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.
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