Culture, Development and Sustainability of a Lean Transformation (Essay Sample)

CULTURAL INFLUENCE OF LEAN TRANSFORMATION
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Table of Contents
TOC \o "1-3" \h \z \u Introduction PAGEREF _Toc352190761 \h 2
Culture, Development and Sustainability of a Lean Transformation PAGEREF _Toc352190762 \h 3
Lean Transformation in China PAGEREF _Toc352190763 \h 11
Lean Transformation in Sweden PAGEREF _Toc352190764 \h 14
Japanese Lean Transformation PAGEREF _Toc352190765 \h 18
Conclusion PAGEREF _Toc352190766 \h 20
Bibliography..................................................................................................................................21
Introduction
Lean business transformation programs have become important for most organizations in almost all the industry sector. Even though majority attempt implementation, most of them fail to address their business transformation goals or sustain any other transformational gains. However, despite the contributions those have been made so far, lean transformation in different sectors lack a cultural update. The most recent trend of lean employment that has been witnessed in the service industry has been evidenced in healthcare. This has been done with an aim of explaining what it entails to have a lean health centre and the manner in which the context must be transformed to assist in accomplishing this. Despite the tremendous contributions aimed at overhauling the inception of lean principles employment in different sectors, offering a framework for classification of the present researches, a more critical approach must be taken into consideration. The most important questions that must be addressed , and which is the primary concern of this paper, is whether or not lean as applied in different sectors is a sustainable initiative of improvement, and most importantly, the types of context aspects like culture that can give rise to the embracement and sustainability of a system of production.[Ramakrishnan Sreekanth, "Vital Missing Link in Organization Transformation." Industrial Management, 55 ,no.1, Jan/Feb2013, 8] [Daniel Jones, "Leaning healthcare," Management Services 50, no.2, 2006:16-] [P. Hines, A.L. Martins and J. Beale, "Testing the Boundaries of Lean Supply Chain Thinking: observations from the legal sector”. Public Money & Management,  28, no.1, 2008: 36]
Culture, Development and Sustainability of a Lean Transformation
The cultural factors have not been accorded much attention with reference to lean transformation, even when it is apparent that transformation is never a technical-rational initiative, rather, a behavioral initiative, implying that implementation of lean transformation demands an overhaul of culture. Companies stand a limited chance of executing lean not until they have laid equal emphasis to the establishment of the right culture besides the conditions and situations that could become the pillar for executing change. Culture in this regard has been defined as the sum programming or functioning of the mind that differentiates members of a group. In addition, culture is portrayed in distinct forms like the use of symbols and rituals among others besides the fact that it can be described in four major levels. The levels entail the society, professional, small group and organizational. In a study that was conducted on IBM, there was an identification of four dimensions that are used in the classification of national culture. The first dimension is power distance which refers to the extent of equality or inequality as witnessed among groups in a nation’s society. Second is individualism which is the extent to which the society bolsters individual or collective success and interpersonal relationships or rather the extent to which the individuals are incorporated into groups. Third dimension is masculinity which refers to the extent to which the society chooses to reinforce or disregard the ancient masculine wok function framework of male success, control and authority.[Atkinson, Philip, "Lean is a Cultural Issue," Management Services 54, no.2, 2010:37] [Geert Hofstede, Culture’s consequences: international differences in work related values (Sage: Beverly Hills, CA.,1980) ,25] [Hofstede, Geert. "Organizational culture: siren or sea cow? A reply to Dianne Lewis”. Strategic Change 9, 2000 :136] [Hofstede , Geert et al. Cultures and Organizations: software of the mind: intercultural cooperation and its importance for survival, 3 rd ed. (New York:McGraw Hill, 2010), 37]
