The manager’s role in successful lean implementation evidences from vietnamese enterprises

As literature has pointed out, Lean production can be successfully adopted if only companies satisfy certain conditions regarding major changes in organizational structure, culture and m

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HA NOI

VIETNAM JAPAN UNIVERSITY

LE THE NGUYEN TRUNG HIEU

THE MANAGER’S ROLE IN SUCCESSFUL LEAN IMPLEMENTATION: EVIDENCES FROM VIETNAMESE ENTERPRISES

MASTER’S THESIS BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION

Hanoi, 2018

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HA NOI

VIETNAM JAPAN UNIVERSITY

LE THE NGUYEN TRUNG HIEU

THE MANAGER’S ROLE IN SUCCESSFUL LEAN IMPLEMENTATION: EVIDENCES FROM VIETNAMESE ENTERPRISES

MAJOR: BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION

CODE: 60340102

RESEARCH SUPERVISORS:

ASSOC PROF DR VU ANH DUNG

ASSOC PROF DR KODO YOKOZAWA

Hanoi, 2018

TABLE OF CONTENTS

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 1

1.1 Background 1

1.2 Research rationale 2

1.3 Research objective and research question 3

1.4 Research scope 3

1.5 Structure of the research 4

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW 6

2.1 Lean production 6

2.2 Leadership and management 10

2.3 Lean leadership 11

2.4 Research gap 16

2.5 Theoretical framework 28

CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY 30

3.1 Study design 30

3.2 Sample 30

3.2.1 Shinmeido 33

3.2.2 LME IDN 33

3.2.3 Viet An JSC 34

3.2.4 An Phu Viet Plastic Co., Ltd 34

3.2.5 Toyota Industrial Equipment Vietnam (TIEV) 34

3.3 Data collection procedure 35

CHAPTER 4: DATA PRESENTATION AND FINDINGS 37

4.1 With-in case analysis 38

4.1.1 Shinmeido 38

4.1.2 LME IDN 43

4.1.3 Viet An JSC 47

4.1.4 Toyota industrial Equipment Vietnam (TIEV) 52

4.1.5 An Phu Viet Plastic Co., Ltd 54

4.2 Cross-case analysis 58

4.2.1 Committing to Lean vision 59

4.2.2 Encouraging new ideas and innovations 61

4.2.3 Sharing information 63

4.2.4 Empowering employees 64

4.2.5 Coaching and training 66

4.2.6 Visiting the factory 68

4.2.7 Visualizing the performance 71

4.3 Descriptive analysis of survey 72

CHAPTER 5: DISCUSSION, LIMITATIONS AND FUTURE RESEARCH 75

5.1 Discussion 75

5.1.1 Lean leadership and Transformational leadership theory 75

5.1.2 Lean leadership and Leadership behavioral taxonomy 76

5.2 Limitations and future research 79

CONCLUSION 80

REFERENCES 83

APPENDIX 91

Appendix 1: Interview protocol 91

Appendix 2: Survey 94

LIST OF TABLES

Table 2.1: Definitions of Lean tools and techniques 9

Table 2.2: Literature on Lean leader‘s behaviors 18

Table 3.1: Case companies 32

Table 4.1: Behaviors in Shinmeido 40

Table 4.2: Behaviors in LME IDN 45

Table 4.3: Behaviors in Viet An JSC 49

Table 4.4: Behaviors in TIEV 53

Table 4.5: Behaviors in An Phu Viet 56

Table 4.6: Data sources of Committing to Lean vision 60

Table 4.7: Data sources of Encouraging new ideas and innovations 62

Table 4.8: Data sources of Sharing Information 63

Table 4.9:Data sources of Empowering Employees 65

Table 4.10: Data sources of Coaching and Training 67

Table 4.11: Data sources of Visiting the factory 69

Table 4.12: Data sources of Visualizing the performance 71

Table 4.13: Descriptive analysis of survey 73

Table 5.1: Common leadership behaviors and Yukl‘s behavior taxonomy 77

LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1.1: Research structure 5

Figure 2.1: Conceptual framework 29

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

I would like to take this chance to give my sincere appreciations to all the people who have given me supports throughout the time I conducted this research Without their helps, it would be impossible for me to complete this work successfully

First of all, I would like to express my deep gratefulness to my advisors, professor Dung and professor Yokozawa Professor Yokozawa was the one who gave me the inspiration and motivation for the research topic, and during my time in Japan, he was always available and willing to support me whenever I had any problems with my thesis as well as providing me with invaluable knowledge, experience and advices He also recommended me to apply case study approach in this research and provided me with detailed and useful steps to analyze the data and write the report in the most precise and concise way From the support of Professor Dung, I had great contacts with all the companies, which are invaluable sources of data He also helped me in building and completing my conceptual framework and methodology, which are the base of this research Without their kindness, supports and enthusiasm, it would have been extremely hard to me to go this far in my research

Next, I would like to give my thanks to my wife, Mrs La Thu Thuy During the time I conducted this research, she always shows support and belief in me, even when I thought I could continue She also gave me feedback and suggestions to improve my interview questions and survey

