Purpose -The purpose of this paper is to explore the relationship between 5S use, contextual factors and performance. The contextual factors comprise structural features of the firm, environment, human resources and technology and quality management. The performance measures refer to improvements in productivity, quality, employee satisfaction, lead time and new product design. Design/methodology/approach -A questionnaire survey was conducted in 203 Spanish manufacturing plants, with personnel interviewees. The hypotheses proposed were verified using correlation analysis and analysis of variance. Findings -The results show the existence of a positive relationship between the use of 5S and some contextual factors such as size, the integration of the plant in a multinational group, the type of product manufactured, the technology used and the quality programmes in the plant. Moreover, 5S is positively related to some operational performance measures, especially those referring to quality and productivity. Originality/value -This paper contributes to the scarce empirical literature analysing the factors related to the use of 5S and its association with manufacturing performance.

Attempts to discover any possible links between company size and the handling of human resource management (HRM) in the case of Spanish industrial production workers. The data used as a basis for this study were obtained by means of a survey carried out on 965 Spanish industrial firms covering such aspects as compensation policy, job design and training. The results provide evidence of significant differences in the majority of the practices included in the survey, with a tendency towards their fuller development in larger sized firms. Some areas of human resource management, however, such as job description, promotion within the firm and the use of incentive schemes, do not differ.

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