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The purpose of this paper is to investigate how just-in-time (JIT)-related job demands, problem-solving job demands and soft lean practices (SLPs) jointly influence employee well-being in terms of work engagement and exhaustion.

Based on the job demands-resources model, lean-related job characteristics were classified as resources or demands, and a set of hypotheses was developed to test their effect on work engagement and exhaustion, including the potential interaction between job resources and demands. The hypotheses were tested using moderated hierarchical regression and structural equation modelling, based on data from 138 workers.

SLPs act as job resources in a lean company, increasing work engagement and reducing exhaustion. Conversely, JIT-related job demands act as a hindrance, reducing work engagement and increasing exhaustion. However, SLPs can reduce the effect of JIT-related job demands on exhaustion, and JIT-related job demands may enhance the positive effects of SLPs on work engagement.

The study provides no conclusive evidence on the hypothesized role of problem-solving as a challenge job demand.

The results can guide practitioners’ understanding of how to implement lean without harm to employee well-being.

By employing a well-grounded psychological model to test the link between lean and well-being, the study finds quantitative support for: the buffering effect of SLPs on exhaustion caused by JIT-related job demands, and for the role of JIT as a hindrance. These novel findings have no precedent in previous survey-based research. In addition, it reveals the importance of studying SLPs at an individual level, as what matters is the extent to which workers perceive SLPs as useful and supportive.

Lean remains popular in a wide range of private and public sectors and continues to attract a significant amount of research. However, most of this research is not grounded in theory. This paper presents and discusses different expert viewpoints on the role of theory in lean research and practice and provides guidelines for future research.

Seven experienced lean authors independently provide their views to the question “is Lean a theory?” before Rachna Shah summarizes the viewpoints and provides a holistic outlook for lean research.

Authors agree, disagree and sometimes agree to disagree. However, a close look reveals agreement on several key points. The paper concludes that Lean is not a theory but has plenty of theoretical underpinnings. Many lean-related theories provide promising opportunities for future research.

As researchers, we are asked to justify our research drawing on “theory,” but what does that mean for a practice-driven phenomenon such as lean? This paper provides answers and directions for future research.

The purpose of this paper is to deal with the transfer of lean practices between different units in multi-plant organizations with different levels of adoption of lean practices. It investigates how certain influential contextual variables – i.e. lean standards development, lean transfer team composition, source characteristics, recipient national environment and corporate lean programme deployment – can influence stickiness in the different phases of lean transfer process.

This paper opted for the multiple-case study method and examines six lean transfer projects at a dyadic level, that is, between a source and a recipient unit. The authors focussed on companies with headquarters in Europe with an attested experience in lean and which had recently and successfully transferred lean to subsidiaries in the USA and China.

The paper provides empirical insights about how stickiness in lean transfer projects changes during the initiation, implementation/ramp-up and integration phases. It identifies three lean transfer approaches (local, global, global and shared) and provides a set of propositions that explains how sociocultural traits of recipient environment (China vs USA) and lean transfer approach affect stickiness in each phase.

Literature on stickiness in lean transfer is at an early stage and very fragmented. Unlike previous contributions in the field, this paper provides an interpretation of the dynamics of stickiness in lean transfer at a micro-level (i.e. for each single phase of the lean transfer process). In addition, it develops a fuller understanding of the influence of context on lean transfer by adopting a configurational view, i.e. studying the joint effect of contextual variables on stickiness, which is a novelty in the lean transfer literature.

The purpose of this paper is to analyse whether the adoption of e-commerce improves company business, innovation and operational performance and whether sales internationalisation might moderate this relationship.

The research is based on a survey within the fashion industry and a multi-step linear regression model investigating the relationships between e-commerce and performance.

Results reveal that e-commerce improves innovation performance but has no significant relationship with business and operational performance. Also investigating whether the sales internationalisation might moderate the relationship between e-commerce and performance, the findings reveal that the adoption of these tools might even be negative when applied at the international level in particular by considering innovation operational practices, and the research suggests for fashion companies the necessity to develop strong markets’ knowledge and brand awareness among foreign markets and customers before investing internationally.

