Abstract on the performance culture study

In cooperation with the Institute of Psychology of the University of Würzburg, as a master’s thesis with our former intern Jochen Schöpflin, SAAMAN AG conducted a study on the topic of “performance culture” between December 2015 and April 2016.

“Performance culture” refers to a performance-promoting corporate culture that is based on humanistic values on the one hand and has a performance orientation on the other. In order to define the content of the construct “performance culture”, a preliminary survey was carried out on prototypical ideas about it, through which the content aspects could be defined. A qualitative content analysis revealed the six aspects “Trust and Responsibility”, “Employee Orientation”, “Innovation Orientation”, “Constructive Cooperation”, “Success Orientation” and “Strategy and Expectation Clarity”.

As part of a second study, a questionnaire was constructed that contains these aspects and also records the financial success of a company. As part of an online survey, this questionnaire was tested on 230 people from different companies and the suitability with regard to the quality criteria was confirmed. It was possible to provide a comprehensive picture of the characteristics of performance-enhancing corporate culture in organizations and to consider performance culture also depending on the size of the company, economic sector and professional position of the respondents. “Performance culture and financial success of companies correlated significantly positively,” according to the result (r = .47).

The empirical results of the study have thus shown for the first time statistically that a performance-promoting orientation of the corporate culture (performance culture) is actually related to the economic success of a company.

The study can be found as an unpublished master’s thesis: Schöpflin, J. (2016). Performance-enhancing corporate culture. Design and testing of the performance culture test. Julius-Maximilians-Universität Würzburg.