1. Introduction

Implementing Lean into manufacturing within Small and Medium sized Enterprises (SMEs) within Saudi Arabia faces difficulties (Karim et al., 2011). Organizational Culture (OC) is one of the most important factors to focus on to facilitate the implementation of Lean within Saudi Arabian manufacturing (Karim and Arif-Uz-Zaman, 2013). Moreover, the culture of an organisation plays a vital role for managers facing the challenge to change that culture (Graham-jones and Muhareb, 2015). It is necessary to have a feasible Lean framework to assist SMEs to successfully implement Lean (Pingyu and Yu, 2010). In addition, the main challenge faced SMEs in KSA was changing OC and peoples’ mind-set (Alkhoraif, 2016, Albliwi et al., 2017, Alkhoraif and Mclaughlin, 2017). Studies have shown that many researchers are in agreement that an Organizational culture which does not support Lean is a large reason for the failure of successful Lean Implementation (Munene, 1995, MacDuffie and Helper, 1997, Dixon, 1999, Brown et al., 2000, Womack and Jones, 2003, Schonberger, 2007). For the purpose of this paper SMEs refer to organisations with fewer than 250 employees where European Commission definition adopted (European Commission, 2011) Saudi Arabian government as part of its vision from now to the year 2030, to improve and find quality solutions for SMEs. The objective of these manufacturing firms is to develop, be competitive and to increase its contributions of the Gross Domestic Products (GDP) from 20% to 60% (Government, 2015). In addition, the intention is to increase the private sectors GDP contributions from 40% to 65% by raising the share of non-oil exports from 16% to 50% (ibid). It is important to clarify that the GDP of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) was estimated at Saudi Riyal (SR) 608 billion in 2015–2016 ($ 162.133 billion) (Finance, 2015). The exploring and gauging will be designed for SMEs, but it will be built at a generic scale to suit other cases as well. The article should have as few size constraints as possible, and to create it there will be a need to discover as many inhibiting factors as possible. These inhibiting factors, and indeed those factors that encourage this behaviour can be graphically displayed and tabulated, allowing deeper analysis of each, to find its roots and, where necessary, remove it from the company culture (Hietschold et al., 2014) . In addition to that, many factors explain why this research was conceived:

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  The success of Lean implementation will not just be based on applications, tools and techniques, but also on the top managements’ involvement, leadership and Organizational culture (Jadhav et al., 2014).

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  Culture is the key factor to making the changes for Lean implementation (Pakdil and Leonard, 2015).

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  Lack of research regarding the critical factor of Organizational culture related to Lean implementation (Pakdil and Leonard, 2015).

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  Lack of knowledge and difficulties in implementing Lean in the Middle Eastern and Gulf countries, but also and increasing concern of Lean implementation in SMEs (Al-najem, 2014)

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  Focusing on sustaining Lean Implementation is much more demanding than cost reduction (Gupta et al., 2016).

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  There is a clear dearth in research of Lean implementation for SMEs in developing countries (Hu et al., 2015)

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  Organizational culture is the key challenge faced in KSA manufacturing sector (Albliwi et al., 2017).

The aim of this paper is to explore and evaluate Lean Implementation into small and medium enterprise manufacturing organisations in Saudi Arabia by leveraging aspects of Organizational Culture. The objectives of this paper are:

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  To investigate, via a field study, the Organizational culture enablers and inhibitors for Lean in Saudi Arabian SMEs in the manufacturing sector.

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  To explore an Organizational culture that influences Lean implementation within Saudi Arabian manufacturing SMEs

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  To develop themes of an Organizational culture that facilitate Lean implementation within Saudi Arabian manufacturing SMEs.

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  To validate the process of exploring and gauging the aspects and themes.

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  To develop questionnaire to gauge the current idea position Lean implementation.

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  To develop a culture ideal position that manufacturing SMEs should aspire to the most effective Lean Implementation.

The research question is formulated as “What aspects of Organizational Culture facilitate Lean Implementation in manufacturing small and medium enterprises and how can these aspects be leveraged to improve Lean Implementation?” the research question is broken down into the following sub-questions:

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  What are the Organizational Culture enablers and inhibitors to Lean Implementation in small and medium sized manufacturing firms?

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  How can these aspects be created?

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  What are the perceptions of SME employees and their extant position of the company’s culture for encouraging Lean Implementation in KSA?

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  What are the ideal positions where the manufacturing SMEs should be maintain?

