Developing a Comprehensive Model of Performance using a Multi-Level Approach

The importance of performance management is obvious; however, there is not a comprehensive model that describes the concept of performance and variables and the relation between these variables in individual, team and organizational level. This study aims at developing a comprehensive model of organizational performance using multilevel approach.  This is a developmental study based on research objective and was conducted using exploratory strategy and qualitative method. After studying more than one thousand scientific documents including articles and books, the comprehensive model of performance were developed.
Research Based on multilevel approach, the single-level model of individual, team and organizational performance were developed. Then, the cross-level models were developed. Finally, the comprehensive model of organizational performance using multilevel approach was developed.
Practical Consequences: Identifying performance variables and explaining the relationships between them in a comprehensive way helps organizations to consider the impact of these variables on different levels of individual, group and organizational performance management system, and increase its effectiveness. Performance is a multilevel phenomena and conventional theorizing approach, which studies performance in micro or macro level, can not analyzes this phenomena since it can not consider top-down and bottom-up effect of interested phenomena. As a result, errors accurse due to simplification of organizational phenomena. Multilevel approach enables the researchers and managers to see organizational phenomena as a multilevel subject and to analyze the effect of phenomenon in the higher level and also the influence of higher level factors at the phenomenon. Therefor, it can decrees or alleviate the gap between theory and practice. The paper, while pointing out how to use multilevel theory, helps to develop existing performance models of management knowledge at three levels: individual, group, and organizational, and with the approach of the single-level, cross-level, and multilevel approaches.