Operational leanness and retail firm performance since 1980

James R. Kroes, Andrew S. Manikas and Thomas F. Gattiker

International Journal of Production Economics, 2018, vol. 197, issue C, 262-274

Abstract: Lean is one of the most pervasive and powerful paradigms in Operations and Supply Chain Management. As a theory, lean has been well tested in manufacturing. Lean in retail has received less attention. There is good reason to think that seminal constructs from lean, such as inventory slack reduction and capacity slack reduction, may explain a great deal of the variance in retail firm performance. Therefore this paper tests lean-based propositions pertaining to the relationships between inventory slack, capacity slack, market instability and firm market performance. Using retail firm data from a 35 year period, we find that lean thinking in its basic unadorned form helps explain retail performance remarkably well. From both a snapshot and quarterly difference perspective and regardless of whether we look at capacity slack or inventory slack, lean produces superior, lasting returns for retailers.

Keywords: Retail; Lean; Inventory slack; Capacity slack (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0925527318300367
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

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:eee:proeco:v:197:y:2018:i:c:p:262-274

DOI: 10.1016/j.ijpe.2018.01.006

Access Statistics for this article

International Journal of Production Economics is currently edited by Stefan Minner

More articles in International Journal of Production Economics from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().