A FRAMEWORK INCORPORATING ORGANIZATIONAL CULTURE MEASUREMENT IN SIX SIGMA IMPLEMENTATION

Marc Louis C. Perez Abstract: This paper investigates on the link between organizational culture and Six Sigma implementation. Given that a plethora of literature accounts for the fact that failures of Six Sigma implementation is attributable to the disregard of organizational culture, a framework incorporating the effect of organizational culture in the implementation of Six Sigma Projects and vice versa was developed. Moreover, an approach to quantitatively measure the organizational culture change brought about by Six Sigma implementation was proposed by making use of Hofstedes value survey module. Keywords: Six Sigma implementation, Organizational Culture, Value survey module

Introduction The atmosphere of fierce competition in the world of trade and industry has brought the concept of continuous improvement as a critical success factor to sustain business. In relation to this, several quality management practices (QMP) have been developed with the aim of improving business performance through achieving utmost quality of products or services that eventually leads to satisfying customers and hence have higher profitability. Moreover, this effort of furthering quality as a competitive edge has led to several QMP initiatives that continually evolve as the complexity of the organizations heightens (Pun and Jaggernath-Furlonge, 2007). Among the recent QMPs, Six Sigma has received colossal attention as an effective way of improving business effectiveness performance to meet or exceed customer needs and expectations through introducing a business philosophy that promotes a wellstructured continuous improvement methodology that is specifically addressed to reduce causes of variation, defects and errors (Antony and Baluenas, 2002; Evans and Lindsay, 2005) Nevertheless, not all organizations which implemented Six Sigma

harvested much positive business improvement as advertised. Several literatures have ascertained that one of the most common reasons as to why quality initiatives fail is the ignorance to consider the concept of organizational culture (SousaPoza et al, 2000; Pun and JaggernathFurlonge, 2007; Rad, 2006). Looking back at the pinnacle Total Quality Management (TQM) implementations, it had been estimated that only two-thirds of the western companies had been able to have successful implementation as compared to the huge success it gave to the Japanese companies (Sousa-Poza et al, 2000) and thus signals that there is something that must has been overlooked at. The over-emphasis on the hard issues of QMP (e.g. tools and techniques) and the disregard for the tacit factors have led to this failure. True enough, heaps of researches show that successful implementation of QMPs is dependent on having improvement strategies embedded in the organizational culture (Davison and AlShaghana, 2007).

Six Sigma and Organizational culture Six Sigma is famously known as a QMP or a business process improvement approach that seeks to reduce variation and to produce more consistent functionality or process output leading to better processes, elimination of defects and errors and eventually, make customers happier (Halliday, 2001; Evans and Lindsay, 2005). As mentioned, Six Sigma, much like the other quality initiatives such as TQM, ISO 9000 and Malcolm Baldridge Award embraces the same goal of driving companies towards process improvements and hence overwhelming financial benefits. Nevertheless Six Sigma is not just a new name of the other QMPs. According to literatures, Six Sigma has the following main distinct practices (Zu et al, 2010): Role Structure Structured Methodology (DMAIC) Focus on metrics

organizational culture with the ground philosophies of the QMPs attributed to the latters failure of implementation nevertheless, there are also studies articulating that QMPs are vehicle for organizational culture change. In a research done by Davison and Al-Shaghana (2007), comparison between some cultural dimensions of Six Sigma and non-Six Sigma organizations was carried out of which result shows slight differences in the different culture dimensions. Although there seems to be two contradicting ways of looking the relationship of organizational culture (Six Sigma affects organizational or the other way around), this study focuses on both views as seen in Figure 1.

