A meta-analytical study of the impact of Lean Production on business performance

Abstract

Lean Production (LP) is one of the most common initiatives in Operations Management that firms adopt to boost their competitiveness. The purpose of this paper is to examine the extant research on the relationship between LP and business performance (BP). The study analyses the data from 30 articles published from 2000 to 2016 that meet two targeted criteria, that they have: (i) empirically analysed the relationship between LP, or any measure of LP, and at least one measure of BP, and (ii) reported the effect size of the relationship between LP and BP measured with Pearson's correlation coefficients or related methods. Distinctions are made between two different performance outcomes (financial and market) and six LP practices. Using the Hunter and Schmidt (2004) meta-analysis based correlations approach, the obtained results show that a positive and moderate relationship exists between aggregate level LP and aggregate level business performance (r ̅´ = 0.31). There is also a positive relationship with market performance, but not with financial performance. Only three individual practices are statistically related to business performance (Process Control and Improvement, Workforce Development, and Customer Focus). The country’s level of economic development is also found to act as a moderating variable in several of the studied relationships and to have a greater effect in Emerging Economies than in Advanced Economies.