Cultural Influence on Lean Six Sigma Maturity Assessments

This paper explores the impact of national culture on the maturity of Lean Six Sigma (LSS) implementation in a large manufacturing company. This study compares LSS maturity assessments in teams from Singapore and the USA, which have different national cultures but similar working conditions. The study investigates the relationship between LSS maturity and business performance in different cultures using Fisher’s exact test. The results indicate that Singapore's LSS maturity scores have an effect on their business performance, while the data from the USA has no statistically significant relationship between LSS maturity and performance. The findings suggest that national culture is an important factor in the success of LSS implementation, highlighting the need for organisations to consider cultural differences when developing and implementing LSS strategies. The current findings are in opposition to several prior investigations that state the influence of national cultures on LSS to be negligible. In contrast, the present study's results are consistent with a multitude of research on Total Quality Management (TQM), which demonstrates that national culture indeed exerts a considerable impact on the process improvement framework. This research provides valuable insights for the manufacturing field, contributing to the growing body of knowledge on the influence of culture on process improvement initiatives.