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This paper investigates developing a learning-to-learn capability as a critical success factor for sustainable lean transformation.

This research design is guided by our research question: how can suppliers learn to learn as part of a buyer-led collaborative lean transformation? The authors adopt action learning research to generate actionable knowledge from a lean supplier development initiative over a three-year period.

Drawing on emergent insights from the initiative, the authors find that developing a learning-to-learn capability is a core and critical success factor for lean transformation. The authors also find that network action learning has a significant enabling role in buyer-led collaborative lean transformations.

The authors contribute to lean theory and practice by making the distinction between learning about and implementing lean best practices and adopting a learning-to-learn perspective to build organisational capabilities, consistent with lean thinking and practice. Further, the authors contribute to methodology, adopting action learning research to explore learning-to-learn as a critical success factor for sustainable lean transformation.

Being acquainted with both lean and action learning in theory and in practice, this study finds that the theoretical complementarity of these two research streams has traditionally been underexploited. In this conceptual paper, this study aims to advance the theoretical understanding of lean by exploring the complementarity of lean thinking and action learning leading to a proposed integrated theory of these two research streams. Target audience is the operations management research community.

By deliberately adopting a process of theorising, this paper explores, reflects upon and combines individual experiences of researching, teaching and engaging in lean and action learning as operations management scholars.

Having taken a gemba walk through the literature and practices of lean and action learning, this study views and notices a systematic and complementary relationship between the two domains. The overlapping theoretical and practical complementarities of lean and action learning suggest that these two research streams are ripe for synthesis into an integrated theory. This finding provides an opportunity to (1) progress towards an integrative design of interventions leading to more sustainable lean system adoptions and (2) add new depth to our theoretical explanation of the success and failures of lean system adoptions.

This paper contributes an original integrated theory perspective on lean and action learning.

Based on the combined experiences of operations and supply chain management (O&SCM) scholars and a reflective practitioner, the paper compares, contrasts and reconciles the competences needed to research O&SCM practice and to practice O&SCM research. The purpose of this paper is to locate these competences for young faculty in relation to their ambitions and career choices.

The paper is based upon the contributions made at European Operations Management Association 2014 Young Scholars Workshop (YSW). The theme and programme of the workshop was “Operations management – research and practice”.

The paper outlines first the concept of the YSW, the evolution of themes and the specific focus of the 2014 workshop. It concludes with a reflection on the career development of O&SCM scholars, their potential role, as academics or practitioners, in the development of O&SCM theory and practice, and the role of collaborative research in that development.

This paper shows what it takes for O&SCM researchers to engage with “the world around us” involves and, vice versa, how “doctorate” OM and SCM practitioners may successfully solve practical problems and engage with the O&SCM world surrounding them in doing so.

The paper presents a collection of viewpoints of O&SCM scholars and a reflective practitioner on the competences needed to research OM practice and to practice OM research.

The article brings the quality characteristics of action research to project management and explores how these quality characteristics of well-designed and executed action research can inform and enhance the practice of project management.

A reflective paper.

The article identifies five imperatives in bringing together action research and project management. The authors argue that project management may be conducted in a manner that is rigorous, reflective and relevant.

The integration of project management and action research is not empirically described. Therefore, researchers are encouraged to test and further develop the model in relation to the design and management of projects.

Practical questions are posed for implementation.

The integration of action research and project management is a collaborative venture and the engagement imperative emphasizes that collaboration.

By bringing together action research and project management the article integrates five imperatives: design, engagement, improvement, action and research and quality characteristics of action research to enhance project management as rigorous, reflective and relevant.

Doctoral education (DE) is central to the development and application of operations management (OM) thinking. The European Doctoral Educational Network (EDEN) seminar on research methodology in OM is a structured initiative developed in 1999 by European Operations Management Association (EurOMA) and European Institute for Advanced Studies in Management (EIASM). This intensive five-day seminar has run annually since and, to date, has engaged 486 students. The purpose of this paper is to ask: what role has the OM EDEN seminar played in the formation and academic career development of doctoral researchers, and how has it contributed to the development of EurOMA as a community of practice?

