Characterization and Examination of Operational Excellence Deployment Failures: Mediation Effect of Technical and Behavioral Failure Factors

There is a continuing interest in exploring the impact of operational excellence (OE) on operational performance. Several OE practices such as Lean, Agile, and Six Sigma are well recognized. However, not all OE deployments in firms have been successful, and a failure of such efforts has often been expensive. Past research reveals several critical failure factors (CFFs) that lead to OE deployment failures in firms. We present these CFFs as an integrated model, based on two dominant schools of OE that promote technical and behavioral factors independently. Further, we validate their direct and mediating relationships through an empirical examination of 663 responses collected from 153 manufacturing units across the USA, U.K., China, and India. This article contributes to the OE body of knowledge by examining the significant direct and mediating effects of behavioral and technical CFFs on the OE failures. Our findings reveal that the technical CFFs mediate the impact of behavioral CFFs on OE failures. Consequently, several managerial and theoretical implications are presented.