Implication of Lean Philosophy in Higher Education Institutions - The Case of Islamia University of Bahawalpur

The concepts of lean management originated in the Toyota Production System . Agile Management concepts arose in 2001 from a symposium of IT professionals. Both of these management concepts have been applied in different industries including the public and private sectors. The portmanteau term ‘leagility’ is derived from both lean and agile. The leagile approach encourages organizations to adopt technology and to make the organization sufficiently flexible to meet both short-term situations and long-term factors, welcoming change and innovation in the processes. The purpose of this study was to contribute to the administration of higher education institutions; to enhance efficiency and effectiveness by decreasing the waste of resources and increasing flexibility in organizations to deal with unpredictable and sudden situations e.g. COVID-19. The study was a primary and quantitative study carried out for higher educational institutions, at Islamia University of Bahawalpur (IUB). A questionnaire survey was undertaken with 150 teaching and non-teaching staff of IUB and the analysis of the collected data was performed through SmartPls. The main goal of this research was to study the relationship of technology/innovation and top management/leadership with leagility. The results showed a significant relationship between technology and innovation and top management and leadership with a leagile approach. Therefore the relationship of the moderating variable shows insignificant results. The reasons for this insignificance are the limitation of resources and complex processes established by the public sector institutes which usually are not in control of the teaching or non-teaching heads.