Lean Governance for Administrative Service Delivery in Malaysian Public Higher Education: A Review of Socio-Technical and Process Improvement Perspectives

Abstract

Efficient, transparent, accountable, and responsive administrative services are essential to public higher education institutions. Although lean management originated in manufacturing, its principles can be adapted to administrative services to reduce waiting, rework, duplication, unnecessary approvals, and unclear handovers. This review examines lean governance for administrative service delivery in Malaysian public higher education, with contextual reference to Universiti Malaysia Pahang Al-Sultan Abdullah (UMPSA). The review integrates literature on lean management, socio-technical systems, higher education administration, and Malaysian policy initiatives, including the Malaysia Education Blueprint 2015–2025 (Higher Education), public-sector modernisation, and the Public Sector Conducive Ecosystem (EKSA). The synthesis indicates that administrative inefficiency is associated not only with procedural complexity but also with weak alignment among institutional strategy, key performance indicators, workload distribution, digital systems, and organisational culture. Accordingly, the paper proposes an integrated lean governance framework that links policy and institutional drivers with lean practices and socio-technical enablers to support administrative service improvement. The framework is conceptual and requires future empirical validation.