Contribution to the knowledge, academic contribution, evaluation of causes of failure of implementing Lean Philosophy in SMEs in Saudi Arabia, identifying the OC aspects for SMEs in Saudi Arabia to implement Lean philosophy and filling the literature gap in LI for SMEs where regions of developing countries are considered. Practitioner contribution: Introduction to an ideal position of an implementation plan framework of cultural aspects that facilitate LI within SMEs in Saudi Arabia and the practical application of this research output is expanded to have significant financial input to the SMEs performance in the region.

2. Literature review

3. Methodology

Qualitative research is confirmed to be useful for uncovering such insider views (Corbin and Strauss, 1990). The research will be based on qualitative and grounded theory inside action research with and an inductive approach. Action research tends to be used for prompting conscious change within a somewhat controlled environment (Collis and Hussey, 1938). In this approach the participants and the researchers collaborate on a problem to find a solution (Coghlan and Brannick, 2014). This is an inquiry mode generally utilised to help solve organizational issues by dealing with those experiencing the problems (Ibrahim, 2013). Some main weaknesses associated with action research is the assumption that the behaviour of a person is only able to be changed by testing them and moreover, it tends to require set timelines and is usually expensive to conduct over the full research period (Fisher, 2007). Grounded theory is a research methodology which aims to create a theory from data which has been systematically researched and analysed (Strauss, 1987). This methodology was founded originally by Glaser and Strauss (1967). According to Golden-Biddle and Locke (2007). grounded theory has been the most vastly utilised qualitative methodology in social science research. Its popularity can be attributed to; firstly, its suitability for developing new theory or new insights form old theory. Secondly, it generates theory which stems from what the research participants consider important. Finally, it is able to expose micro-management processes in complex situations and environments (Locke, 2001). Goulding (1998) suggests grounded theory is particularly useful for making new discoveries thus its usefulness for theory generation. Furthermore, Locke, 2001, Goulding, 2005 also consider grounded theory as useful where there is a clear lack of integrated theory in an area of literature. The main feature of this approach is to develop categories which highlight the data and develop the categories to create a framework (Silverman, 2006). Due to the nature of the topic requiring the exploration of culture it is beneficial to utilize qualitative research. An inductive approach enables the researchers to become fully engaged within the research environment thus improving the understanding of the culture being studied, facilitating a more insider’s view of the culture (Walker and Myrick, 2006). Furthermore, it is important to note that most methodologies require extensive literature reviews to inform the research and identify the research question as most research methodology is conducted with a deductive approach (Dick, 2006). In contrast, grounded theory being inductive ends with a theory as opposed to beginning with a hypothesis and instead is used as a method for reviewing literature (Trochim and Donnelly, 2001). Hence why research questions and hypotheses are made redundant in grounded theory so, literature is generally used as a comparator (Dick, 2006).

From the interviews, all the results will constantly be compared to the information found in the literature review. During the coding, the process becomes more structures to validate relationships within the data and finally during themes, the agenda becomes more deliberate in order integrate the findings within the categories to achieve data saturation (Corbin and Strauss, 2008). Data saturation refers to the stage when the data collected in the research is now redundant (Bogdan and Biklen, 2007). This is necessary to ensure enough data has been collected to reflect the perspectives of the research participants (Kolb, 2012).

Data analysis in qualitative research deals with words, and the meanings implied by them (Miles and Huberman, 1994). The analysis of the information gathered is done by context analysis and discovering categories and their interrelationships. The program utilised for this is NVIVO software for coding. The tool generally employed to study culture consist of; semi structured or in-depth interviews, observation, literature review and focus groups. Focus groups are another tool for revealing cultural assumptions and according to Schein, “because the group provides the stimulus to bring out what is ordinarily hidden”(Schein, 1985). The main premise of the focus group for this research is that the participants will name the categories and provide the data for under each category. Thus, it will fully reflect the ideas and perceptions of what is important to the employees. Interviews are open ended questions gaining in-depth responses about people’s experiences, perceptions, opinions and feelings and knowledge (Taylor, 2005). In depth interviews/unstructured interviews are often utilised to help expose culturally based values (Patton, 2014). The key here is, the researchers should not introduce cultural values, but instead using open ended questions and the insider’s language, they evoke responses revealing the aspects of everyday life in that cultural setting (Creswell, 2013). It is important for the researchers to be conscious of their own biases and influences in the information gathering process (Patton, 2014). It is important however, for the assisting analysts to also understand the research setting from an insider’s perspective (Sackmann, 1991). For this research semi structures interviews, will also be utilised. The advantage with semi structures interviews is that it ensures certain topics are covered making it more comparable and reliable qualitative information (Patton, 2014).

