Resumen de Evaluation model for organizational culture adaptations to implement lean manufacturing successfully
Since the emergence of Lean Manufacturing, many organizations strived to implement it. Nonetheless, sustainable Lean transformation is not as easy as to be simply achieved. Severa!aspects need to be taken into account before Lean implementation which national and organizational culture are important. By considering influences of national culture on the organizational culture, this thesis aims at proposing an evaluation model to determine the cultural weaknesses of an organization and give sorne recommendations to manage people before implementing Lean. Therefore, the research question is "how to align the organizational culture to Lean culture?" and the general hypothesis is that "both national culture and organizational culture influence on successful Lean implementation". In order to answer the question and test our hypothesis, this research has been conducted based on literature review survey and multiple-cases study. For literature review survey, research papers, conference proceedings, books, and official websites regarding Lean philosophy were reviewed to find the influence of national culture in Lean implementation. Different databases were scrutinized, from 2015 to 2017, containing Scopus and Web of Science with the period of 1996-2016. The evaluation model was developed including six dimensions and our general hypothesis was extended. The level of each dimension indicating preparedness of organizational culture for Lean implementation is provided including Low, Moderate, or High. For each dimension, a checklist is provided in order to evaluate the level that a company has before Lean implementation in order to detect misalignments and possible problems. For multiple-case studies, we used codification method to systematically collect required qualitative data on their organizational culture. Factors and related soft practices that are essential for successful Lean implementation were considered as codes and sub-codes, respectively. Soft practices are human-related-practices that emphasize on organizational culture, managerial concept, and human relations that are often neglected during adoption processes of Lean. The initial code list was prepared based on literature review. Codification process continued with conducting pilot interviews. The code list was refined after a few times of revision. To validate the model, three organizations were chosen based on inclusion criteria such as: Companies should be selected from manufacturing industry; Companies have implemented Lean production for many years; Medium to Large Companies are more preferable; Companies should be chosen from different countries. A semi-structured interview was conducted with the production manager of each organization. Depending on the access to the participants, the interviews were conducted face to face or through Skype. To greaten the clarity, contacts were made again with the respondents whenever ambiguities arose. The checklist were used to find out the level of organizational culture for proposed dimensions. Moreover, public information were collected from their official websites. To conclude, the proposed evaluation model is a guide for organizations to determine cultural misaligrunents between corporate culture and Lean culture before its implementation. Moreover, some general recommendations have been provided to align different dimensions. Finally, sorne future directions have been suggested.