Finally, I am truly thankful to my family and all of my friends who assisted me in my thesis Without the beliefs and encouraging words from my parents, I would not have been such consistent in my choice and believe I can do what I wanted to And thanks to

my friends for all of their feedback and efforts that helped me collect the data and finish the research on time

ABSTRACT

Lean Production is a philosophical view and practices centered on improving customer value by eliminating activities which have no values from production operations Recently, Lean Production is experiencing an increasing interest, mainly as its principles and practices is especially suitable for the situation of scare resources and unstable economy Despite this, scholar work of Lean Production, particularly exploration on the management of Lean implementation, stays limited In this research, the author conducted 16 interviews and a survey of 50 respondents to explore the behaviors performed by effective Lean leaders and managers The result was the use of more positive relations-oriented behaviors such as: active listening and sharing, empowering and showing care to employees, training and coaching, showing positive attitudes, be open in information sharing while the uses of task monitoring such as monitoring, clarifying are seen to be less popular, except for the increase practice of visualization Behaviors towards changes such as envisioning change and encouraging new ideas and innovations are promoted The study compares the findings with modern leadership theories, as well as proposes implications for Lean practitioners The end includes limitations and suggestions for future research

of competitive advantage (Fujimoto, 1999; Anand et al., 2009)

1.2 Research rationale

Although the key principles and techniques of Lean production are moderately simple

to handle and apply in various settings (Womack and Jones, 1996), in practice many companies are not ready to change themselves into Lean enterprises (Liker, 2004; Bhasin and Burcher, 2006) A number of Lean transformation programs yield promising outcomes at first, yet neglect to support them after some time (Mann, 2005; Hines et al., 2008) Several firms experiencing positive outcomes from Lean adoption also found that those results stay localized to the particular unit and they cannot exchange the Leant knowledge to different department of the companies (Adler and Cole, 2000) As literature has pointed out, Lean production can be successfully adopted

if only companies satisfy certain conditions regarding major changes in organizational structure, culture and managerial system to fit with Lean context and effectively executes various practices to help the operational and strategic parts of Lean, which brings results not only have short-term values but also ensure the long-term effectiveness (Shah & Ward, 2003, 2007; de Treville & Antonakis, 2006; Liker 2004; Mann, 2005; Bhasin and Burcher, 2006; Dahlgaard et al., 2011) Leadership, therefore, can be the key Lean transformation, as it is vital to change in organizational culture (Schein, 2010) Mann (2005) stated the main reason behind the disappointment of numerous Lean initiatives may be the failure to change leadership practices Likewise, other authors pointed out the source of Lean failures are from the companies‘ sole focus on the waste reduction and technical tools of Lean, whereas the role of leaders

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and managers is left unknown This gap has been reported by authors such as Liker (2004), Lakshman (2006), Mann (2009, Dibia (2012), Liker and Convis (2012), Marodin and Saurin (2013), Bhasin (2012) and Dombrowski and Mielke (2014) The transformation to Lean is about the entire company, and not just manufacturing department Every single division and their activities inside the company are to be transformed coordinately This is the job of the leaders and top-level managers It is proven by scholars that beside Lean practices and techniques, successful Lean application requires companies to achieve main strategic factors such as commitment from top management, employee autonomy, information sharing and cultural congruence (de Treville, S., & Antonakis, J 2006; Shah, R., & Ward, P T 2003, 2007; Achanga, Shehab, Roy & Nelder 2006; Scherrer-Rathje, Boyle and Deflorin, 2009) While at this point we can perceive firms that have effectively executed Lean changes from how their procedures work and drive performance, it stays vague what leaders and managers do in Lean transformation and how it connects to a company's goals, processes and employees

1.3 Research objective and research question

More research-based studies are required to give a deeper profound comprehension of Lean leadership and management Hence, the purpose of this study is to shed light on the role of leaders and managers in Lean implementation and provide a stronger comprehension of leadership and managerial practices in Lean enterprises In attempt

to accomplish that goal, this study is aimed at answering the research question: What are the specific behaviors of leaders and managers in Lean implementation?

1.4 Research scope

This research explores the role of leaders and managers in Lean adoption process by investigating the behaviors of leaders and managers in selected Vietnamese enterprises Five Vietnamese companies have been contacted and studied, all of which are

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considered to be successful in implementing Lean production; 24 interviewed with top and middle managers, along with employees have been conducted;50 survey in the form of items of 5- points Likert scale have been distributed and answered The findings bring values not only for leaders and managers who attempt to adopt Lean into their business but also for human resource people to develop proper training and coaching programs and Lean experts in their consultancy activities

1.5 Structure of the research

This study started by intensive literature review of the field of Lean production, Lean implementation and the role of leadership and management in bring Lean production into their companies From there, behaviors of Lean leadership and management which were mentioned as important in literature were grouped to build up the conceptual framework which was used for designing research interview, survey, data analysis and discussion of findings After that, research methodology was explained; data from multiplies sources were analyzed and compared from both each single case company and among companies and the findings are drawn Further discussions were made, as well as implications for Lean practitioners were proposed The research ended by giving limitations and what future studies should do to fill the gap of this study

