Parallel-meso and Process Owner Organizational Structures Relationship to Implementation of Six Sigma Quality Management Programs

Previous studies have indicated the organizational structure adopted by senior management affected the Six Sigma quality management program implementation; however research had not confirmed if either the parallel-meso structure or the process owner structure contributed to implementation failure. The purpose of the quantitative methodology and correlational design was to provide statistically tested, empirical data regarding the relationship between parallel-meso, and process owner organizational structures used by management teams, based on cost minimization, and customer satisfaction. A survey was electronically administered to a convenience population of 32 certified Six Sigma Green and Black Belt LinkedIn members over the age of 18 from the American Society for Quality group, through Survey Monkey web-based service. Regression analysis was used to test the relationship of the two predictor variables parallel-meso structure and process owner structure to Six Sigma implementations. The process owner structure predictor variable had an impact on the Six Sigma quality management implementations with a p-value of 0, whereas the parallel-meso structure with a p-value of .085 did not. The results in this survey indicated the parallel-meso did not necessarily impact the Six Sigma quality management implementations, but the process owner organizational structure negatively influenced the Six Sigma quality management implementations with a lower mean and median value. The combination of implementations structures, cost minimization, customer satisfaction, and Six Sigma quality management implementation programs were not significant based on the Kruskal-Wallis one-way analysis of the variance p-values being greater than .05. The Man-Whitney U test confirmed with a high p-value of .7127 there were no differences in the implementation goals of cost minimization or customer satisfaction. The findings in this study indicated the Six Sigma quality management implementations were more successful using the parallel-meso organizational structure. Future research on the process owner organizational structure variable and customer satisfaction variable could provide insights on why the parallel-meso organizational structure and customer satisfaction were perceived better than the process owner structure and customer satisfaction. This could lead to an improvement in process owner Six Sigma quality management implementations.