Teamworking under Lean in UK public services: lean teams and team targets in Her Majesty's Revenue & Customs (HMRC)

The authors of The Machine that Changed the World were in no doubt about the importance of teamworking in lean production: ‘in the end’, they say [Womack, J., Jones, D, & Roos, D. (1990). The machine that changed the world. New York: Rawson Associates, p. 99], ‘it is the dynamic work team that emerges as the heart of the lean factory’. It is with this bold statement in mind that we seek to explore and develop our conceptual and practical understanding of how teamworking operates under Lean. We examine these issues in the context of a high-profile case of Lean implementation in the UK public sector, the Pacesetter programme of the UK's tax assessment and collection service, Her Majesty's Revenue & Customs (HMRC). We find that although the teams themselves were ostensibly set up on a lean basis, they were largely unable to operate as such as a result of the pressures they faced to meet their work targets. The operation of the teams thus retained, and was shaped by, characteristics of the pre-existing ‘target-based’ mode of teamworking. This, in turn, suggests particular ways in which we might better understand how Lean interacts with the context or environment into which it is introduced. These findings also to some degree run counter to the overwhelmingly negative account of Lean put forward in other recent studies of HMRC [e.g. Carter, B., Danford, A., Howcroft, D., Richardson, H., Smith, A., & Taylor, P. (2013a). Taxing times: Lean working and the creation of (in)efficiencies in HM Revenue and Customs. Public Administration, 91, 83–97]

Co-production and the co-creation of value in public services: a perspective from service management

This is an Accepted Manuscript of a book chapter published by Routledge in Co-Production and Co-Creation: Engaging Citizens in Public Services, on 15 March 2018, available online at: https://www.routledge.com/Co-Production-and-Co-Creation-Engaging-Citizens-in-Public-Services/Brandsen-Verschuere-Steen/p/book/9781138700116. Under embargo until 15 September 2019.This case study illustrates the shifting leadership and control in co-production of preventative services by a voluntary scheme in HFRS (Hertfordshire Fire and Rescue Services). More specifically, it demonstrates how citizen co-producers can exercise some control and lead initiatives despite HFRS’s rigid structure and its command and control culture.Final Accepted Versio

Marketing research performance and strategy

Purpose - To investigate whether strategic orientation affects the evaluation of specific market research projects in for-profit firms.Design/methodology/approach - A small-scale follow-up survey was conducted, building on qualitative and quantitative research among a sample of the top-1,000 marketing managers in Australia. The study used an existing market research evaluation tool, the USER scale and items generated from the qualitative research, to investigate the firm\u27s most recent market research project.Findings - Four market research performance factors were identified - market research as a knowledge enhancing (KE) function, the internal political use of market research, the misuse of market research and the generation of market understanding. The Miles and Snow strategy types were related to these factors, with Prospector types more likely to use market research rationally and less likely to use it for internal political purposes. Tactical projects were more likely to be misused than were those with a strategic orientation. Prospectors were far less likely and analysers far more likely to misuse tactical research projects. Prospectors were more often satisfied with the performance of their most recent market research. The Porter typology was less successful in predicting market research performance.Research limitations/implications - The study was based on a small sample of market research projects in Australian for-profit firms. Future studies need to study these phenomena more intensively using ethnographic methods and more extensively using larger multi-country samples.Practical implications - Market research suppliers should learn the nature of their client\u27s strategic intent to improve their effectiveness. Defender firms should carefully monitor the use of market research, especially that of a tactical nature, which may be wasted or misused.Originality/value - Contributes to an understanding of how strategic orientation relates to the ways market research information is used within the firm. <br /

Theoretical perspectives in operations management:an analysis of the literature

Purpose - It is important to advance operations management (OM) knowledge while being mindful of the theoretical developments of the discipline. The purpose of this paper is to explore which theoretical perspectives have dominated the OM field. This analysis allows the authors to identify theory trends and gaps in the literature and to identify fruitful areas for future research. A reflection on theory is also practical, given that it guides research toward important questions and enlightens OM practitioners. Design/methodology/approach - The authors provide an analysis of OM theory developments in the last 30 years. The study encompasses three decades of OM publications across three OM journals and contains an analysis of over 3,000 articles so as to identify which theories, over time, have been adopted by authors in order to understand OM topics. Findings - The authors find that the majority of studies are atheoretical, empirical, and focussed upon theory testing rather than on theory development. Some theories, such as the resource-based view and contingency theory, have an enduring relevance within OM. The authors also identify theories from psychology, economics, sociology, and organizational behavior that may, in the future, have salience to explain burgeoning OM research areas such as servitization and sustainability. Research limitations/implications - The study makes a novel contribution by exploring which main theories have been adopted or developed in OM, doing so by systematically analyzing articles from the three main journals in the field (the Journal of Operations Management, Production and Operations Management, and the International Journal of Operations and Production Management), which encompass three decades of OM publications. In order to focus the study, the authors may have missed important OM articles in other journals. Practical implications - A reflection on theories is important because theories inform how a researcher or practicing manager interprets and solves OM problems. This study allows the authors to reflect on the collective OM journey to date, to spot trends and gaps in the literature, and to identify fruitful areas for future research. Originality/value - As far as the authors are aware, there has not been an assessment of the main theoretical perspectives in OM. The research also identifies which topics are published in OM journals, and which theories are adopted to investigate them. The authors also reflect on whether the most cited papers and those winning best paper awards are theoretical. This gives the authors a richer understanding of the current state of OM research

