Firm performance: taxonomy of European companies using self-organizing maps

This paper conceptualizes firm performance as a multidimensional construct comprising personnel, work climate, operational, financial, and employment outcomes and provides robust empirical evidence for variation in performance across European companies according to six prototypical clusters, which are identified via the self-organizing map method. This taxonomy shows the ways in which outcomes for firms, employees and communities are linked and displays the possible misalignment that characterize them. Furthermore, this study investigates, through a multinomial logistic regression model, which human resource practices predict major differences in performance, while controlling for organizational contingencies and contextual variables. Analyses draw on the third European Company Survey, conducted in 2013 on a random sample of 27,160 establishments with ten or more employees in 32 countries.