Cultural impact of implementing lean: Cultural change and performance improvement within an organisation in preparing for, during, and post the implementation of lean

PhD Importance and Key Contribution This research seeks to explore the pre-existing culture within an organisation prior to the implementation of a major lean initiative and identify the preconditioning, if any, of the... [ view full abstract ]

PhD Importance and Key Contribution
This research seeks to explore the pre-existing culture within an organisation prior to the implementation of a major lean initiative and identify the preconditioning, if any, of the culture within the organisation prior to the implementation in anticipation of the change. We will seek to confirm the performance improvement associated with the implementation of lean through the analysis of key performance indicators and seek to identify some of the more strategic benefits such as increased organisational flexibility through examining the impact of the implementation on the culture of the organisation.

The examination is carried out by retrospectively examining data pertaining to the culture of the organisation prior to the implementation and on a real time basis over the four years of implementation measuring the culture shift if any in the organisation.

Through understanding the cultural shift within an organisation over a 19 year period, prior to, in preparation for, and during the implementation of a lean initiative, both academics and practitioners will be better able to understand the impact of organisational culture on the implementation of major change initiatives, explore the need for congruence between inputs of an organisation such as strategy and pre-existing culture, and understand the possibilities for maximizing the potential for success in the implementation of such change initiatives in the future.

Theoretical Base
Originating in the Japanese automobile industry, lean provides manufacturers with a competitive advantage by reducing cost, improving efficiencies, and controlling quality (Bhamu, 2014). Over the past three decades the examination of the implementation of the lean production system and advanced manufacturing technologies (AMT’s) has been of particular interest, with organisations citing both successes and failures associated with attempts to achieve that greater strategic goal of implementing a self-sustaining continuous improvement model (De Weck et al., 2014). The prevailing trend has however been for organisations to cite sustained improved productivity as the measure of success as opposed to examining some of the more strategic benefits, such as organisational flexibility, associated with such an implementation (Zammuto et al., 1992). It has been argued that the success or failure of the implementation and the range of benefits associated with a successful implementation is directly influenced by the pre-existing culture within the organisation (Raymond, 2005). In other words the congruence between the pre-existing underlying values of the organisation and those of the proposed strategy will directly impact the implementation.

One established means of examining the core values within an organisation is Quinn’s competing values model (Quinn and Rohrbaugh 1983). The model, originally designed to determine organisational effectiveness though the examination of three value dimensions, control/flexibility, internal/external, and means/end, was designed by means of a two stage study examining the criteria that a selected panel of experts used to evaluate the effectiveness of organisations.

O’Reilly et al (1991) developed the organisational culture profile (OCP) instrument as a means of measuring the cultural fit between organisations and individuals, whilst we are less concerned in this research about the fit between the individual and the organisation, the instrument developed provides an acceptable means of quantitatively defining the existing culture within an organisation for the basis of a real time comparative longitudinal study (O'Reilly et al., 1991).

This research seeks to examine the pre-existing values within the organisation prior to the implementation of lean using Quinn's competing value model, exploring through this model any conditioning of the culture within the organisation prior to implementation through examination of retrospective data available, and use Reilly’s OCP tool to examine the impact of the implementation on the culture during the four year period of implementation (Quinn et al., 1983).

Research Questions
We will seek to confirm that the implementation of lean will lead to an improvement in performance of the organisation.

We will also explore if organisations intuitively or purposefully go about altering the culture within the organisation prior to the implementation of a major change initiative, and if so, will this have an impact on the implementation.

In addition we will also examine the cultural change within the organisation, if any, over the period of the implementation and endeavor to identify and understand the impact of the specific aspects of the implementation on the organisational culture.

Findings (to date)
To date the findings have confirmed that the implementation of lean will lead to performance improvement within an organisation.

Secondly, some organisations do go through a period of preconditioning of the organisational culture in advance of the implementation of a major change initiative, and this preconditioning does lead to a more receptive climate for the major change initiative.

To date two of the four real time surveys of the culture within the organisation have been conducted for longitudinal comparative purposes with the third to be conducted in April of this year. Only preliminary analysis of this data has been conducted to validate the instrument with in-depth comparative analysis commencing later this year.

Implications (to date)
Performance improvements will come almost immediately with the implementation of lean, however the larger more strategic benefit of increased flexibility will only be determined over longer time periods (Raymond, 2005).
Organisations should not embark lightly on the implementation of a major change initiative without some critical examination of the pre-existing culture of the organisation and establishing congruence with that of the proposed strategy.


Bibliography

Bhamu, J. 2014. Lean manufacturing: literature review and research issues. International Journal of Operations & Production Management, 34(7): 876-940.

De Weck, O., Reed, D., Sarma, S., & Schmidt, M. 2014. Trends in Advanced Manufacturing Technology Innovation. Production in the Innovation Economy: 235.

O'Reilly, C. A., Chatman, J., & Caldwell, D. F. 1991. People and Organizational Culture: A Profile Comparison Approach to Assessing Person-Organization Fit. The Academy of Management Journal, 34(3): 487-516.

Quinn, R. E., & Rohrbaugh, J. 1983. A Spatial Model of Effectiveness Criteria: Towards a Competing Values Approach to Organizational Analysis. Management Science, 29(3): 363-377.

Raymond, L. 2005. Operations management and advanced manufacturing technologies in SMEs: A contingency approach. Journal of Manufacturing Technology Management, 16(8): 936-955.

Zammuto, R. F., & O'Connor, E. J. 1992. Gaining advanced manufacturing technologies' benefits: the roles of organization design and culture. Academy of Management Review, 17(4): 701-728.

Culture, lean, core values, performance, flexibility [ view full abstract ]

Culture, lean, core values, performance, flexibility