Lean management (LM) is a managerial approach for improving processes based on a complex system of interrelated socio-technical practices. Recently, debate has centered on the role of organizational culture (OC) in LM. This paper aims to contribute to this debate by examining whether plants that successfully implement LM are characterized by a specific OC profile and extensively adopt soft LM practices. Data were analyzed from the High Performance Manufacturing (HPM) project dataset using a multi-group approach. The results revealed that a specific OC profile characterizes successful lean plants; in particular, when compared to unsuccessful lean plants, they show a higher institutional collectivism, future orientation, a humane orientation, and a lower level of assertiveness. While a high level of institutional collectivism, future orientation, and humane orientation are common features of high performers in general, a low level of assertiveness is typical only of successful lean plants. In addition, successful lean plants use soft LM practices more extensively than unsuccessful lean plants (i.e., lean practices concerning people and relations, such as small group problem solving, employees' training to perform multiple tasks, supplier partnerships, customer involvement, and continuous improvement), while they do not differ significantly in terms of hard LM practices (i.e., lean technical and analytical tools). For managers, the results indicate that, in order to implement LM successfully, it is fundamental to go beyond LM technicalities by adopting soft practices and nurturing the development of an appropriate OC profile

Lean management (LM) has attracted the interest of scientists and practitioners since 1990, when Womack et al. (Womack, J.P., Jones, D.T. and Roos, D. (1990). The Machine that Changed the World. New York, NY: Rawson Associates) popularized the Japanese manufacturing approach aimed at eliminating waste to improve operational performance and customer satisfaction. Over the years, the lean concept has evolved becoming a managerial paradigm applicable to different sectors and processes with impressive results. This heterogeneity of implementations and settings makes the recent LM literature diverse and fragmented, and an extensive analysis of the latest contributions on this field is lacking. To address this gap, the authors propose a systematic literature review (SLR) of 240 articles published in 25 peer-reviewed academic journals from January 2003 to December 2015. The purpose is to analyse the recent trends in this area and to provide a framework that organizes lean researched issues into mature, intermediate and nascent, based on their position in the research life cycle. Starting from the gaps that the SLR highlights, the authors suggest conducting lean research in the following directions: (a) grounding lean studies on existing managerial theories; (b) addressing service settings such as banking/finance, public sector and education; (c) exploring the role of national culture through cross-country comparisons; (d) defining and conceptualizing 'lean-x' processes; (e) understanding the relationships between lean and safety/environmental issues, and (f) unveiling the effects on social outcomes. Finally, the proposed framework helps scholars find issues not sufficiently explored that require theory-building research (to move from nascent to intermediate) or theory-testing research (to move from intermediate to mature).

Purpose – This research intends to investigate whether there are synergies that a firm could or should exploit by simultaneously implementing customer and supplier integration. In particular, the aim is to analyze the impact of customer integration on efficiency, and the moderating role of supplier integration. Design/methodology/approach – This study analyzes data from a sample of 200 manufacturing plants. Two hypotheses are tested through a hierarchical regression analysis. Customer and supplier integration constructs consider items related to different aspects of the integration (e.g. sharing of production plans and customers’ forecasts, feedback on performance, communication on quality considerations and design changes, joint quality improvement efforts, close contact, partnerships). The focus of the integration clearly extends beyond the dyad, as it includes the integration of focal operations upstream and downstream, with both suppliers and customers. Findings – Supplier integration positively moderates the relationship between customer integration and efficiency, whereas the analyses do not support the hypothesis that in general customer integration positively impacts on efficiency. They also reveal that, when supplier integration is at a low level, customer integration can even produce a reduction in efficiency. Practical implications – Efficiency performance optimization requires levering simultaneously on customer and supplier integration to foster their interaction, rather than investing and acting on customer integration only. In addition, before deciding whether to invest in customer integration, managers should ascertain the level of supplier integration, since it acts as a prerequisite for the successful implementation of customer integration. Originality/value – Compared with previous studies investigating the main impact of customer and supplier integration on a company’s performance, this research analyzes a model that considers the interaction effect between these integration strategies. This provides a number of original implications for the interpretation of the relationship between customer and supplier integration and efficiency