Introduction Literature

review

Conceptual framework

Methodology and data collection

Data presentation and

findings

Discussion and conclusion

Implementation, limitation and future research

5 Figure 1.1: Research structure

a high usage efficiency given line unstableness, quality issues, estranged laborers with limit abilities, and other resources were too expensive for Toyota The answer for Toyota was to work with least stock while endeavoring to keep up a high usage efficiency: goals that are, at first sight, clashing To accomplish these goals at the same time required the diminishment of variability in all structures The Toyota Production System was built around the want to make products in a continuous flow which did not depend on long manufacturing lines to be effective; it was built around the acknowledgment that it was only a small piece of the whole production time and effort that has value added to the customers Quality issues, in case of starting from internal

or outside partners (e.g., suppliers) had to be eradicated To that conclusion, workers were given with skill and tools and were empowered to assist enhance the effectiveness

of the manufacturing system Likewise, employees were trained to fill in for missing colleagues or be reassigned as needed to adjust the line Demand was smoothed so that the manufacturing line would be protected from its innate variability; for instance, a few cars required more labor time than others did, and without demand smoothing, a grouping with a few labor-intensive cars together would cause a decreased capacity utilization for a given result level Most imperative, Toyota management decided that high usage efficiency and low stock would require employees who were focused on their work and to the organization, and who could be given obligation regarding quality and for nonmanufacturing jobs (Fujimoto, 1999) This was unmistakably the inverse of

of a particular level of Lean, Lean manufacturing is centered on continuous improvement Each improvement in value stream or banishing of waste is a step to achieve Lean goals (Womack and Jones, 1996) The organizations who adopted Lean production early reformed the basic of competition in manufacturing industry due to expanded efficiency, quality, and degree of learning The effect of Lean production on competitiveness was significant to the point that organizations who did not implement Lean was failed to keep their competitive positions to early Lean adopters for only several years after Lean was introduced (Adler and Cole, 1993; Porter, 1996; Womack

et al., 1990)

It is necessary to notice two main perspectives of Lean in scholars The first stream considers Lean from a philosophical point of view, which identifies five principles - value, value stream, flow, pull, and perfection with the aim to reduce all waste from production activities (Womack and Jones, 1996) Defining the value is the very first and critical step for Lean production The customers are the ones who determine the values of products, because those values are meant to meet the requirements of customers, at a price level and specific time And the manufacturers are the ones who create those values and put them into their products Giving customers the products

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whose values they do not demand for is muda Identifying the whole value stream for

every product (or product line) is the next stage in Lean thinking The value stream is the group of all the work required to produce a particular product through the three basic management activities: the problem-solving activity, the information management, and the physical change of raw materials to a final product and deliver to the customer After value and value stream has been indicated, the third stage in Lean thinking takes place: making the value-creating steps flow for the product The next step requires companies to let customers decide what and how many products they

want, in other words, let them pull products from companies, rather than companies

push products to customers Finally, as companies move from the first step of defining

values to the fourth step of letting customer take the job of deciding products and the quantities, companies approach the perfect stage in which the process of reducing waste, increasing product quality become continuous, while customers are able to get exactly what they want or even more than what they demand (Womack et al., 1996) The second perspective defines Lean as a combination of certain practices, techniques and tools to reduce internal and external process variability as the main source of manufacturing issues and eliminate waste inside the plant and along the production network (Shah and Ward, 2007; de Treville and Antonakis, 2006; Liker, 2004) Example of variability is in supply chain emerging when suppliers are unable to deliver the product with expected quantity, at the right amount and in a timely manner (Womack et al., 1990) Some tools and techniques include, for instance, setup time reduction, six-sigma quality, kanban system, kaizen (continuous improvement), jidoka, heijunka, just-in-tine (JIT) supply, total quality management (TQM), visual displays (5S), human resource management and preventative maintenance (Fujimoto, 1999; Shah and Ward, 2003; White and Prybutok, 2001) Later, Shah and Ward (2007) included statistical process control, A3 problem-solving, small lot size reduction, pull system, continuous improvement, customer focus, total preventive maintenance (TPM), supplier and customer involvement The primary focus of lean manufacturing is the

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fact that these tactics can work synergistically to produce a streamlined, superior quality process which creates finished goods in time of customer's want with almost no waste (Shah and Ward, 2003) Table 2.1 summarizes the definitions of some Lean tools and techniques, including kanban system, Just-in-time (JIT), 5S, Jidoka, Heijunka, Poka-yoke and Visual control

Table 2.1: Definitions of Lean tools and techniques

keeping the floor clean, drawing white lines on the floor, keeping the parts boxes neatly inside the lines, putting tools in order in a tool display box, and so on, each of which is easy to do As a whole, the 5-S activities help operators visualize disorder and noise in the process by contrasting them with the order of the shop floor (seiri = arrangement, seiton =order, seiso = cleanliness, seiketsu

Fujimoto,

1999

assembly sequence plan) in which efforts are made to reduce fluctuations in both total output rate per process and product mix composition within the process

Fujimoto,

1999

Poka-yoke A way of process and/or product design that prevents

abnormalities from happening, makes defect operations physically impossible in the first place

by replenishing only what the next operation takes away at short intervals, and a culture in which everyone is striving continuously to improve" Shah and Ward (2007) likewise defines Lean manufacturing as an incorporated socio-technical structure whose primary goal is eliminating waste by lessening and reducing internal, customer, and supplier uncertainty

