How Being Healthy Helps to Get More: Evidence of Large-scale Start-ups

It is stated that the main challenge of companies is not technology, it is organizational culture. Organizational culture is the glue that keeps a company together; it determines both the overall performance and the implementation of ideas. Organizational health (OH) is a modern phenomenon with roots in organizational culture. The corporate world of start-ups is characterized by fierce competition, where being healthy is a necessary precondition to achieving long-term success. A qualitative multiple-case study of three Estonian large-scale start-up companies (with a valuation of over USD 90 million) is used to discover how OH influences employees’ performance. Altogether, 11 interviews were carried out. The results of the content and cross-case analysis revealed that the healthy organization sub-factors of leadership and work environment most likely influence employees’ performance, while accountability, motivation, and external orientation are the OH factors that seldom influence employees’ performance.