Measuring Lean Economic Sustainability: A Scale Development Study

บทคัดย่อ

Lean Economic Sustainability is one of the most prominent concepts in the lean and sustainability areas of study. Indeed, previous research has indicated the positive impacts of lean practice on firm performance. Additionally, studies have shown the critical role of economic sustainability on firm’s sustainability performance. Despite the growing body of literature on these concepts, the measurement of lean economic sustainability is still lacking. Thus, the purpose of this study is to provide an original, valid, and reliable measure of lean economic sustainability focusing on the production process in the manufacturing firms. Based on established literature on lean and economic sustainability, a scale measurement was developed through a systematic scale development process. Data was collected from 406 automotive industry employees in Multinational Companies (MNCs), Thailand. Exploratory factor analysis was conducted to determine the underlying factorial structure of the scale. The results of the analysis provided a two-dimensional structure of lean economic sustainability, including physical productivity and product quality. The developed scale was tested and validated through confirmatory factor analysis. The implications of the findings and suggestions for future research are discussed