2.2 Leadership and management

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The term "leadership" can be interpreted in various ways As Northouse (1997) mentioned, some basic characteristics can be recognized that are key of leadership These characteristics are: leadership is a process; leadership involves influence; leadership occurs within a group context, and leadership involves goal attainment (Northouse, 1997) In previous papers, there is also extensive discussions over how to distinguish between managers and leaders (Yukl, 2010) Kotter (1990) states that managers and leaders are two different roles The main responsibility of managers is to control and facilitate different activities, while the main responsibility of leaders is to deliver change and development Like Yukl (2010), the author sees management and leadership as two different duties, yet managers and leaders are not really different people The work of managers may infer both a social impact process (ordinarily done

by leaders) while giving a structure to work of employees (management work) Leadership is present at each level all through a company, and normally incorporates management work (Northouse, 1997) In this research the author examines the activities of both management and leadership and do not isolate the responsibility of managers and leaders

2.3 Lean leadership

In this study, leadership behaviors are defined as ―specific, observable, verbal and nonverbal actions of managers when interacting with their employees in an organizational setting‖ (Szabo et al 2001)

Recent research and papers have witnessed increasing consideration given to the part of management in Lean context and, more particularly, to the principles of the managerial systems that bolster Lean implementation (Shook, 2008; Rother, 2009), and to the talents, management characteristics and behaviors of leaders in situations of Lean (Liker, 2004; Liker & Hoseus, 2008; Womack, 2011) As David Mann (2009) has concluded, the contribution of Lean tools into Lean success accounts only around 20 percent, compared to 80 percent contribution of leader‘s managerial role Leadership

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might be required to move the focus to quality-oriented objectives and process enhancement, rather than a strict emphasis on financial goals and numerical results (Deming, 1986) Lean requires an alternate way to deal with management and leadership, an adjustment in the way a supervisor do, associates and speaks with employees and decides (Liker, 2004; Mann, 2005; Hines et al., 2008) Leadership and management commitment has also been reported as one of the critical factors of successful implementation in small and medium-size companies in the UK, which makes up roughly 50 percent of effective Lean adoption (Achanga, Shehab, Roy & Nelder, 2006)

Knowing the behaviors of leaders in effective organizational change requires a thought

of the scale of that change Daniel Jones, coauthor of the book The Machine That Changed the World and several books on Lean manufacturing, also chairman of the Lean Enterprise Academy, realizes a critical connection between leaders and change The move to Lean companies requires kaikaku – a change in the basic logic and design

of enterprises – alongside kaizen – activities intended to continuously improve the performance and banish waste Though organizations do kaikaku transformation and increase kaizen, ―if the logic in the heads of management has not changed along with the physical operations then things will easily slide backwards‖ (Jones, 2005) The kaikaku overhaul of the center value-creating flow, Jones notes, is too important for leaders making it impossible to delegate Leaders cannot designate their Lean responsibility since their engagement is the thing that allows them to look at and change the rationale in their heads That shift in the leaders' rationale is crucial to the change of the company (Jones, 2005)

In their recent book, Liker and Convis (2011) proposed a leadership model portraying the most vital characteristics of Toyota leadership The model comprises of four phases: 1 Commit to Self-Development; 2 Coach and Develop Others; 3 Support Daily Kaizen and 4 Create Vision and Align Goals These four phases of the model

self-as the True North values, are the bself-ase of challenge, kaizen, genchi genbutsu, teamwork and regard for people As indicated by Emiliani (2008), Lean leaders should be advocated by Lean beliefs that force particular practices and results right after in managerial abilities Similarly, Liker (2004) enjoy a strong emphasis which Toyota leaders have both full understanding of the needed skills and tasks to improve and guide employees, and therefore are viewed for both their specialized and leadership talents

The second stage is tied in with coaching and developing people The Lean leaders have to exhibit employees the values and culture of the firm, which means they should understand and stick to the organizational culture They ought to enable and encourage organizational learning and information sharing (Mann, 2005) The organizational culture must bolster everyone in the company to do the work well (Liker, 2004) and be portrayed by trust, shared duty, and the courage to try new ways without being afraid

of failures (Mann, 2005) A few authors express that compelling Lean leadership includes practices that cultivate support and employee empowerment (Emiliani, 1998; Found and Harvey, 2007) Lean leaders do not deal with the problems alone but rather engage employees into problem solving process by asking questions, listening to employee's opinions, in order to help employees to think about the solutions by themselves (Liker, 2004; Spear, 2004)

The third stage is tied in with supporting daily kaizen and promoting engagement and involvement of leaders to employees for improving work activities (Liker and Convis, 2011) A similar opinion is underlined by Spear (2004) and Found (2007), who express that the leader's job is supporting employees to understand the responsibility of

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enhancing their own daily work and giving essential resources to make improving every day‘s work possible A Lean leader needs to learn to become a facilitator who effectively get workers involved in and support them to build up and share ideas and continuously gain new knowledge (Mann, 2005) Since the people at Toyota are used

to work in groups, an imperative part of Lean leadership is to bolster teamwork (Found and Harvey, 2007; Liker and Convis, 2011)