In order to obtain a better understanding of the nature of (OCs) within SMEs in manufacturing industry this study will focus on three main criteria; firstly, to expose the implied components of culture from an insider’s perspective. Secondly, to be mindful of structural aspects of the culture for example sub cultures (Babbie, 2015). Thirdly, to facilitate comparisons to be made among individuals and research settings (Birkinshaw et al., 2011). The use of this criteria has enabled an issue focused interview style which is founded upon the phenomenological orientation leading to successive comparison (Birkinshaw et al., 2011). In addition; these focus groups and observations are utilised to provide triangulation of results. Issue focussed investigation allows for the fulfilment of the above criteria. Due to the nature of culture being omnipresent, this makes it difficult for people to often reflect and describe when asked a question about it directly (Dey, 1999). Therefore, in order to draw this out it often requires a response to stimulus requiring respondents to interpret something, which is naturally done according to their own cultural basis as opposed to that of the researcher (Sackmann, 1991). Furthermore, and issue focus investigation is particularly suitable because, by presenting them with a stimulus with a specific context, the respondents then tend to access the same library of knowledge already existing in their minds (Sackmann, 1991). This helps to uncover the framework about a specific issue. This then enables comparisons of the interpretations to uncover individual opinions from cultural beliefs which are common among the group (Willis et al., 2007). Issue focussed investigation needs to be conducted cleverly to ensure the participants do not realise the issue is under investigation (Sackmann, 1991).

The phenomenological orientation has its focus on the insider’s perspective and their beliefs and concepts, ideas of the (OC) and life within it. It places emphasis on the insider’s view of what is considered important and relevant within that setting (Goulding, 2005). The researchers will put aside their own assumption so these do not interfere or influence the respondent’s answers. The emphasis is to allow the respondents to gradually unravel their own experiences. In order for the researchers to avoid making judgments based on their own beliefs, these should firstly be made clear (Annells, 1996). The interview procedure in phenomenological orientation is close in style to an in depth or intense interview. This usually consists of a longer introduction and a period of becoming better acquainted. This also gives the researcher the chance to gently introduce the subject of the discussion (Srubar, 1998). The aspects which are brought up by the respondent are the points which are then delved into with more detail. In doing so, the researcher is better able to explore together with the respondent and identify the cognitive frameworks which come up (Bryant, 2009). This process of an established dialogue also enables the researcher to check they have understood the respondent’s point of view correctly. This can be done by the researcher mentally answering the question in their head before the respondent has a chance to check their own accuracy (Goulding, 2005). This type of research requires not only flexibility but a rapport to have been well established between the researcher and the respondent because for in depth issues to come to light the interviewee needs to feel comfortable, safe and that a mutual trust exists (Goulding, 2005).

4. Data sampling

The data sample for the participating companies in this main study has been provided in Table 1. The target organisations which the researchers conduct was steel, electric, oil, paper, packaging and construction industries, which are in Saudi Arabia as shown in Fig. 1. The main study was conducted between November 2016 and February 2017. The sampling has been selected based on the experiences of the employees of the organisations mentioned.

Table 1. SMEs data sample.

No.	Industry	Position	Organisation Size
1	Steel manufacturing	Private	Medium
2	Electric manufacturing	Private	Medium
3	Oil manufacturing	Private	Medium
4	Paper manufacturing	Private	Small
5	Packaging manufacturing	Private	Small
6	Construction manufacturing	Private	Small

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Fig. 1. Result of OC scoring sheet.

5. Data collection (stage one)

This highlights for the main research to explore and gauging the organizational culture aspects that encourages the success of LI among SMEs in Saudi Arabia. Therefore, the researchers moved to the main study by visiting six SMEs manufacturing companies. A total of 29 interviews were conducted with employees of all levels from Chief Executive Officers (CEOs) to factory workers. 37 aspects were identified and compared with the literature review. Moreover, two focus groups with eight employees of all levels were formed. The focus groups created 7 themes to further develop the findings with participants. In addition, the researchers applied several processes for validation such as triangulation and inter-rate reliability. Finally, the researcher produced a questionnaire to gauge the OC themes within the SMEs. The result showed change management and behaviour patterns need to be considered.