The Role of Responsibility Factors of Reducing Inefficiencies in IS Projects on Six Sigma Certification in Service Organizations

Service organizations worldwide are turning to Six Sigma Program (SSP) to remove variability in their processes to attain a competitive marketplace advantage. SSP offers methodology, concepts, and statistical tools to understand and standardize processes by reducing sources of variability. An effective “Belt” certification program, considered a major contributor to successful implementation of SSP as it provides the SSP professionals a clear understanding of what their responsibilities should be. It’s been argued that a successful implementation of SSP in an organization may require a significant percentage of the organization’s workforce, about 25% to 50%, to become Green Belt (GB) certified. A significant number of professionals who attend GB certification training elect not to become certified. The certification challenge is even more daunting in an information systems (IS) environment due to number of certifications available to IS professionals and their weak intention to become certified. In this study the authors’ developed a predictive model to address the certification challenges that IS organizations face in implementing SSP by investigating the factors that can influence the intention of professionals to acquire GB certification. Five major responsibility factors along with specific responsibilities under each major factor were developed through a multi-phase grounded theory approach with IS professionals of a Fortune 500 company.