AN EMPIRICAL INVESTIGATION OF LEAN SIX SIGMA TECHNOLOGY ACCEPTANCE AMONG MALAYSIAN SMALL MEDIUM ENTERPRISE

Abstract

Lean Six Sigma (LSS) existence and application has increasingly been viewed and applied as an essential quality improvement for organizational competitiveness and success. Unfortunately, the existing literatures on LSS has not been explored in Small Medium Enterprise (SME) adequately. Thus, this research aims to investigate the levels of acceptance among Malaysian SME towards LSS technology using Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) by quantitative methods. There are four variables have been studied which are perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, attitude and behavioral intention where each variables have total up 31 items to be study in terms of relationship towards LSS deployment and adoption. Survey questionnaires of 351 respondents from manufacturing SME organization were analyzed using Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS). All data underwent traditional reliability and validity test using Cronbach's alpha and factor analysis. Multiple regression analysis had indicated that there are significant relationship of all TAM's four variables in acceptance of LSS among manufacturing SME in Malaysia and all research hypothesis was correlated between each other's. The multiple case and single unit case study results also shown that most of variables had significant agreement between respondents and no difference findings between companies. In addition, a newly designed conceptual framework of TAM in LSS acceptance among SME in Malaysia was developed to identify potential improvement area in LSS.