Soft lean practices and organizational resilience in the service sector
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to examine the relationship between the implementation of soft lean practices and organizational resilience development in the service sector.
Design/methodology/approach
A mixed-methods explanatory design that relied on two sequential and complementary phases was adopted. In the first phase, a quantitative analysis was performed based on data collected from practitioners from service organizations, allowing the identification of the significance of this relationship. In the second phase, the authors used semi-structured interviews with experts to qualitatively assess how this relationship occurs.
Findings
Findings indicated that soft lean practices are positively associated with organizational resilience, although the extent of their relationships varies depending on the resilience ability under analysis. Interviews with experts also provided specific details on how such relationships occur, adding insights to the numerical results.
Originality/value
This study provides a deeper understanding of the implications of lean management, specifically concerning the support of soft lean practices to develop organizational resilience. Additionally, the identification of this relationship (and how it occurs) allows service organizations to deploy human-related strategies to promote broader adoption of certain soft lean practices. As socio-cultural changes are usually time-consuming, anticipating these organizational resilience needs may result in competitive advantages in the face of disruptive events.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
Conflict of interest statement: The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.
Erratum: It has come to the attention of the publisher that the article, Tortorella, G., Prashar, A., Antony, J., Vassolo, R., Mac Cawley, A., Peimbert Garcia, R. and Nascimento, D.L.d.M. (2023), “Soft lean practices and organizational resilience in the service sector”, Management Decision, Vol. ahead-of-print No. ahead-of-print. https://doi.org/10.1108/MD-06-2023-1034, incorrectly listed the affiliation of Rodrigo Peimbert Garcia. This error was introduced in the typesetting process and has been corrected in the online version of the manuscript.
The affiliation has been corrected from Department of Industrial Engineering, Tecnológico de Monterrey, Queretaro, Mexico to School of Engineering and Sciences, Tecnológico de Monterrey, Monterrey, Mexico.
The publisher sincerely apologises for this error and any inconvenience caused.
Citation
Tortorella, G., Prashar, A., Antony, J., Vassolo, R., Mac Cawley, A., Peimbert Garcia, R. and Nascimento, D.L.d.M. (2023), "Soft lean practices and organizational resilience in the service sector", Management Decision, Vol. ahead-of-print No. ahead-of-print. https://doi.org/10.1108/MD-06-2023-1034
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
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