Illustration
Business linkage

The profitability of any company rests on a complex chain of factors. Linkage analysis can be used to uncover interactions between these factors, and to quantify how they affect each other.

For example, the diagram below shows how the organisational climate in a sales company influences both customer orientation and employee engagement, both of which in turn influence sales. 

In this particular business, training has a strong effect (.65) on sales.

Customer orientation does not have much effect (.15). This may seem counter-intuitive, but is typical in companies where customer switching costs are high.