This paper offers an original analytical approach to identifying the relationships between a company’s adoption of e-commerce, performance and internationalisation within the fashion industry.

The purpose of this paper is to identify the most influential determinants of healthcare employees’ problem-solving capabilities and attitudes towards kaizen initiatives, and clarify how these determinants are related to social outcomes.

Drawing on the input-process-outcome framework, applied to kaizen initiatives, the determinants of the input and process factors are embodied in hypotheses concerning the direct effects of input and process factors on social outcomes and the indirect effects of input factors on social outcomes resulting from process factors. The hypotheses are tested through multiple regressions using data from 105 kaizen initiatives drawn from two hospitals.

Of the 14 determinants investigated, goal clarity, team autonomy, management support, goal difficulty and affective commitment to change (ACC) are the most influential determinants of kaizen capabilities and/or employees’ attitude. Goal clarity, goal difficulty, team autonomy and management support are also found to influence social outcomes directly and/or indirectly through ACC, internal processes and/or an action orientation.

The results support healthcare practitioners to understand how to establish “focused kaizen” actions to leverage specific determinants that positively influence social outcomes.

This study provides an original contribution to the literature concerning effective kaizen initiatives in healthcare operations by empirically testing a comprehensive model of the relationship between kaizen initiative determinants and social outcomes. Unlike previous studies, which are mostly anecdotal or focused on one or few determinants, this research adopts a holistic view, and investigates a pluralist set of determinants on social outcomes through a systematic and quantitative approach.

This paper investigates how a firm’s organizational culture profile (configuration of organizational culture types) influences the effectiveness of operations management (OM) practices in improving their targeted outcomes.

We developed alternative hypotheses based on contingency and paradox perspectives to predict the effectiveness of OM practices in dominant (one prevalent organizational culture type) vs eclectic (opposing organizational culture types at a similar level) organizational culture profiles. They were tested using data from over 7,000 respondents across 330 manufacturing plants in 15 countries.

Consistent with contingency theory, OM practices oriented toward innovation are more efficacious in plants with an adhocracy-dominant organizational culture profile and practices targeting supply chain (SC) control are less effective in a clan-dominant organizational culture profile. Consistent with paradox theory, OM practices oriented toward efficiency or SC control are more effective in plants with an eclectic organizational culture profile.

This study offers relevant practical implications regarding the effectiveness of various OM practices, whether they are used in an aligned dominant organizational culture profile or in an eclectic organizational culture profile.

Previous research on organizational culture provides a limited understanding of the effectiveness of OM practices in the presence of strategic tensions, such as opposing organizational cultures or opposing targeted outcomes. This research concludes that the validity of the contingency or paradox perspective depends on strategic tensions faced, with important implications for research and practice.

The purpose of this paper is to contribute to the debate on blockchain (BC) adoption for preventing counterfeiting by investigating BC systems where different options for BC feeding and reading complement the use of BC technology. By grounding on the situational crime prevention, this study analyses how BC systems can be designed to effectively prevent counterfeiting.

This is a multiple-case study of five Italian wine companies using BC to prevent counterfeiting.

This study finds that the desired level of upstream/downstream counterfeiting protection that a brand owner intends to guarantee to customers through BC is the key driver to consider in the design of BC systems. The study identifies which variables are relevant to the design of feeding and reading processes and explains how such variables can be modulated in accordance with the desired level of counterfeiting protection.

The cases investigated are Italian companies within the wine sector, and the BC projects analysed are in the pilot phase.

The study provides practical suggestions to address the design of BC systems by identifying a set of key variables and explaining how to properly modulate them to face upstream/downstream counterfeiting.

This research applies a new perspective based on the situational crime prevention approach in studying how companies can design BC systems to effectively prevent counterfeiting. It explains how feeding and reading process options can be configured in BC systems to assure different degrees of counterfeiting protection.