Research design for analysing the relationship between governance structures and performance management systems in universities

This paper describes the research design that has been chosen to study the relationship between governance structures and performance management systems in universities. The complexity of the research topic, which brings together two different bodies of literature – on governance and on performance management systems – is addressed by using a case study design and a multi-method approach involving document analysis, interviews and a survey. The research design selected and the advantages and disadvantages of each research method are discussed thoroughly, including the reasoning for conducting the survey after the interviews

Debate: The development of a new discipline— public service operations management

This piece aims to outline the development of a discipline – Public Service Operations Management and will argue the importance of developing an understanding between public management and operations management literature and theory This is reflected through the recent publication of an edited companion which aspires to explore and define bodies of knowledge related to Public Service Operations Managemen

The relevance of the human resource management (HRM) to lean in the service sector: evidence from three exploratory case studies

The aim of this research is to explore the relevance of the Human Resource Management (HRM) to lean in the service sector. In particular, the focus is to further understand the HRM bundle which is one of the four main bundles of lean: Just-In-Time (JIT), Total Quality Management (TQM), Total Preventive Maintenance (TPM), and Human Resource Management (HRM) (Pont, Furlan, and Vinelli, 2008; Shah and Ward, 2003). In this context, a bundle (whether a lean or a HRM bundle) means a set of interrelated and internally consistent practices (Pont, Furlan, and Vinelli, 2008). The study uses case study research because it allows a rich coverage of the area of investigation (Yin, 2009) via the utilisation of multiple sources of evidence (Gillham, 2000). Case study research studies a phenomenon in its real context and has the ability of reporting and documenting events in their practical nature (Yin, 2011). Its researchers’ understanding that lean influences certain HRM practices (HRM bundle); however, the degree and nature of the influence is yet to be further explored

Lean in healthcare: the unfilled promise?

In an effort to improve operational efficiency, healthcare services around the world have adopted process improvement methodologies from the manufacturing sector, such as Lean Production. In this paper we report on four multi-level case studies of the implementation of Lean in the English NHS. Our results show that this generally involves the application of specific Lean 'tools', such as 'kaizen blitz' and 'rapid improvement events', which tend to produce small-scale and localised productivity gains. Although this suggests that Lean might not currently deliver the efficiency improvements desired in policy, the evolution of Lean in the manufacturing sector also reveals this initial focus on the 'tool level'. In moving to a more system-wide approach, however, we identify significant contextual differences between healthcare and manufacturing that result in two critical breaches of the assumptions behind Lean. First, the customer and commissioner in the private sector are the one and the same, which is essential in determining 'customer value' that drives process improvement activities. Second, healthcare is predominantly designed to be capacity-led, and hence there is limited ability to influence demand or make full use of freed-up resources. What is different about this research is that these breaches can be regarded as not being primarily 'professional' in origin but actually more 'organisational' and 'managerial' and, if not addressed could severely constrain Lean's impact on healthcare productivity at the systems level. © 2011 Elsevier Ltd

Teamworking and Lean revisited: a reply to Carter et al

This paper is a reply to Carter et al.’s response to an earlier paper of ours in this journal on the subject of teamworking under Lean in the UK public services . Our reply covers the following issues which Carter et al. have raised: the literature we used to structure our findings; the way in which we used concepts such as autonomy and teamworking; our research methods and approach; how Carter et al.’s newly available data on teamworking might be interpreted; and how data drawn from an official employee attitude survey might best be understood. On the basis of this, we conclude that Carter et al.’s paper fails to meet its objectives. On some things, the authors are simply wrong; on others, they grossly misrepresent our position; on still others, their interpretations are, at best, highly questionable

A typology of dis/value in public service delivery

Dis/value or public value destruction is now increasingly recognized as part of the public value process. Despite this, confusion about the concept remains. This article assesses the use of public value destruction, and synonymous terms, in the public value and co-creation literatures, and considers their meaning in public service delivery. The article provides findings from a scoping review to explore the conceptualization of value destruction to date. We progress the conceptualization of the term dis/value by identifying a typology and suggesting future avenues for its exploration