COMPLEMENTS OR CONFLICTS: R&D AND LEAN INNOVATION APPROACHES

Alan Cannon () and Caron St. John
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Alan Cannon: Information Systems and Operations Management, College of Business, University of Texas, Arlington, 701 S. West Street, Box 19377, Arlington, Texas 76019, USA
Caron St. John: Department of Information Systems, Management and Marketing, College of Business, University of Alabama in Huntsville, 301 Sparkman Drive, Huntsville, Al 35899, USA

International Journal of Innovation Management (ijim), 2021, vol. 25, issue 04, 1-26

Abstract: The purpose of this research is to explore the relationship between research and development (R&D)-funded innovation efforts and operational-level lean improvement efforts through the lens of the Resource-Based View (RBV), with a focus on the relationship between them. Does the “leaning” of a firm’s operations create barriers to change and inhibit the success of R&D-led innovation investment? Or, does the “leaning” of operations help organisations focus on priorities and simplify routines so that new R&D efforts are more effective? Our analysis of more than 850 firm-years’ worth of data showed that the relationship between lean and R&D productivity is nonlinear, specifically an inverted U-shape (concave). Leanness provides some early R&D productivity improvement benefits, but R&D productivity levelled then declined over time. In a follow-up industry-level analysis, we found that the effects of leanness on firm-level R&D productivity differed by industry, with some industries seeing evidence of positive effects from lean practices and others experiencing negative effects on R&D productivity from lean.

Keywords: Innovation; R&D; lean; research productivity; resource-based view (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
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DOI: 10.1142/S1363919621500420

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