A more holistic understanding of Six Sigma however, would lead to the concept of it as a management philosophy that introduces a new company culture and a way of life in an organization. Organizational culture is considered to be one of the most powerful forces in organizations - it refers to the pattern of basic assumptions and behavior of a given group that affects the performance and long-term effectiveness of organizations (Hamilton and Wines, 2009; Davison and Al-Shaghana, 2007). In line with this, several researches show that the concept of organizational culture is indeed associated with QMP implementation. It had been mentioned that the mismatch of

Figure 1. Relationship of Six Sigma with Organizational Culture

The bi-directional relationship shows that organizational culture affects Six Sigma implementation and in turn, Six Sigma implementation affects the culture of the organization as well, but not in the same manner. More particularly, research shows that organizational culture plays a manipulative role as to how the implementation of Six Sigma, or any QMP for this matter, will play out a critical success factor (Smith, 2003; Sadagopan et

al, 2005; Pun and Jaggernath-Furlonge, 2007; Tata and Prasad, 1998). On the other hand, Six Sigma is also perceived promote changes in the way people do their jobs in an organization specifically in the following organizational culture dimensions: Visionary Leadership, Teamwork, Participation, Communication, Innovative, Empowerment, Structured, Fact-based, Customer-driven, Metrics-focused (Davison and Al-Shaghana, 2007; Evans and Lindsay, 2005). A more detailed discussion on these two views are given in the next sections. Organizational culture as an antecedent of Six Sigma implementation Organizational culture as a predecessor of Six Sigma implementation implies that the former affects the effectiveness of the latter. In the case of TQM, Prajogo and McDermott (2005), explored this relationship and found out that culture is a soft factor of successful TQM implementation. Moreover, studies show that one of the roadblocks of successful Six Sigma implementation is the incompatibility of an organizations current culture to the practices of Six Sigma. Hence, it can be generalized that the approach of Six Sigma is not a one-size-fits-all thing; rather, the existing organizational culture is indeed critical to its success. In line with this, the study of Tata and Prasad (1998) concluded that people-oriented and flexible cultures are conducive to the success of QMP implementations. What this means is that in order for Six Sigma initiatives to flourish, the foundation should be a people-oriented type of management where teamwork and participation is being encouraged and that

the general attitude of the employees is that they are flexible and open to culture change. Therefore, an initial assessment to check the organizational culture must be done before Six Sigma implementations, this is in concurrence with the framework done by Tata and Prasad (1998) and Pun and Jaggernath-Furlonge (2007).
Organizational Culture Diagnosis

Determine match between organizational culture and Six Sigma Strategy

Culture Transformation

Figure 2. Organizational Culture Gap Analysis

Given this methodology, organizations may be able to apply organizational culture transformation to suit any Six Sigma initiatives they may wish to implement. Through Hofstedes cultural dimensions (2008) (e.g. Power Distance (large vs. small), Individualism vs. Collectivism, Masculinity vs. Femininity, Uncertainty Avoidance (strong vs. weak), Long- vs. Short-Term Orientation, Indulgence vs. Restraint, and Monumentalism vs. SelfEffacement), a quantitative cultural diagnosis may be done. More particularly, the ones suited for Six Sigma implementation, people-oriented and flexible type of organizational culture, correspond to low power distance and selfeffacement index.

Six Sigma as an organizational culture change vehicle Six Sigma is also viewed as a catalyst for creating a culture of continuous improvement and innovation, the successful implementation of Six Sigma brings forth a culture of quality and innovation (Craven et al, 2006). Moreover, Hayler and Nichols (2007) stated that Six Sigma changes the culture of an organization as its methods and tool become interwoven into their daily operations and thus creating a way of life which is gearing towards quality. Figure 3 illustrates the components that make up organizational culture, particularly Six Sigma practices (tools and philosophies.)

dimensions are mapped out with respect to the aforementioned practices.

Table 1 Organizational Culture Metrics

Six Sigma Distinct Practices

Organizational Culture Dimensions

Visionary Leadership, Teamwork, Communication, Participation, Empowerment Innovative

Hofstedes dimension
Power distance index Collectivism index

Six Sigma role structure

Six Sigma structured improvement procedures (DMAIC) Six Sigma focus on metrics

Structured

Uncertainty avoidance index

Fact-based, Customer-driven, Metrics-focused

Self-effacement

Six Sigma

Tools

Six Sigma implementation framework

Mindset

Organizational Culture

Industry and Market place

Education

Figure 3. Organizational culture as a result of Six Sigma implementation

Although there are plethora of researches claiming that Six Sigma brings forth organizational culture betterment over and above the financial benefits it can deliver, there has been sparse, if any literature which presents a way of quantitatively measuring this change. It is proposed in this study that the method of measuring the organizational change attributable to the implementation of Six Sigma can be derived by looking back at the distinct Six Sigma practices identified by Zu et al (2010). Given this, the relevant cultural dimensions and the corresponding Hofstedes cultural

