3 rd International Soft Science Conference (ISSC) 2012 6 – 8 November ~ Phnom Penh City, Cambodia ASSESSING THE LEANNESS OF GOVERNMENT-LINKED COMPANIES AND ITS INFLUENCE ON PERFORMANCE Mohd Rizal Razalli 1 , Hartini Ahmad 2 , Rosli Mahmood 3 , Darwina Ahmad Arshad 4 , and Lily Julienti Abu Bakar 5 1 Universiti Utara Malaysia, Malaysia, rizal@uum.edu.my 2 Universiti Utara Malaysia, Malaysia, hartini@uum.edu.my 3 Universiti Utara Malaysia, Malaysia, rosli@uum.edu.my 3 Universiti Utara Malaysia, Malaysia, darwina@uum.edu.my 3 Universiti Utara Malaysia, Malaysia, julienti@uum.edu.my ABSTRACT. Leaning the operations processes in an organization has be- come one of the organizational goals. The expected benefits of lean would not only affect the internal process within organization but also go external to the customers. The government-linked companies are well-known for their big-sized establishment. Thus, the operational issues in GLCs are huge. It is interesting to investigate the leanness of Malaysian GLCs. At present, there is little known concerning the extent of lean implementation in the GLCs and the influence of such lean practices to their organizational per- formance. Hence, this paper would examine the leanness of GLCs in Malay- sia. In so doing, a total of 281 managers in GLCs were surveyed. The find- ings showed that the level of leanness was relatively high among the GLCs, while the lean management practice was significantly related to organiza- tional performance. Keywords: GLCs, organizational performance, lean management INTRODUCTION Becoming lean is a journey. Sometimes this journey is short and sometimes is takes longer than the initial plan. To become a lean organization, organizational processes must be stream- lined, and this requires continuous efforts throughout the entire organization. For the Gov- ernment-Linked Companies (GLCs) becoming lean is extremely important due the enormous size of the companies. Most of the GLCs are the main providers of utilities, postal services, airlines, airports, public transport, water and sewerage, banking and financial services, auto- motive, plantation, and construction industries. In terms of the size, the group employs an es- timated 5 percent (about 400,000 employees) of the national workforce, and accounts for ap- proximately 36 percent of the Malaysian Stock Exchange market capitalization and 54 per- cent of the Kuala Lumpur Composite Index (Abdullah, 2005). A study by Singh and Ang (1999) has found that efficiently managed GLCs, and well formulated and implemented strategies are critical for the success of business organizations. Lean can improve organizational performance in terms of efficiency as well as effectiveness (Chen & Tan, 2011). Currently, research on lean in GLCs is still scarce. Hence, this paper aims to investigate the level of leanness among GLCs in Malaysia and also examine the influ- ence of lean practices to the performance of these GLCs.