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The purpose of this paper is to investigate how just-in-time (JIT)-related job demands, problem-solving job demands and soft lean practices (SLPs) jointly influence employee well-being in terms of work engagement and exhaustion.

Based on the job demands-resources model, lean-related job characteristics were classified as resources or demands, and a set of hypotheses was developed to test their effect on work engagement and exhaustion, including the potential interaction between job resources and demands. The hypotheses were tested using moderated hierarchical regression and structural equation modelling, based on data from 138 workers.

SLPs act as job resources in a lean company, increasing work engagement and reducing exhaustion. Conversely, JIT-related job demands act as a hindrance, reducing work engagement and increasing exhaustion. However, SLPs can reduce the effect of JIT-related job demands on exhaustion, and JIT-related job demands may enhance the positive effects of SLPs on work engagement.

The study provides no conclusive evidence on the hypothesized role of problem-solving as a challenge job demand.

The results can guide practitioners’ understanding of how to implement lean without harm to employee well-being.

By employing a well-grounded psychological model to test the link between lean and well-being, the study finds quantitative support for: the buffering effect of SLPs on exhaustion caused by JIT-related job demands, and for the role of JIT as a hindrance. These novel findings have no precedent in previous survey-based research. In addition, it reveals the importance of studying SLPs at an individual level, as what matters is the extent to which workers perceive SLPs as useful and supportive.

The purpose of this paper is to deal with the transfer of lean practices between different units in multi-plant organizations with different levels of adoption of lean practices. It investigates how certain influential contextual variables – i.e. lean standards development, lean transfer team composition, source characteristics, recipient national environment and corporate lean programme deployment – can influence stickiness in the different phases of lean transfer process.

This paper opted for the multiple-case study method and examines six lean transfer projects at a dyadic level, that is, between a source and a recipient unit. The authors focussed on companies with headquarters in Europe with an attested experience in lean and which had recently and successfully transferred lean to subsidiaries in the USA and China.

The paper provides empirical insights about how stickiness in lean transfer projects changes during the initiation, implementation/ramp-up and integration phases. It identifies three lean transfer approaches (local, global, global and shared) and provides a set of propositions that explains how sociocultural traits of recipient environment (China vs USA) and lean transfer approach affect stickiness in each phase.

Literature on stickiness in lean transfer is at an early stage and very fragmented. Unlike previous contributions in the field, this paper provides an interpretation of the dynamics of stickiness in lean transfer at a micro-level (i.e. for each single phase of the lean transfer process). In addition, it develops a fuller understanding of the influence of context on lean transfer by adopting a configurational view, i.e. studying the joint effect of contextual variables on stickiness, which is a novelty in the lean transfer literature.

The purpose of this paper is to analyse whether the adoption of e-commerce improves company business, innovation and operational performance and whether sales internationalisation might moderate this relationship.

The research is based on a survey within the fashion industry and a multi-step linear regression model investigating the relationships between e-commerce and performance.

Results reveal that e-commerce improves innovation performance but has no significant relationship with business and operational performance. Also investigating whether the sales internationalisation might moderate the relationship between e-commerce and performance, the findings reveal that the adoption of these tools might even be negative when applied at the international level in particular by considering innovation operational practices, and the research suggests for fashion companies the necessity to develop strong markets’ knowledge and brand awareness among foreign markets and customers before investing internationally.

This paper offers an original analytical approach to identifying the relationships between a company’s adoption of e-commerce, performance and internationalisation within the fashion industry.

The purpose of this paper is to identify the most influential determinants of healthcare employees’ problem-solving capabilities and attitudes towards kaizen initiatives, and clarify how these determinants are related to social outcomes.

Drawing on the input-process-outcome framework, applied to kaizen initiatives, the determinants of the input and process factors are embodied in hypotheses concerning the direct effects of input and process factors on social outcomes and the indirect effects of input factors on social outcomes resulting from process factors. The hypotheses are tested through multiple regressions using data from 105 kaizen initiatives drawn from two hospitals.

Of the 14 determinants investigated, goal clarity, team autonomy, management support, goal difficulty and affective commitment to change (ACC) are the most influential determinants of kaizen capabilities and/or employees’ attitude. Goal clarity, goal difficulty, team autonomy and management support are also found to influence social outcomes directly and/or indirectly through ACC, internal processes and/or an action orientation.

The results support healthcare practitioners to understand how to establish “focused kaizen” actions to leverage specific determinants that positively influence social outcomes.

This study provides an original contribution to the literature concerning effective kaizen initiatives in healthcare operations by empirically testing a comprehensive model of the relationship between kaizen initiative determinants and social outcomes. Unlike previous studies, which are mostly anecdotal or focused on one or few determinants, this research adopts a holistic view, and investigates a pluralist set of determinants on social outcomes through a systematic and quantitative approach.

This research intends to investigate whether there are synergies that a firm could or should exploit by simultaneously implementing customer and supplier integration. In particular, the aim is to analyze the impact of customer integration on efficiency, and the moderating role of supplier integration.

