The mediating effect of employee’s ability, motivation, and opportunity to participate (AMO) on the relationship between investment in Lean Six Sigma training and service recovery performance

Purpose The purpose of this study is to examine mediating effect of employee’s ability, motivation and opportunity to participate (AMO) between the investment in lean six sigma training and service recovery performance of an IT service support organization. Moreover, this research examines which among the AMO model components significantly and positively influence service recovery performance. This study also intends to analyze the moderating role of manager support and peer support, leading to improved service recovery performance in the organization. Design/methodology/approach The research design explored the relationship among the variables as illustrated by the operational framework of the study. This study used a quantitative approach to analyzing data through descriptive and inferential statistics. The descriptive part focused on demographic information such as age, gender, education, role in the company and tenure. A graphical summary is used to describe and summarize the demographic data and highlight the measures of central tendency, such as the calculation of mean, median and mode, and the measures of dispersion, such as standard deviation and variation. A correlational design enables the research to determine the relationship among the variables, identify the effect through variability, and the coefficient of determination in identifying patterns in providing empirical evidence for the research objectives. Findings The findings of the study revealed that investment in lean six sigma training would significantly and positively influence service recovery performance. The result confirmed the previous empirical research on the correlation between lean six sigma initiatives and the economic benefits achieved by the business, with high-cost recovery rates (Swink and Jacobs (2012) and Shafer and Moeller (2012). It supported the research conducted by Al-Ababneh et al. (2021) and Samer et al. (2017) on the impact of the quality program on service recovery performance improvement. The organization may consider investing in human capital and considers the employees as human assets. Investing in human capital is one of the significant investments an organization can make and the organization can also see a bottom-line benefit from strategically designed training activities according to Mello (2019). Originality/value This paper fulfills an identified need to study how AMO model affects the relationship between investment in lean six sigma training and service recovery performance.