The final stage deduces making True North vision, which can be portrayed as the organization‘s profound objective and long-term improvement targets Goals assisting the True North vision are set at every level of management and modified to exercise and transformation plans (Flinchbaugh et al., 2008; Liker and Convis, 2011)

Lean leadership should be upheld by Lean management practices and techniques (Liker and Convis, 2011) As Mann (2005) proposed, a Lean management system comprises

of four basic components: leader standard work, visual controls, daily accountability processes, and discipline Leader standard work determines tasks of every day schedule, e.g., gemba walk or audit status of execution measures (Liker and Convis, 2011) Visual control is a framework of signs, information display, and tools of organizational work that are intended to monitor and control the procedures and show on-time information about the current stage or condition (Mann, 2005; Liker and Convis, 2011) Daily responsibility is about meetings which are arranged to guarantee follow-up tasks made in light of latest issues or chances for improvement The meetings often are arranged in fixed schedule and duration and instructed by uniformed agenda the last principle is discipline, which is important to implement the other three principles as planned (Mann, 2005) Emiliani (1998) pointed out the types and amount

of waste that usually exits in organization and provided a model to show the mindset and behaviors Lean leaders and managers should possess to minimize waste from ―fat behaviors‖ Those behaviors include employee empowerment, appropriate incentives and rewards, continuous self-development, long-term Lean envisioning, building trust and listening to employee‘s ideas Waldman (1993), on the other hand, suggested a

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theoretical model of culture, leadership and TQM which stated that leadership affects specific TQM policies and behaviors Later, Waldman et al (1998) performed a qualitative, inductively-oriented investigation of leadership and quality management effort, whose results showed that top management commitment, continuous improvement, teamwork, focus on customer and quality values are set of behaviors of effective managers for quality improvement The similar results were also yielded in Lakshman (2006) study, in which he developed a theory of leadership, focusing on the role of leaders as quality managers The theory was built based on underlying principles of total quality management - customer focus, participation and teamwork, and continuous improvement - and focuses on the values, traits, and behaviors of leaders in all levels of company The result was 15 propositions which describe both specific and generic behavioral elements associated with total quality management principles Customer focus, building a culture that promotes participation and teamwork and continuous improvement are the main responsibility of leaders in total quality management Commitment from top managers and employee empowerment were also one of the successful factors of Lean implementation, according to Scherrer-Rathje, Boyle and Deflorin (2009), which studied the case of a food manufacturing company attempting to implement Lean production in two projects The first project failed, while the second was a big success By comparing the two efforts, the authors resulted in major reasons of failure in the first attempt and critical behaviors of successful Lean application in the second effort Some of the sources of Lean implementation failures are no commitment from top management, low level of employee empowerment, poor communication across departments and lack of awareness for the need of Lean transformation In contrast, the second effort of Lean adoption saw success due to strong management commitment, the encouragement and mechanism of employee autonomy, communicate Lean objectives, aim for long-term Lean goals, better communication from internal to external parties involved in Lean and continuous evaluation of Lean performance Likewise, top management is the

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starting point of effective TQM, as the findings from 30 years of research and consultancy of Oakland (2011) He presented the role of leaders and managers in effective TQM, in which top managers should show their commitment to quality improvement, make clear objectives and vision; build detailed strategies and plans for execution, develop proper structure of management and support employee autonomy Dombrowski and Mielke (2014) identified 15 practice-oriented rules divided into five principles The first principle - Improvement culture – encourages leaders to continuously develop, not only their followers but also themselves; encourage the problem-solving duty to employees and never be afraid of making mistakes The second principle - Self-development – starts with manager realizing the need for self-development themselves; be aware that they need to acquire more skills beyond their management role, for examples, how to hold the customer‘s point of view and know the problem-solving process of the company to do the employee coaching and delegation The third principles – Qualification – emphasizes individual development

of each employee and learning process should be short, standardized with quick feedbacks and results The third principle - Gemba – shows the importance of decisions that are based on what are actually happening in the workplace; the learning and coaching should also take place in the workplace and the small ratio of leader-employee during training at the workplace Finally, the principle Honshin Kanri points out the priority of long-term goals over short-term goals; emphasizes the importance of employee development alongside with the target system; and the leader‘s job in translating the organizational objectives into department‘s goals and individual employee‘s performance target

2.4 Research gap

Table 2.2 summarizes behaviors of Lean managers from prior literature, including both specific observable behaviors (listening to employees, designing and coaching teams) and broad behavioral categories (commitment to self-development, continuous

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improvement) Among listed behaviors, the ones mentioned in four or more sources of research are: ―high employee engagement‖, ―encouraging and enabling employee autonomy‖, ―giving incentives and rewards‖, ―coaching and developing teams‖,

―committing to self-development‖, ―having a vision and goals‖, and ―continuous improvement‖