This study analyzes data from a sample of 200 manufacturing plants. Two hypotheses are tested through a hierarchical regression analysis. Customer and supplier integration constructs consider items related to different aspects of the integration (e.g. sharing of production plans and customers' forecasts, feedback on performance, communication on quality considerations and design changes, joint quality improvement efforts, close contact, partnerships). The focus of the integration clearly extends beyond the dyad, as it includes the integration of focal operations upstream and downstream, with both suppliers and customers.

Supplier integration positively moderates the relationship between customer integration and efficiency, whereas the analyses do not support the hypothesis that in general customer integration positively impacts on efficiency. They also reveal that, when supplier integration is at a low level, customer integration can even produce a reduction in efficiency.

Efficiency performance optimization requires levering simultaneously on customer and supplier integration to foster their interaction, rather than investing and acting on customer integration only. In addition, before deciding whether to invest in customer integration, managers should ascertain the level of supplier integration, since it acts as a prerequisite for the successful implementation of customer integration.

Compared with previous studies investigating the main impact of customer and supplier integration on a company's performance, this research analyzes a model that considers the interaction effect between these integration strategies. This provides a number of original implications for the interpretation of the relationship between customer and supplier integration and efficiency.

The purpose of this paper is to study whether a fast supply network structure interacts with customer integration (CI) by positively moderating the relationship between CI and efficiency performance.

The authors developed two hypotheses, incorporating dimensions of CI, fast supply network structure and efficiency performance. The hypotheses are tested through a hierarchical regression analysis using data from a sample of 200 manufacturing plants.

CI alone is not enough to guarantee cost reductions because a fast supply network structure acts as a moderator of the CI‐efficiency relationship. The role of this moderator is twofold. On the one hand, it interacts with CI, strengthening the positive impact of CI on efficiency through a positive complementary effect. On the other hand, if the supply network structure is not intended to support fast lead times, the impact of CI on efficiency can be hindered and, in extreme cases, CI can even make efficiency worse.

Efficiency maximization requires levering simultaneously on CI and the supply network structure, rather than investing and acting on CI only. Managers should carefully weigh up the supply network structural context before embracing a CI program, because adopting CI in a wrong context could amplify a series of problems (e.g. nervousness of plans) and offset CI benefits in terms of efficiency.

This study provides an original contribution to the literature on the relationship between CI and efficiency by adopting a contingency perspective, namely assuming that the relationship between supply chain practices and performance is contingent upon how supply networks have been designed. Accordingly, this research questions the assumption that CI always improves efficiency, by analysing the complementary effect between CI and a fast supply network structure. This provides a number of original implications for the interpretation of the relationship between CI, supply network structure and efficiency.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the impact of product modularity on new product development (NPD) time performance, and the moderating effects of interfunctional integration and supplier involvement on the product modularity‐time performance relationship.

The paper analyzes data from a sample of 186 manufacturing plants settled in several countries, and operating in mechanical, electronic and transportation equipment sectors. Three hypotheses are tested through a hierarchical regression analysis.

Data analyses show that product modularity has a direct positive effect on NPD time performance, and that interfunctional integration positively moderates the product modularity‐time performance relationship. Finally, this research does not support the hypothesis that a positive interaction effect exists between product modularity and supplier involvement.

Future research should replicate and extend the model to samples drawn from other industries. Moreover, analyses carried out provide some interesting directions for future research on the effect of supplier involvement on NPD time performance.

The practical implication for managers is that NPD time performance reduction requires levering simultaneously on product modularity and interfunctional integration to foster their interaction, rather than investing and acting on product modularity only. In addition, before deciding to invest on product modularity, managers should ascertain the level of interfunctional integration. In fact, it acts as prerequisite for the successful implementation of product modularity.

Empirical studies on the impact of product modularity on NPD time performance are really scant. This research empirically analyzes this effect, and contributes to the advancement of theory by investigating the effect of product modularity and integration practices in NPD in a comprehensive way.

To comprehend the rationale behind managerial choices that lead companies to implement different types of collaborative planning, forecasting and replenishment (CPFR) collaborations.

Seven case studies of supply networks whose central firms operate in different sectors have been analysed.

Identifies six types of CPFR collaborations, the choice of which can be explained by considering some important contingent factors, such as the CPFR goals, characteristics of the products and markets in which they are sold, supply network's physical and relational structure, and CPFR development stage.

Further research developed in other contexts is necessary to refine the domain of applicability of the research findings. The opportunity to use the relationships found in this research as a managerial tool calls for the testing of research findings within larger samples of firms, representative of a broader range of industries.

Suggests managers how to select the most appropriate action to be taken to implement CPFR, through the analysis of the context in which CPFR should be implemented.

This paper fulfils the need to clarify the reasons why companies decide to implement different types of CPFR collaborations. Moreover, it contributes to the definition of measures for the CPFR concept, and to the advance of substantive research on CPFR. In literature, few authors devote their attention to rigorously defining CPFR variables or proposing relationships among variables and measures.