Title: Achieving leanness: the relationship of lean practices with process exploitation and exploration

Authors: Mantas Vilkas; Inga Stankevice; Jurga Duobiene; Rimantas Rauleckas

Addresses: School of Economics and Business, Kaunas University of Technology, Lithuania ' School of Economics and Business, Kaunas University of Technology, Lithuania ' School of Economics and Business, Kaunas University of Technology, Lithuania ' School of Social Sciences, Arts and Humanities, Kaunas University of Technology, Lithuania

Abstract: Lean is a socio-technical system that aims to increase operational effectiveness. It is widely assumed that lean contributes to the improvement of operational efficiency. However, there is limited knowledge of whether the improvement is achieved through processes of exploitation, exploration, or both. A survey of organisations adopting lean practices has shown that lean contributes to process control, incremental process improvement, and radical process improvement. The results help to explain the mechanisms through which lean affects the operational performance of organisations. The results show that lean facilitates both process exploration and exploitation and contributes to the ambidexterity of organisations.

Keywords: lean; process exploration; process exploitation; process control; incremental process improvement; IPI; radical process improvement; ambidexterity.

DOI: 10.1504/IJSOM.2021.113035

International Journal of Services and Operations Management, 2021 Vol.38 No.2, pp.201 - 219

Received: 05 Oct 2018
Accepted: 27 Nov 2018

Published online: 16 Feb 2021 *

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