Green, lean and six sigma (GLSS) practices are widely used and well accepted techniques that have the capability to improve the economic, social and environmental performance of Pakistani small and medium enterprises (SMEs). However, implementation of these practices in an integrated approach has not yet been witnessed in Pakistani SMEs due to a variety of challenges. To overcome the implementation challenges, this study has analyzed the impact of GLSS implementation over the sustainability in Pakistani SMEs.
This study consists of two phases. In phase 1, interviews were conducted to scrutinize the elements of GLSS implementation to simplify the model and in phase 2, a questionnaire survey was conducted to collect the data from the SMEs. The partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) approach is used to analyze the relationships among the latent variables and constructs.
Results showed that, leadership for GLSS, understanding GLSS techniques and technology upgradation are considered the most important elements for GLSS implementation in Pakistani SMEs. The environmental and social perspectives have been given more weightage compared to economical perspective. This inferred that there is a need to focus more on environmental and social perspectives in SMEs as compared to economic perspectives to achieve sustainable growth. Moreover, the results of the hypothesis testing revealed that GLSS implementation has a significant positive impact over the sustainability in SMEs considering the Pakistani scenario (β = 0.529, STDEV = 0.078, t = 6.81, p = < 0.001).
This study is the first of its kind for Pakistani SMEs. The structural model developed in this study for Pakistani SMEs will help practitioners to understand the important elements of GLSS implementation and sustainability dimensions.
