The findings of this paper are of both theoretical and
practical importance, and we address both issues below.
Little research has been carried out on the topic of control
forms in a Lean organization, despite the importance
of Lean in many organizations today. To our knowledge,
no study has quantitatively tested the impact and complementarities
between various control forms in a Lean
organization. Kennedy and Widener’s (2008) case study
on this topic is the first to propose systems fit of control
forms with synergetic complementarities (Gerdin and
Greve, 2004). Their case study, however, did not provide
quantitative analysis of the performance effects. Earlier
case studies had difficulties in proving the effect of Lean
in a quantitative manner (Selto et al., 1995). Our findings
add to this modest base of research. Additionally, we found
evidence that the control forms do not have a purely additive
(incremental), but rather a balanced complementary,
synergetic effect on performance. Thus, increasing the level
of a control form enhances performance, but if off-balance
to other control forms is increased, some of the effects
from the increased control forms will be thwarted, and
in total this shows the complementary effects on performance.
Hence, it would be better if both the level of the
control form is closer to the ideal state, but it would also
be better if the balance between them was the same as the
balance in the ideal state. Consequently, our findings indicate
that the controls of Lean should be seen as a control
package. We consider this empirical result our first contribution.
An important addition to this first contribution is the
effect this can have on theorizing and testing more general
control form packages in the future. Analyzing and
understanding the control package in the Lean organization
is a more useful way of understanding how control
forms can be balanced, and how off-balance can thwart
the performance effects from complementarities. The more
tightly coupled the control forms in the package, the more
off-balance reduces the performance effects. The level of
off-balance can be addressed as the deviations from the
ideal distance between the control forms. Also, off-balance
between the control forms will have a greater negative
effect on performance in a tightly coupled system than in
a loosely coupled system.
Our second contribution is the refinement of the statistical
test approach. In tests of systems fit models, it has
previously been recommended to use the Euclidian distance
method (Gerdin and Greve, 2004) only. However, this
technique does not allow us to distinguish the difference
between enhanced performance that comes from independent
variables that are in balance, or from an increase in
their average level only. The Euclidian distance includes
both phenomena. By using the city-block distance as well
as the Euclidian distance simultaneously, it becomes possible
to isolate the performance effects that stem from
independent variables in balance and/or “just” at a higher
average level. However, it should be noted that in our
approach, the ideal state is at the maximum of scores for the
control forms. The ability to use this distinction between
the city-block distance and the Euclidean distance, where
the ideal state is not at the maximum, minimum, or in
the middle for all constructs, is beyond the scope of this
paper.
A third contribution of this paper is the confirmation
of management accounting model measurements being
correlated to the “right” Lean behavior. For several years,
researchers have debated whether management accounting
models can capture the performance effects gained
from Lean (Kaplan and Cooper, 1998; Maskell and Baggaley,
2004; Maskell and Kennedy, 2007). This is an important
discussion for organizations working with Lean because
they need a management accounting model that somehow
reflects the results of what they believe to be the
right behavioral patterns. Our case company has applied
a (somewhat advanced) tiered contribution margin model,
where the responsible units make up the value streams. The
tiered, multi-level contributions margin helps to understand
the variability of costs but also helps to understand
the cost of quality, in our case the difference between
Contribution Margins 2 and 3. In practice, it is difficult
to trace the effects in the management accounting model
from improvements in the Lean control forms, as it is difficult
to trace the effects from complementarities between
the control forms in, for example, trend curves of costs.
Our findings suggest that over a longer period of time,
and with the right statistical techniques, the effects of
Lean are traceable in traditional management accounting
models.
Finally, we address how practitioners should interpret
our findings, as recommended by Merchant (1984).
Practitioners are concerned about how practice-defined
variables can add to their companies’ performance. Therefore,
from practitioners’ p