3.1. Data collection and analysis
In 2001, a division of a Fortune 500 manufacturing firm (Tri-Metal Inc.) began a lean manufacturing strategic
initiative. Shortly after, in March 2002, it hosted its first lean accounting seminar and began a lean accounting initiative
to complement the lean manufacturing operation. We began data collection in the spring of 2004. We made initial
contact with an accounting manager, who had been declared a “lean accounting champion” and was designated as
a value stream team leader. Prior to performing our on-site visits we conducted telephone interviews and inspected
company documents. We performed the initial in-person interviews in April 2004 and conducted semi-structured and
informal interviews with key management personnel at the manufacturing location. One of our objectives was to learn
about the institutional setting and its management control and accounting practices. Since we did not want to impose
predetermined views on the design of the control system, we formulated the interviews as semi-structured. Prior to
each interview we designed a set of interview questions to guide the discussion, but we also allowed the interviewee
to freely speak and we inserted and added questions as necessary to probe areas of interest that arose during the
interview. During each interview both researchers took detailed notes and immediately following the interview typed
a full transcription of the notes. We supplemented the in-person interviews with additional telephone interviews,
observation of manufacturing personnel and processes, inspection of company documents, and written responses to
specific questions. Key corporate managers and the lean consultant also provided information through in-person and
telephone interviews.9 Finally, we took pictures of various parts of the manufacturing floor and use of organizational
controls to aid in our analysis. The use of multiple sources of evidence, as illustrated in Appendix A, enables us to
triangulate our findings and thus provide more convincing evidence in our analysis (Yin, 2003). We also visited the
plant facility in July 2004 to collect additional data and confirm our initial observations.