The authors developed a retrospective case on the design, launch and growth of the OM EDEN seminar employing two data gathering methods (collecting secondary and archival data, and a survey of four selected seminar participants) and a social network analysis.

The EDEN seminar is an effective educational intervention in developing doctoral researchers and their subsequent academic careers. The seminar has also contributed to EurOMA as a community of practice, bringing faculty together to teach, write and publish leading edge contributions in research methods for OM.

The case is focused on the OM EDEN seminar only, within which the survey is limited to four of the early participants. While another set of participants might respond differently in detail, the authors’ expectation is that participant perception of the role of the seminar would not change. The paper provides an exemplar for European academic associations to guide how they might explore the formation and academic career development of doctoral candidates within a community of practice.

The seminar merits the ongoing support of EurOMA and EIASM, not just in educating doctoral students but also in bringing faculty together to publish leading edge contributions to the OM domain.

The paper draws on the areas of student formation, academic career development and communities of practice to illustrate the role played by the OM EDEN seminar.

This paper is the first description, analysis and reflection on the role played by the OM EDEN seminar.

The topic of employee empowerment and job satisfaction, and its implications for organizational change management, is underexplored in developing countries. Consequently, the purpose of this paper is to investigate the relationship between the two variables in the context of urban Malaysia as an emerging market. Differences in empowerment and job satisfaction in relation to organizational and socio-cultural environments were also assessed. The findings are then discussed in terms of their implications for organizational change management in Malaysia and other emerging countries.

Using survey data gathered from 125 local employees working in the capital city of Kuala Lumpur, the effect of empowerment on job satisfaction was tested using correlation and regression analyses. ANOVA tests were used to determine differences in empowerment and satisfaction among sub-groups divided according to four factors in the organizational and socio-cultural environments, namely, form of ownership, job sector, type of industry and organizational hierarchy.

The results demonstrate that employee empowerment has a strong positive effect on job satisfaction. However, significant differences in employee empowerment and job satisfaction between higher and lower levels of the organizational hierarchy raise concerns about organizational change diffusion and the sustainability of strategic changes.

Empirical evidences are provided for the generalizability of the theoretical link between employee empowerment and job satisfaction in the urban Malaysian context. Nevertheless, the findings have highlighted the need to further examine specific issues faced by employees in lower levels of the organizational hierarchy which affect their rates of empowerment and satisfaction in a rapidly changing environment.

Implications on power relations between managers and their subordinates are discussed, as well as on succession and goal-sharing during periods of intense organizational change.

By demonstrating the influence of organizational hierarchy on employee empowerment and job satisfaction in a non-western setting, this study has contributed new insights on the role of socio-culture and power relations in organizational change management.

Describes the National Action Learning Programme (NALP) and summarises some of the key attributes of the NALP approach that has helped to effect operational improvement in well‐established organisations. The programme represented an inter‐organisational action learning response to the need for organisations as well as individuals to acquire a capacity for operational improvement in the face of exponential rates of change. The establishment of a learning network, self‐assessment, feedback, action planning and evaluation of plans, action learning and reflection cycles, evaluation and distillation of learning emerged as key elements of the approach. Reflects in some detail on the experience of firms participating in one of the learning networks.

The purpose of this article is to provide a design and implementation framework for ALAR (action learning action research) programme which aims to address collaborative improvement in the extended manufacturing enterprise.

This article demonstrates the design of a programme in which action learning and action research were used in combination (ALAR). The participants in the EME engaged in action learning on their work on collaborative improvement in the supply chain. The action learning was studied through action research cycles of action and reflection.

This implementation of the ALAR programme consolidated the design of ten meetings across three stages and adds to other design models within ALAR approach.

This is one particular research programme, from which learning may be extrapolated.

This article provides a practical design framework for ALAR programmes on collaborative improvement in the EME.

The article extends the application of an ALAR programme design into the inter‐organisational setting.