Purpose

The paper tests if and to what extent lean management system adoption generates abnormal profitability, and how it accrues over time. Configurational approaches to lean management systems and “S-curve” effects in lean implementation are used to ground the paper's hypotheses and interpret its findings.

Design/methodology/approach

Using the emerging view of lean as enterprise-wide management systems, this quasi-experimental study uses a difference-in-differences approach to estimate the abnormal profitability (ROIC) attributable to lean management system adoption. The paper leverages a unique data set of lean adopters nested in a panel data set (19 years) of 2,088 industrial firms matched by industry and firm size. It applies a variety of regression methods (two-way fixed effect panel estimator, propensity score matching, instrumental variable two-stage-least squares) to estimate the size of the abnormal profitability attributable to lean management systems, addressing endogeneity issues related to non-random sampling, omitted variable bias and reverse causation. It also analyzes the cross-firm variability of such abnormal profitability and how it accrues over time.

Findings

For the average non-adopter in the sample (44.3 million euro revenues), lean adoption generates abnormal ROIC ranging from 1.4% to 3.9%. These results come into effect approximately three years after starting lean adoption and peak after eight years. While the average abnormal profitability attributable to lean adoption is sizable, it varies significantly across firms and over time. This significant variation is compatible with firms' diverse ability to understand the complex inner workings of lean systems, and to design and implement them so that they improve profitability.

Research limitations/implications

The conceptualization of lean as enterprise-wide management system can be further refined to more effectively categorize the components of lean systems and investigate the nature of their relationships. Lean system adoption measurement can be fine-tuned to better capture cross-firm and longitudinal heterogeneity. Future work can explore other dependent variables of interest to different stakeholders including shareholders' value, employment and environmental and social sustainability.

Practical implications

The financial benefits of adopting lean can be reaped to the extent to which managers embrace lean as a philosophy and implement it pervasively in the organization. A firm can use the study's estimates as a basis for making calculations about the returns of investment in lean adoption. The paper also shows that “getting the lean system right” makes a significant difference in terms of abnormal profitability, which is twice as large for the best lean adopters..

Social implications

Compared with the promises of many lean proponents and supporters, the paper provides a more realistic view of what to expect from lean adoption in terms of profitability. Adopting lean as a comprehensive, enterprise-wide management system is not a universal panacea, but a complex endeavor, characterized by multiple complex decisions that require considerable capabilities, coordinated efforts and consistency of action.

Originality/value

Differently from extant research, this study does not study the correlation between the adoption of lean operation practices and financial performance but focuses on the abnormal profitability generated by the adoption of lean as a pervasive, enterprise-wide management system. Its research design allows to identify the differential profitability attributable to lean adoption and documents that it accrues non-linearly.

中文翻译：

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企业范围内的精益管理系统：异常盈利假设的检验

目的

该论文测试了精益管理系统的采用是否以及在多大程度上产生了异常的盈利能力，以及它如何随着时间的推移而累积。精益管理系统的配置方法和精益实施中的“S 曲线”效应用于支撑本文的假设并解释其研究结果。

设计/方法论/途径

这项准实验研究利用精益作为企业范围管理系统的新兴观点，使用双重差分法来估计由于采用精益管理系统而产生的异常盈利能力 (ROIC)。该论文利用了精益采用者的独特数据集，该数据集嵌套在 2,088 家工业企业的面板数据集（19 年）中，这些企业与行业和企业规模相匹配。它应用多种回归方法（双向固定效应面板估计、倾向得分匹配、工具变量两阶段最小二乘）来估计精益管理系统导致的异常盈利能力的大小，解决与非随机抽样、遗漏变量偏差和反向因果关系相关的内生性问题。它还分析了这种异常盈利能力的跨公司变异性以及它如何随着时间的推移而增加。

发现

对于样本中的平均非采用者（4430 万欧元收入）来说，精益采用会产生 1.4% 到 3.9% 之间的异常 ROIC。这些结果在开始精益采用后大约三年生效，并在八年后达到顶峰。虽然精益采用带来的平均异常盈利能力相当大，但不同公司和不同时间的差异很大。这种显着的变化与公司理解精益系统复杂的内部运作、设计和实施它们以提高盈利能力的不同能力相一致。

研究局限性/影响

精益作为企业范围的管理系统的概念可以进一步细化，以更有效地对精益系统的组成部分进行分类并研究它们之间关系的性质。精益系统采用测量可以进行微调，以更好地捕捉跨公司和纵向的异质性。未来的工作可以探索不同利益相关者感兴趣的其他因变量，包括股东价值、就业以及环境和社会可持续性。

实际影响

如果管理者接受精益作为一种理念并在组织中普遍实施，那么采用精益的经济效益就可以获得。公司可以使用该研究的估计作为计算精益采用投资回报的基础。该论文还表明，“正确使用精益系统”对异常盈利能力产生显着影响，对于最佳精益采用者来说，异常盈利能力是其两倍。

社会影响

与许多精益支持者和支持者的承诺相比，本文对精益采用在盈利方面的预期提供了更现实的观点。采用精益作为一种全面的、全企业范围的管理体系并不是万能的灵丹妙药，而是一项复杂的工作，其特点是需要大量的能力、协调的努力和行动的一致性，进行多项复杂的决策。

原创性/价值

与现有研究不同的是，本研究并不研究精益运营实践的采用与财务绩效之间的相关性，而是关注精益作为普遍的企业范围管理体系的采用所产生的异常盈利能力。其研究设计可以识别精益采用带来的差异盈利能力，并记录其非线性增长。