13/06/2026
This study examines:
Organizational factors: Elements such as policies, culture, leadership style, and resource allocation that influence how employees perform and perceive supervisory support.
Environmental factors: External conditions—market conditions, industry regulations, competitive pressures—that indirectly affect performance through organizational processes and supervisory interactions.
Individual factors: Employee-specific attributes such as skills, motivation, and personality traits that shape work performance and openness to supervisory support.
Perceived Supervisor Support (Mediator): The extent to which employees believe their supervisor values their contributions and cares about their well-being, which can transform the influence of organizational, environmental, and individual factors into higher performance outcomes.
Employee Performance (Dependent Variable): The measurable output and quality of work produced by employees, influenced directly or indirectly by the above variables.
Answer :
Now I understand why you are hesitating.
Your current framework is already broad and well-established:
Organizational Factors + Environmental Factors + Individual Factors ↓ PSS ↓ Employee Performance
The challenge is that Knowledge Transfer and Industry 4.0 readiness are not naturally sitting outside the model. They are actually trying to enter through the Organizational Factors construct.
My first observation
Your Organizational Factors construct is currently too broad.
You wrote:
Policies
Culture
Leadership style
Resource allocation
These are not variables yet.
They are categories.
An examiner will eventually ask:
"Which specific organizational factor are you measuring?"
This gives you an opportunity.
Instead of adding a completely new RO5 and RQ5, you can redefine Organizational Factors to include:
Organizational Factors
Training Effectiveness
Knowledge Transfer
Leadership Support
Resource Availability
Suddenly, the mill manager's concern is directly reflected in the model.
The strongest connection I see
The manager repeatedly says:
"Workers do not understand."
"Workers resist."
"Knowledge is difficult to transfer."
This is almost textbook PSS territory.
Think about it.
Knowledge does not transfer itself.
Usually it transfers through:
Supervisor ↓ Worker
When workers say:
"My supervisor helps me."
PSS increases.
When workers say:
"Nobody explains things."
PSS decreases.
So Knowledge Transfer and PSS are conceptually linked.
A possible DBA contribution
Most PSS studies look at:
Support
Performance
Job satisfaction
Commitment
Very few examine:
> Knowledge Transfer → PSS → Employee Performance
in a Malaysian palm oil mill context.
That is already a publishable contribution.
Why I would not force Industry 4.0 into the framework yet
You told me:
Smart mill rollout is expected around 2027.
That means the technology is not yet the phenomenon being experienced.
What is being experienced today?
Training
Knowledge sharing
Resistance to change
Supervisory support
Worker turnover
Those are real and observable.
A DBA examiner will usually prefer:
"Study what is happening."
rather than
"Study what might happen next year."
*** Notes ***
If you really want to bring Industry 4.0 into the thesis
I would use it as:
Problem Context
For example:
"The impending adoption of Industry 4.0 technologies in Malaysian palm oil mills increases the importance of effective knowledge transfer and supervisory support to prepare workers for technological change."
Notice the difference.
Industry 4.0 becomes the reason the study matters.
It does not become a variable.
That is much cleaner.
The human-centricity angle from the paper
This is where I think you may have found your theoretical gap.
The paper is essentially warning:
Technology implementation without human development creates resistance.
Translated into your model:
Organizational Factors (Knowledge Transfer, Training, Communication) ↓ PSS ↓ Employee Performance
The human-centred argument strengthens your rationale for studying PSS.
You can argue:
As palm oil mills move toward Industry 4.0, organizations must not only invest in technology but also ensure effective knowledge transfer and supervisory support to maintain employee performance and readiness for change.
That sounds very DBA-oriented.
If I were your supervisor
I would probably advise:
Do not add a new dependent variable.
Do not add Automation Usage.
Instead:
1. Keep Employee Performance as DV.
2. Keep PSS as mediator.
3. Add Knowledge Transfer as a specific Organizational Factor.
4. Use Industry 4.0 and Human-Centricity as the practical justification and research gap.
That way you preserve 90% of your existing proposal, while making it much more relevant to what the C- Island mill manager is actually worried about.
One thing I am still curious about: when you say organizational, environmental, and individual factors, are you planning to measure them as second-order constructs (each having several dimensions), or were you planning to pick specific variables under each category? That decision will determine how easily Knowledge Transfer can be inserted into the model without restructuring the entire framework.
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