Motivated for continuance? Associations between structural empowerment, role conflict, person-job fit, and satisfaction in Six Sigma programs

Abstract

Numerous companies embrace Six Sigma but few persistently implement it. Employee buy-in and self-motivated involvement with the program play key roles in consistent implementation. However, researchers have paid insufficient attention to understanding employee participation behaviour. This paper intends to investigate the relationships between structural empowerment (SE), role conflict (RC), person-job fit (PJF), satisfaction with Six Sigma use (SSSU), and employees’ continued use intention (CUI) of Six Sigma. Our hypotheses are based on the Expectation-Confirmation Theory (ECT). Structural equation modelling is used to analyse the degree of relationships between constructs. This modelling is conducted with AMOS 21.0 based on raw data collected from Chinese firms deploying Six Sigma. Results show that in a mandatory implementation context, employee satisfaction is critical for stimulating their CUI. Structural empowerment has positive effects on improving satisfaction while role conflict hinders improvement. In addition, this paper shows that RC has dual effects. While RC hinders employee satisfaction directly, it also provides a perception of PJF, which improves employee satisfaction. A void in the literature on employees’ Six Sigma CUI is also addressed. Furthermore, relationships among SE, RC, PJF, SSSU, and CUI based on ECT are clarified, and the dual effects of RC explored.

Keywords:

• continued use intention of Six Sigma
• structural empowerment
• role conflict
• satisfaction with Six Sigma use
• person-job fit

Additional information

Funding

This work is supported by National Key R & D program of China (grant number 2016QY02D0301), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (grant NO. 7161147003) and the National Social Science Fund of China (No. 17AGL002).