The last dimension is uncertainty avoidance which refers to the tolerance level for ambiguity and skepticism in the society. A number of studies were carried out after the national scores of Hofstede, which were founded on the four designs, a process that generated fascinating results. One of the studies submits that the competitive advantage attained from the management practices that are well adapted originates from the alignment between attributes of the external environment, which is the national culture, and the internal framework and practices. The implication for this is that in the event that the managers connect their practices to a nation’s values, the outcome is always ROA (higher return on assets) and the sales as opposed to the ones with limited connection. In addition, the study submits that management practices must be linked to the local culture besides the fact that the distinctions between cultures restrict the transferability of the practices of management. In corroborating this idea, a different study highlighted various hierarchies of business objectives between leaders drawn from different national clusters, implying that the objective mindset of the leader could influence performance. In addition, it was submitted that the executive objectives are not just economic, rather, they are cultural and difficult to evaluate. The two studies are in line with the past work that was done on organizational culture findings, which in essence held that the values of employees were discovered to greatly differ with reference to the demographic variables as opposed to the organization membership. Therefore, the pillar of an organization culture seemed to depend extensively on the shared diurnal practices.[Hofstede et al., Cultures and Organizations..., 37] [Kirkman et al., "A quarter century of Culture’s Consequences: a review of empirical research incorporating Hofstede’s cultural values framework," Journal of International Business Studies 37, 2006:287] [Newman Karen and Stanley Nollen. "Culture and Congruence: The fit between management practices and national culture”. Journal of International Business Studies 24, no.4, 1996: 753-79.] [Karen and Nollen, 755.] [Geert Hofstede,”Business Goals and Corporate Governance,”Asia Pacific Business Review 10, no.3/4,2004:292-301] [Geert Hofstede, "Business goals for a new world order: beyond growth, greed and quarterly results,”.Asia Pacific Business Review 15, no.4, 2009: 481-88.] [Hofstede et al. "Measuring Organizational Cultures: A Qualitative and Quantitative Study across Twenty Cases”. Administrative Science Quarterly 35, no.2, (1990):288]
Individualism was discovered to be positively linked to the employment of PFP (pay-for-performance) with significant attention on individual performance. Power distance on the other hand was negatively linked to the social gains and the plans of employee stock ownership. Uncertainty avoidance was linked positively to the seniority and pay plans that are informed by skills and negatively to the emphasis on individual performance. Finally, masculinity was found to be positively connected to the individual bonuses and related in a negative fashion to the dynamic benefits. In a different study, uncertainty avoidance was connected to the choice of organizational norms, stipulations and procedures with power distance portraying preference for acquiring the backing of superiors before undertaking a line of action.[Kirkman et al,288.] [Ibid, 291] [Ibid, 293]
Yet in a different study where uncertainty avoidance is linked to preferences for the roles of innovation and the fact that significant legitimacy of the roles submits that uncertainty acceptance might be connected to more inventive societies. Moreover, a different research showed that power distance and uncertainty avoidance were linked negatively to participative leadership. In corroborating the idea that values are connected to the total management practices and the beliefs of a nation, these studies support the same. The issue of convergence or divergence as related to the subject of national cultures has been tackled, maintaining that just in the dimension of individualism, a particular extent of convergence, but never letting go of major differences between nations’ individualism. A different study also tackled the issue of cultural convergence or divergence submitting that the change in values is never borrowed from the West but in the shift of cultural western norms with the escalating considerations with group work and quality, which is a representation of a partial outcome of the impact of management in Japan. In addition, a different dimension of culture was added.[Ibid, 292] [Hofstede, Culture’s consequences....33] [Hofstede, Geert. "Think Locally, Act Globally: Cultural Constraints in Personnel Management”, Management International Review, 38, Special Issue 1888/2, (1998):10.] [Leung et al. "Culture and international business: recent advances and their implications for future research”. Journal of International Business Studies.36, (2005):358]
The dimension was centered on the long against the short term inclination or rather orientation. This dimension rated twenty three nations on the basis of the Chinese value evaluation and forty four nations on the basis of world values evaluation. In...