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The purpose of this paper is to examine factors that inhibit and facilitate the contribution of continuous improvement activities to advance performance in “lean” factories.

From the perspective of the routine dynamics theory, this paper considers the possibility of changes in the standard operating procedures (SOPs) made in the course of continuous improvement activities being ignored by employees. This paper builds a hypothesis predicting that firms where employees ignore changes in the SOP cannot achieve the intended improvement effect of these changes. This hypothesis is confirmed with comparative case studies of Toyota and Matsuo.

At Toyota there is an incentive to perform operations according to the SOP, while at Matsuo this incentive is not present. This difference means that process improvement activities at Toyota generate changes in manufacturing operations, while at Matsuo, although the SOP has been changed, workers continue to perform operations according to the old SOP and fail to advance performance. This paper argues that the presence/absence of an incentive to perform operations according to the SOP is dependent on whether the responsibility of the performance lies with the SOPs or employees. Additionally, this paper finds that the SOP not only limits employees’ creativities but also supports creative activities for the development of continuous improvement as an organizational activity.

The generalization of our findings requires statistical support for which an extensive subsequent sampling survey including non-Japanese firms is necessary.

This study makes a new suggestion regarding the theory of routine dynamics and the fields of operations management: adequate management of consistency between the three aspects (material, ostensive and performative) of organizational routines is important for lean manufacturing.

The aim of this paper is to conceptualise entrepreneurial capacity-building as an integrated approach within the international higher education sector. Whilst university–enterprise collaboration is recognised as being essential to promoting graduate employability and entrepreneurship, the lack of an integrated approach towards embedding entrepreneurship education and entrepreneurial capacity-building with an entrepreneurial skill and mind-set prevails in the higher education sector. With reference to the retail sector, increasingly competitive job markets and the need for entrepreneurial capacity-building place growing pressures on universities to nurture career-ready graduates with entrepreneurial acumen.

The theoretical paper presents a rationale for embedding entrepreneurship education into university curricula and for promoting university–business collaboration. Secondly, it reviews the extent to which entrepreneurial capacity-building is institutionally embedded to foster graduate entrepreneurship, university–business collaboration and business incubation within one strategic framework. Finally, the paper proposes five propositions within a tripartite approach that can foster graduate entrepreneurs with entrepreneurial skills and mind-set, useful for existing enterprises and start-ups. The implications for these propositions are discussed.

The authors propose five propositions with a tripartite approach that can foster graduate entrepreneurs with entrepreneurial skill and mind-set, skills for creating enterprises and university–enterprise collaboration within one strategic framework.

Increasingly competitive job markets and the need for entrepreneurial capacity-building place growing pressures on universities to nurture career-ready graduates with entrepreneurial acumen in social science (e.g. retail, business management and accountancy) and science (e.g. pharmacy, architecture and engineering) programmes centred within the tripartite approach.

Whilst university–enterprise collaboration is recognised as being essential to promoting graduate employability and entrepreneurship, the tripartite integrated approach embeds entrepreneurship education and entrepreneurial capacity-building with an entrepreneurial skillset and mind-set in the international higher education sector.