The relationships between soft and hard factors of the Toyota way: a socio-technical perspective

Assadej Vanichchinchai ()
Additional contact information
Assadej Vanichchinchai: Mahidol University

Operations Management Research, 2023, vol. 16, issue 2, No 11, 768-779

Abstract: Abstract This research aims to investigate the effects of the soft Respect for People pillar of the original Toyota Way proposed by Fujio Cho and its elements (respect, and teamwork) on the hard Continuous Improvement pillar and its elements (challenge, kaizen, genchi-genbutsu). Structural equation modelling was employed to test hypotheses at three levels (pillar to pillar, element to pillar, and element to element) from data gathered from 216 automotive parts manufacturers. It was found that Respect for People and its elements had significant positive impacts on Continuous Improvement and its elements, except for the insignificant effect of respect on kaizen. This is one of the first research projects to examine the influences of soft dimensions on hard dimensions of the Toyota Way. It confirms the merging of soft factors into the lean manufacturing framework as a socio-technical system for more efficient and sustainable technical improvements.

Keywords: Toyota Way; TPS; Lean; Socio-technical system; Hard factor; Soft factor (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s12063-022-00318-z Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:opmare:v:16:y:2023:i:2:d:10.1007_s12063-022-00318-z

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer.com/journal/12063

DOI: 10.1007/s12063-022-00318-z

Access Statistics for this article

Operations Management Research is currently edited by Jan Olhager and Scott Shafer

More articles in Operations Management Research from Springer
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().