As much as the discussed literature show interest in Lean manager, not any of these studies concentrated solely on the investigation of managerial behaviors; the reviewed papers mainly addressed higher-level management of lean implementation This circumstance proves the theoretical importance of this study Another aspect previous studies have not addressed is how Lean leadership and management are and grown since the start of Lean implementation process In most literature, the researchers are interested in Lean leadership when the companies have fully integrated Lean into their daily routine, but how leaders and managers change their working style to fit and support Lean transformation is left unanswered In addition, most prior literature of Lean leadership (e.g Emiliani, 1998; Flinchbaugh et al., 2008; Mann, 2009) does not connect to contemporary leadership theories, but instead, portraits Lean leadership as specific characteristics of only Lean enterprises However, the author sees several similarities between Lean leadership studies with other popular leadership theories such as transformational leadership theory and behavior taxonomy These theories will

be discussed in the next sections

According to Avolio et al (2009), transformational leadership is the theory which have been received the most attention for the most 20 years Transformational leadership was first mentioned in a more political setting by Burns (1978) and later connected to the organizational setting by Bass and Riggio (2006) Transformational leadership is characterized depending on the leader's influence on their followers As indicated by Bass (1999), there are four approaches leaders can do to give motivation to their followers: 1) making them understand the significance of organizational goals; 2) inspiring them to go beyond their own particular self-interest for the group or the firm;

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Table 2.2: Literature on Lean leader‘s behaviors

Authors Name of study Findings Behavior of managers

14 principles of management of Toyota

- Empowering employee

- Coaching and developing employee

- Walking around the workplace

- Having long-term vision and goals

Critical factors of successful lean implementation

- Committing to lean effort

- Having long-term vision and goals

- Continuous evaluation of lean performance

Leadership in Toyota and propose a development model for lean leadership

- Engaging employee

- Promoting teamwork

- Coaching and developing employee

- Walking around the workplace

15 rules for lean implementation

- Coaching and developing employee

- Engaging employees

- Empowering employees

- Walking around the workplace

Success factors of human resource management during lean adoption process

- Giving incentives and rewards

A theory of leadership, focusing on the role of leaders as quality managers

- Engaging employee

- Promoting teamwork

- Committing to lean effort

- Empowering employee

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Customers, Commitment, Culture and

- A model of total quality management, culture and leadership

-Transformation leadership theory is applicable for specifying the content of behavior which leader may use to stimulate TQM activities

- Promoting teamwork

- Continuous improvement

- Coaching and developing employee

- Top management commitment to quality improvement

- Emphasize teamwork

- Involve outsiders to participate in lean effort

- Use employee/ group recognition

Waldman et

al (1998)

A qualitative analysis

of leadership and quality improvement

- A model of leadership and managerial

commitment in association with quality improvement process

- Promoting teamwork

- Committing to lean effort

- Walking around the workplace

- Listening to employee

- Continuous improvement

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-To pursuit quality improvement, transformational leadership

is suitable for managers and leaders at top management level of organizations

Strong and positive effect

of transformational leadership to TQM behavior factors;

transactional leadership is a facilitator in certain favor conditions

Jung et al

(2003)

The role of transformational leadership in enhancing

Direct and positive effect

of transformational leadership to organizational innovation, employee

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organizational innovation:

Hypotheses and some preliminary findings

empowerment and support for innovation

of 25 Years of Research

-Positive relationship of transformational leadership and individual-level

follower performance, with significant linkage to contextual performance than task performance

- Transformational leadership has positive influence on team and organization-level performance

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and 3) enacting their higher-level needs Transformational theory discusses two different types of leader's practices: transactional and transformational Transformational leaders build "a relationship of mutual stimulation and elevation that converts followers into leaders and may convert leaders into moral agents" (Burns, 1978) and have been characterized by four elements: idealized influence, inspirational motivation, intellectual stimulation, and individualized consideration (Bass, 1999) Idealized influence and inspirational motivation leaders have visions of successful future, demonstrates how it can be achieved, be the role model, sets challenging requirements of execution, and shows confidence and determination Intellectual stimulation is shown when the leader supports employees, to make them become more active and creative in problem-solving and continuously finding new ways to improve their everyday work Individualized consideration is shown when leaders focus on the need for development of employees and work hard to help employees get to their full potential Transactional leadership, on the other hand, involves "leaders approaching followers with an eye to exchanging one thing for another" (Burns, 1978) and is portrayed by contingent reward and management by exception (Bass and Riggio, 2006) Lean leadership is like transformational leadership (Bass and Riggio, 2006), in the way that they both need visionary and charismatic top leaders (Poksinska, Swartling, and Drotz, 2013) Transformational leadership has been characterized as a vital condition to promote the change, give a motivating vision of the change and plausible results, and to enable employee to work through the inconvenience that often goes with change (Bass, 1985; House, 1977; Tichy and Devanna, 1986) Furthermore, individualized consideration (Bass, 1985) could be utilized to urge individuals to continuously enhance task quality and skills, which is usually mentioned in Lean literature (Brown, 1991; Deming, 1986) In addition, transformational leaders have been generally portrayed as good examples whose actions and behaviors serve to motivate employees to acknowledge the legitimacy of change (Bass, 1985; Conger and Kanungo, 1987; House, 1977)

