Effects on performance of lean bundles

Research and practice stress that is the implementation of several lean techniques and initiatives that leads companies to high performance. This study disentangles the complex relations among lean bundles and operational performance focusing on direct, mediating and complementary effects on operational performance of JIT, TQM and HRM. We operationalize and empirically validate the concept of complementarity that thrives in management literature, but often remains ill-defined. We run statistical analysis on High Performance Manufacturing round III database (238 plants, eight countries, three different industries). We find that JIT and TQM have a direct and positive effect on operational performance while HRM shows a mediated effect on it. Moreover, we find that JIT and TQM are complementary lean bundles. Our results emphasize that people are the pillars over which lean is built and that JIT and TQM mutually reinforce each other marginal returns on performance.