result. Organizations that pay more attention to the five HPO factors logically not only score better on these five factors but also achieve better results than their colleague organizations, irrespective of the branch, industry or country they are in. Vice versa it also applies that the organizations that score low on the five factors belong to the worst performing organizations in their branch. The difference between HPOs and non-HPOs is best visible with factor 3, the long-term orientation. HPOs devote significantly more attention to all the characteristics of this factor.
Closer analysis shows that the five HPO factors are greatly linked to each other. This means that if an organization works on one of the factors, the others will also improve due to this. Nevertheless, the five factors are not a general recipe for all organizations. There can be substantial differences. For example, for-profit organizations must work on all five aspects at the same time, while in the non-profit sector an initial focus on three specific factors is important for improvement: high quality of management, openness and action orientation and long-term orientation. There are also differences per industry: the order in which the factors are important can differ. For example, in the financial services industry the high quality of management is of primary importance, thereafter comes long-term orientation, then continuous improvement and renewal and finally the high quality of employees. In the healthcare industry another order prevails: there the emphasis is first placed on continuous improvement and renewal followed by high quality of management. It is therefore important for management to know which factors are the most important for the specific branch before an organization embarks on the path of becoming an HPO.