We study the particle production at high transverse momentum ($p_{\rm T} < 8$ GeV/c) in both pp and Pb-Pb collisions at the LHC energies. The $p_{\rm T}$ distributions of charged particles in pp collisions are know to obey the so-called $x_{\rm T}$-scaling which is a feature of pQCD hard processes. Therefore, the characterisation of the spectra is done using a power-law function and the resulting power-law exponent ($n$) is studied as a function of $x_{\rm T}$ for minimum-bias pp collisions at different $\sqrt{s}$. The function form of $n$ as a function of $x_{\rm T}$ exhibit an universal behavior. PYTHIA $8.212$ reproduces the scaling properties and therefore, it is used to study the multiplicity dependent particle production. Going from low to high multiplicities, the power-law exponent decreases. A similar behavior is also observed in heavy-ion collisions when one studies the centrality (multiplicity) dependent particle production. The values of the exponents in pp and Pb-Pb collisions are rather similar. These results suggest that the nature of high $p_{\rm T}$ particles in small and large systems could have the same origin. And therefore, for a correct interpretation of heavy-ion results in terms of the nuclear modification factor this similarity should be understood.