Lean schools of thought

Academia has produced theoretical and practical knowledge about lean for over 30 years, and for that reason, research is in a mature phase. To organise this knowledge, we propose a typology of lean schools of thought. Schools were categorised into two paradigms of organisational analysis – interpretivist and functionalist – to clarify theoretical assumptions about how each conducts scientific investigations and what contributions they generate. Seven schools were identified: systems engineering, systems architecture, operations research, organisational development, contingency systems, socio-technical systems and evolutionary. Persistent practical problems should guide production and operations management research such as the difficulties companies face with adoption and sustainability of lean practices. The typology proposed in this study provides a theoretical framework and a respective school for these problematical situations. The evolutionary school in the interpretivist paradigm seems to be more appropriate; action research as a methodology should be used since it is consistent with interpretivism assumptions. The originality of this paper lies within a proposal of lean schools of thought not found in the literature. Directions for research that have more meaning for companies seeking lean transformation are proposed.

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