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Previous research has managed to clearly define lean technical competencies. However, the behavioral competencies remain underestimated, and the roles of lean experts are not clearly stated: are they teachers, facilitators or technical experts? The present paper investigates lean behavioral competencies and their relationship to lean experts' roles.

This article serves as an exploratory study built on interviews, observations and focus groups conducted during a three-year longitudinal study accompanied by a three-year follow-up. The case takes place in an international automotive company in partnership with Toyota in which lean adoption was part of a consistent strategy over a period of 20 years.

The study clarifies lean behavioral competencies related to organizational efficiency (nominal management, improvement management and respect for people) and relational efficiency (problem resolution, competencies development and systemic interactions). The study helped create a typology of lean experts' roles related to the maturity level of the environment in which they intervened. Moreover, Lean experts' roles in congruence with the environment seem to positively influence the creation of emerging human relationships that are beneficial to process improvement and competencies development.

This paper is the first to clarify behavioral competencies with respect to lean experts' roles and to study the temporality of the introduction of lean practices. The findings recommend that researchers better acknowledge the influence of lean behavioral competencies during lean adoption and their relationship to contextual factors and organizational performance. A practical methodology is proposed to measure the necessary behavioral adjustments of lean experts or employees.

The purpose of this research is to explore the mechanisms of knowledge management (KM) for innovation and provide an approach for enterprises to leverage KM activities into continuous innovation.

By reviewing the literature from multidisciplinary fields, the concepts of knowledge, KM and innovation are investigated. The physical, human and technological perspectives of KM are distinguished with the identification of two core activities for innovation: knowledge creation and knowledge usage. Then an essential requirement for continuous innovation – an internalization phase – is defined. The systems thinking and human‐centered perspectives are adopted for providing a comprehensive understanding about the mechanisms of KM for innovation.

A networking process of continuous innovation based on KM is proposed by incorporating the phase of internalization. Three sources of organizational knowledge assets in innovation are identified. Then, based on the two core activities of innovation, a meta‐model and a macro process of KM are proposed to model the mechanisms of KM for continuous innovation. Then, in order to operationalize the KM mechanisms, a hierarchical model with four layers is constructed by integrating three sources of knowledge assets, the meta‐model and the macro process into the process of continuous innovation.

According to the lessons learned about KM practices in previous research, the three perspectives of KM should collaborate with one another for successful implementation of KM projects for innovation; the networking process of innovation provides a new way to integrate KM process in innovation; the hierarchical model provides a suitable architecture to implement systems of KM for innovation.

The meta‐model and macro process of KM explain how the next generation of KM can help the value creation and support the continuous innovation from the systems thinking perspective. The hierarchical model illustrates the complicated knowledge dynamics in the process of continuous innovation.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the impact of reward systems on team performance and analyze how satisfaction with rewards can result in better working performance and cohesiveness in the job environment.

Data was collected from 32 single members of different teams working in 10 selected banks from the Middle East and North Africa region.

The analysis from empirical findings reveals that there is a positive link between reward systems and team performance. More particularly, profit sharing has positive effects on team performance and collective bargaining reward systems affect significantly team cohesiveness. These links create an opportunity for employers to use reward systems as a motivating factor to direct team behavior toward more employee retention.

This study contributes to the teamwork performance research stream by empirically studying how rewards improve team performance and cohesiveness in Eastern contexts. Studies in such contexts are relatively rare.