Organizational readiness to change to lean manufacturing among manufacturing small and medium enterprises: Mediating effect of customer relations

Effective lean deployment among manufacturing small and medium enterprises has been hampered due to the absence of an integrated readiness model to assess organizational readiness for change. Hence, the study assesses readiness for lean within manufacturing SMEs by examining the mediating role of customer relations on Lean readiness factors, i.e., organizational culture, leadership/top management, employee relations, planning & control and process management, and organizational readiness for change to lean. The study was conducted empirically by distributing four hundred and fourteen questionnaires to manufacturing SMEs' owners/managers in Nigeria. Responses were examined via partial least square structured equation modelling using SMARTPLS3.2. The findings revealed that Customer relations mediate the relationship between leadership top management, organizational culture, process management, planning & control on organizational readiness for change (change efficacy and change commitment). However, Customer relations do not mediate employee relations and organizational readiness for change (change efficacy and change commitment). The study is unique because it examines the indirect effect of customer relations on organizational readiness to mitigate implementation failure.