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The last aspect of transformational leadership which needs to be specified here is the acknowledgement of individual employee and groups This has been resulted many times as a vital element of TQM (Brown, 1991; Deming, 1986) The transformational leaders actively perceive achievements by continuously searching for those deserving acknowledgment That must be accomplished by transformational leaders who work more from profoundly held values frameworks as opposed to from personal interests and plans (Kuhnert and Lewis, 1987) Accordingly, these leaders are willing to let followers take the pride of achievements which have been done under their direction, therefore serving to promote employee empowerment (Conger and Kanungo, 1988) Both transformational and transactional leadership behaviors, however, can be witnessed from effective Lean managers Sosik & Dionne (1997) studied the linkage between four leadership styles- laissez-faire, management-by-exception, transactional and transformational leadership (Bass and Avolio, 1994) and TQM behaviors proposed

by Deming‘s Fourteen Points (1986) The findings suggested transformational leadership‘s strong and positive effect to TQM behaviors but it should not be considered as the sole leadership style of TQM, as transactional leadership may also a facilitator of TQM behaviors in certain favor conditions Waldman (1993) also pointed out the applicability of transformation leadership theory to explain leadership behaviors

in TQM Waldman et al (1998) also suggested, to pursuit quality improvement, transformational leadership is suitable for managers and leaders at top management level of organizations, since their responsibilities include making changes in organizational culture towards norms, values, and beliefs, setting goals and objectives towards quality improvement Waldman‘s findings are supported by Jung et al (2003)‘s study, which they used survey data of 32 Taiwanese companies to test a model of top manager‘s leadership style relationship with organizational innovation The results proved a direct and positive effect of transformational leadership to organizational innovation, employee empowerment and support for innovation out the applicability of transformation leadership theory to explain leadership behaviors in

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TQM Waldman et al (1998) also suggested, to pursuit quality improvement, transformational leadership is suitable for managers and leaders at top management level of organizations, since their responsibilities include making changes in organizational culture towards norms, values, and beliefs, setting goals and objectives towards quality improvement Waldman‘s findings are supported by Jung et al (2003)‘s study, which they used survey data of 32 Taiwanese companies to test a model of top manager‘s leadership style relationship with organizational innovation The results proved a direct and positive effect of transformational leadership to organizational innovation, employee empowerment and support for innovation Likewise, Wang, Oh, Courtright, & Colbert (2011), based on a meta-analytic study on

117 samples and 113 studies, have proven the positive relationship of transformational leadership and individual-level follower performance, with significant linkage to contextual performance than task performance; also, transformational leadership has positive influence on team and organization-level performance Recently, companies have been starting to provide greater responsibility regarding everyday tasks to groups rather than one individual (Yukl, 2010) Groups with multi-skilled members are the basic work unit in Lean enterprises (Liker, 2004) and the core values teamwork have a solid relation to the idea of self-managed teams In self-managed teams, there are two kinds of leaders: internal leaders who organize group tasks, and external leaders who bolster the team self-management (Yukl, 2010) The responsibility of an external leader has been a focused topic in studies on self-managed teams (Stewart and Manz, 1995) and is frequently portrayed as a mentor, facilitator, and instructor Many authors (Yukl, 2010; Carte et al., 2006) stress that regarding self-managed team, we need to focus on shared leadership, which centers around the different roles, inner dynamics and relationship between members Stewart and Manz (1995) proposed a model showing different patterns in leader's behaviors depending on the degree the group developing process Likewise, Carew et al (1986) mentioned the Situational leadership model (Blanchard et al., 1993) in connection to different phases of team development

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The authors propose that diverse leadership styles assigned as coordinating, instructing, supporting, and empowering ought to be chosen based on the stage of team's development (Carew et al., 1986)

Yukl (2002) stated that effective leaders tend to show behavioral flexibility in three behavioral categories: task-oriented behaviors, relation-oriented behaviors and change-oriented behaviors Firstly, the primary purpose of task-oriented behaviors is to achieve performance goals by the most efficient and reliable way by focusing on ―high efficiency in the use of resources and personnel, and high reliability of operations, products, and services‖ Task-oriented behaviors include planning, clarifying, monitoring and problem-solving Secondly, the main purpose of relations-oriented behaviors is to improve employee‘s skills, enhance leader-follower relationship, raise the work and organization identification and strengthen commitment to the organizational goals Supporting, developing, recognizing, and empowering are relations-oriented behaviors‘ main elements Thirdly, manager use change-oriented behaviors when there is a need for innovation, collective learning and response to external changes Advocating change, envisioning change, encouraging innovation, facilitating collective learning are the sub-category of this type behavior This behavioral taxonomy can be used to explain not only behaviors at the specific levels but also findings from research of meta-categories leadership behaviors, such as transformational theory In addition, Yukl's taxonomy focuses not only on task efficiency, but also on positive human relations and change Research on two-domain leadership behaviors has been the most researched topic, with regard to knowing the relationships between effectiveness and leadership (Andersen, 1995) Study using three categories in leadership behavior theory proved that higher relation and production orientation suites best with cost effectiveness For change success, high relation- and change-orientation is most suitable (Pettersson and Arvonen, 2002) Larsson & Vinberg (2010) applied Yukl‘s taxonomy to compare and identify common leadership behaviors among successful organizations, whose findings supports relationship-