Generally, the bi-directional relationship of Six Sigma implementation with organizational culture has brought two main concerns: (1) Determining the gap between organizational culture and Six Sigma Strategy (2) Quantitatively assessing the impact of Six Sigma on organizational change. Given this, a holistic approach of Six Sigma implementation is proposed (Figure 4). For the organizational culture assessment and re-assessment, the value survey module (VSM) of Hofstede (2008) will be utilized to quantitatively measure the relevant cultural dimensions through following the same computation as stated in the VSM manual. In addition however, other questions were adopted from Maull et al (2001) and some modifications were done on the

questionnaire to have a more accurately adapt to the viewpoint of Six Sigma implementation (See Appendix 1).

Conclusion and practical implication This study stitched two perspectives regarding the link between Six Sigma implementation and organizational culture, which are apparently in contradiction. In line with this, a bi-directional relationship was established expressing that the organizational culture affects the Six Sigma and vice versa, but in different manners. The claim that the organizational culture is a predecessor of Six Sigma implementation implies that the approach of Six Sigma is not a one-size-fits-all thing but rather, the existing organizational culture is indeed critical to its success. On the other hand, several literature concur with the notion that Six Sigma is a vehicle for organizational culture change but few, if any seeks to measure it quantitatively. A general framework was then introduced incorporating these issues brought about by these two viewpoints. The concept of incorporating organizational culture in the pre and post implementation stage will be crucial in realizing maximum benefits of Six Sigma initiatives, not only after the implementation, but in the long run as well.

Organizational Culture Assessment

Gap Analysis Power Distance index Self-effacement

Six Sigma Implementation Organizational Structure Structured methodology (DMAIC) Focus on metrics

Culture Transformation Visionary Leadership Teamwork Participation Communication Empowerment Innovative Structured Fact-based Customer-driven

Organizational Culture Re-assessment

Figure 4. Six Sigma Implementation Framework

References

Antony, J. and Banuelas, R. (2002), Key ingredients for the effective implementation of Six Sigma program. Measuring Business Excellence, 6(4), 20-27. Craven, E., Clark, J., Cramer, M., Corwin, S., & Cooper, M.R. (2006). New York - presbyterian hospital uses Six Sigma to build a culture of quality and innovation. Journal of Organizational Excellence, 11-19 Davison, L., & Al-Shaghana, K. (2007). The link between Six Sigma and quality culture an empirical study. Total Quality Management, 18(3), 249265. Evans, R. & Lindsay, W. (2005). An introduction to six sigma & process improvement. Ohio, USA: Thomson South Western Halliday, S. (2001). So what exactly is . . . Six Sigma?. Works Management, 54(1), 15. Hayler, R., & Nichols, M. (2007). Six Sigma for financial services. New York, NY: McGrawHill. Hofstede, G. (1991) Cultures and organizations: Software of the mind. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill. Hofstede, G., Hofstede, G. J., Minkov, M., & Vinken, H. (2008). Values survey module 2008 manual. Retrieved on September 2, 2010, from www.geerthofstede.nl Lagrosen, S. (2003). Exploring the impact of culture on quality management. International Journal of Quality and Reliability Management, 20(4), 473-487. Low, J. & Kalafut, P. C. (2002). Invisible advantage how intangibles are driving business performance. Cambridge MA: Perseus Publising. Maull, R., Brown, P., & Cliffe, R. (2001). Organisational culture and quality improvement. International Journal of Operations & Production Management, 21(3), 302-326. Prajogo, D. I. and McDermott, C. M. (2005). The Relationship between total quality management practices and organizational culture. International Journal of Operations & Production Management, 25(11), 1101-1122. Pun, K. F., & Jaggernath-Furlonge, S. (2007). Exploring culture dimensions and enablers in quality management practices : some findings. The Asian Journal on Quality, 10 (2), 57-76. Rad, A. M. M. (2006). The impact of organizational culture on the successful implementation of TQM. The TQM Magazine, 18(6), 606-625.

