Our concern is with how interaction with customers affects knowledge creation in product development projects. Customers have a crucial role in stimulating innovation, but previous research has not identified what effects the interaction has on knowledge creation nor at what point in time...

Companies implementing a downsizing strategy aiming at increasing cost efficiency and operational effectiveness may face the fact that their innovative ability is hampered. In this paper, we develop a model of the mechanisms through which organizational downsizing affects innovation. We use...

Purpose – Against the background of the often politicized debate on the advantages and disadvantages of production models based on sociotechnical systems (STS) theory and lean production (LP), this paper develops a notion of a hybrid model consisting of elements of both STS and LP and tests...

Changes in manufacturing often result in decision making being decentralised. As a consequence of the decentralisation of decision making, the number of hierarchical levels in the organisation is often reduced. This paper examines when a delayering of the organisation takes place during...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine the role of top management control in stimulating innovation through their effect on the creation of knowledge in new product development (NPD) projects. Top management has a crucial role in stimulating innovation in companies, in particular as...

Explores the role of the remuneration system in the implementation process when introducing a complex manufacturing strategy, lean production. Exploratory clinical research in a mechanical manufacturing company was used and three areas of findings emerged. First, there is a eed for congruence in...

Develops a model which operationalizes the different principles in lean production, with a focus on those that concern the work organization in the manufacturing part of a company. The model has been developed using available theory and has also been tried out in a clinical field study. The...

Explores the role of the management accounting system in the process of adopting a complex manufacturing strategy, lean production. Finds, in a longitudinal field study, using the clinical methodology, that in order to change the management accounting system to support the adoption of lean...

Addresses the question of whether the lean enterprise concept is applicable to small and medium‐sized firms. The implications of the lean enterprise framework for the smaller firm can be summarized in three basic ideas. First, building a larger and more comprehensive offer through...