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oriented behaviors as having the strongest role, while the effects of task-oriented and change-oriented behaviors vary according to situational factors Based on Bass (1981), both a strictly relation-oriented leadership and a combined approach of both structure-oriented and relation-oriented have positive effects on job satisfaction among employees and in many cases, result in greater productivity In a later study, Bass (1990) proceeded to suggest that in case the structure set up by the leader is low, and after that increased, employee's efficiency will probably increase If the desired subordinate performance has been achieved, the demand for structure-orientation in the leadership is decreased Additionally, based on Bass (1990), leadership is an iterative procedure whereby a leader utilizes informal or formal comments from followers to spot the requirement for change The results from these studies suggest a leadership style in which leaders have to understand and actively seek for feedbacks from employees, to encourage them to work better rather than using tight control and monitoring

2.5 Theoretical framework

From the literature of Lean production and leadership in Lean context and the theories

of leadership discussed in previous section, a theoretical framework is built The framework illustrates certain behaviors which are seen in the majority of literature, then grouped into three categories: task-, relation- and changed-oriented behaviors, according to Yukl (2002, 2012) The assumption is that all these behaviors have positive effects on the performance of Lean implementation in companies This framework will be analyzed and reviewed alongside with the findings from data collected from interviews, survey and secondary data sources, which will be discussed

in later section

29 Figure 2.1: Conceptual framework

Lean Implementation

Advocating Lean change

Envisioning Lean change

by using embedded, design, the incorporated subunits can be analyzed, which can often add significant opportunities for extensive analysis, enhancing the insight into the cases (Yin, 1994)

3.2 Sample

Enterprises to be studied are Vietnamese enterprises who have applied Lean production, as a production philosophy or tools and practices, in their business process According to Nguyen and Nguyen (2016), Lean manufacturing has been introduced in Vietnam for about 15 years, but the success has not been significant due to several constraints, one of which is the fact that leaders and managers in those companies have not established necessary policies and motivation mechanism to successfully bring Lean approaches tools into their manufacturing process and make them become the

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corporate culture On top of that, the implementation of Lean has not been integrated into the companies‘ daily activities for sustainable development

Another reason which makes Vietnam enterprises worth studying is that there has been

a new change in Vietnam‘s competitive advantages from young workforce, competitive labor cost to advancement and innovation in manufacturing (Adams, Tran 2011; Athukorala 2009) In recent years, the increase of global competitiveness and recession has caused difficulties and challenges for Vietnam to stay competitive This has pushed Vietnamese enterprises to come up with new, innovative approach to their business, one of which is Lean manufacturing In addition, thanks to the flow of FDI, especially from Japan, new technologies including Lean manufacturing have been adopted by many Vietnamese companies, as well as received great interest from researchers and studies Despite all these good signs, there is still a lack of research on the Lean management aspect

The findings provided in this research are derived from five case studies undertaken in companies which are viewed as effective Lean enterprises All the studied companies are manufacturing companies and are currently the pilot cases of a project by Japanese government called Data Collection Survey of SMEs Promotion and Industrial Development in Vietnam This project is aimed at improving the performance quality

of Vietnamese small and medium enterprises (SMEs) by the support and consultancy from Japanese groups of experts All the pilot companies have officially implemented lean production practices such as 5S, visual display and kaizen, and have made effort to place total quality procedures set up Quality improvement efforts were concentrating

on reducing in defect rates, effective usage of materials (e.g components, warehouse), build organizational culture and enhanced company‘s competitiveness Overview of the company profiles and data collection sources are illustrated in Table 3.1

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Table 3.1: Case companies

Cases Brief description Data sources

Shinmeido

Industry JSC

Manufacturing company whose main products include industrial products and parts such as metal products, jigs, injection mold, die casting, and spare parts

3 interviews: 1 CEO, 1 Quality control (QC) manager, 1 shop floor manager Observations

Survey: 15 respondents

Meeting participation

Secondary data: internal documents

LME IND Electric component

company producing cable trunking and electrical panel

3 interviews: 1 CEO, 1 vice directors, 1 shop floor manager

Observations

Survey: 9 respondents

Meeting participation

Secondary data: internal documents

manufacturing company whose main products are wire-harness, PPVC reeve tube, heat shrinkable cable, thermos-forming tray, danpla box, foam packing

3 interviews: 1 CEO, 1 vice director, 1 shop floor manager

3 interviews: 1 CEO, 1 chairman, 1 shop floor manager

Observations

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assembling electronics parts

2 interviews: 1 QC manager, 1 Human Resource (HR) manager

Survey: 5 respondents

Observations

Secondary data: internal documents

In addition to information gathered from case organizations, 2 interviews with Japanese Lean experts were also executed These experts are contacted from The Assistance Center for SMEs - North Vietnam (TAC) whose job is to provides consultancy and training courses about Lean production for Vietnamese enterprises They have over two years of experience in giving consultancy and training courses about Lean production for Vietnamese enterprises and are the consultants of all the case companies

3.2.1 Shinmeido

Shinmeido is a manufacturing company established in 2007, the main products are industrial products and parts such as metal products, jigs, injection mold, die casting, and spare parts The number of employee is 56 The company has strong investment in advanced machines and technologies which serve clients such as Yamaha Motor Vietnam, Honda Vietnam, Ford Vietnam, SHOWA Vietnam, Canon Vietnam and more

3.2.2 LME IDN

IME Industry Joint Stock Company was established in 2015 and operate in the fields of manufacturing low voltage, medium voltage, kiosk assembly, cable tray ladder,