Sadagopan, P., Devadasan, S. & Goyal, S. (2005). Three Six Sigma transitions and organisational preparedness exercise todays imperatives for tomorrows success. International Journal of Six Sigma and Competitive Advantage, 1(2), 134-150. Smith, M. (2003). Changing an organisations culture; correlates of success and failure. Leadership and Organisational Development Journal, 24(5), 249-261. Sousa-Poza, A., Nystrom, H., & Wiebe, H. (2001). A cross-functional study of the differing effects of corporate culture in three countries. International Journal of Quality and Reliability Management, 18(7), 744-761. Tata, J. and Prasad, S. (1998). Cultural and structural constraints on total quality management implementation. Total Quality Management, 9(8), 703-710. Wines, W., & Hamilton J. B. (2009). On changing organizational cultures by injecting new ideologies: the power of stories. Journal of Business Ethics, 89, 433447 Zu, X., Robbins, T., & Fredendall, L. (2010). Mapping the critical links between organizational culture and TQM/Six Sigma practices. International Journal of Production Economics, 123, 86-106

Appendix 1. Organizational culture assessment questionnaire

Power Distance Index:

1. How often, in your experience, are subordinates afraid to contradict their boss? 1 = never 2 = seldom 4 = sometimes 4 = usually 5 = always 2. How important it is to you to be consulted by your boss in decisions involving your work? 1 = of utmost importance 2 = very important 3 = of moderate importance 4 = of little importance 5 = of very little or no importance **For the next two questions (3 & 4), Please read through these descriptions first. Manager a: Usually makes his/her decisions promptly and communicates them to his/her subordinates clearly and firmly. He/she expects them to carry out the decisions loyally and without raising difficulties. Manager b: Usually makes his/her decisions promptly, but, before going ahead, tries to explain them fully to his/her subordinates. He/she gives them the reasons for the decisions and answers whatever questions they may have. Manager c: Usually consults with his/her subordinates before he/she reaches his/her decisions. He/she listens to their advice, considers it, and then announces his/her decision. He/she then expects all to work loyally to implement it whether or not it is in accordance with the advice they gave. Manager d: Usually calls a meeting of his/her subordinates when there is an important decision to be made. He/she puts the problem before the group and invites discussion. He/she accepts the majority viewpoint as the decision.

3. Now, of the above types of managers, please mark the one which you would prefer to work under (circle one answer only): 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. Manager a Manager b Manager c Manager d None

4. To which one of the above four types of managers would you say your own superior most closely corresponds? 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. Manager a Manager b Manager c Manager d He/she does not correspond closely to any of them

Collectivism Index:
In the following questions, please shade the circle corresponding to your choice based on the legend given below: 1strongly disagree 2disagree 3 neutral 4agree 5strongly agree
1 2 3 4 5

5.

I am comfortable asking for feedback from other employees (e.g team member).

6. In a team, I feel that I can rely on each other to get the job done. 7. Team members are encouraged to share their feelings, regardless of whether they are positive or negative. 8. If there is conflict among employees, it is handled in a straightforward and constructive manner.

Uncertainty Avoidance Index:

In the following questions, please shade the circle corresponding to your choice based on the legend given below: 1never 2seldom 3 sometimes 4usually 5always
1 2 3 4 5

9. I evaluate my performance as an employee 10. Whenever I perform a task, I make sure that there is a coherent plan for achieving the organizations vision 11. I am generally aware of the way work flow proceeds around the organization.

Self-effacement:
In the following questions, please shade the circle corresponding to your choice based on the legend given below: 1strongly disagree 2disagree 3 neutral 4agree 5strongly agree
1 2 3 4 5

12. I am open to new methods and ways of doing regardless of what is required of me, as long as its for the betterment of the organization. 13. If Im stuck doing the same task, I tend to learn ways on how to do it better. 14. I welcome new ideas even if it is not of my interest. 15. I like to work in an organized and coherent manner