Financial Consequences from Implementing Lean Manufacturing with the Support of Non-Financial Management Accounting Practices

Abstract

In the last 30 years, many U.S. firms have adopted lean manufacturing strategies. Despite evidence of substantial variation in firms' success with JIT, TQM, and other lean strategies, relatively few studies have examined management accounting practices as a potential source of such variation. Using structural equation modeling, this study examines two advanced management accounting practices - benchmarking and the use of non-financial manufacturing performance measures - as potential mediators of financial performance in lean manufacturing environments. Consistent with the view that firms' management accounting systems must fit their operational strategies, our structural model indicates that lean strategies' financial performance effects are enhanced when non-financial manufacturing performance measures and benchmarking are included in a firm's management accounting system.