The Role of Leaders in the Initiation and Implementation of Manufacturing Process Change
It has been suggested that at least 50% of improvement programmes are deemed by the firms involved to be failures over the longer term and up to 70% fail to achieve all of their intended benefits (Hammer and Champy, 1993). This raises the question: How can manufacturing improvement activities regularly and reliably be turned into the basis of long term business success rather then quick wins that are often fleeting and fail to reach the bottom line?
Fundamental to successful and sustainable change is effective and committed leadership. The role of leaders in the initiation and implementation of change is explored and discussed in the context of implementing Lean Thinking in a manufacturing organisation. Drawing on theories derived from Organizational Behaviour and HRM fields, a theoretical framework is proposed that considers the leader’s role in initiating; communicating and overcoming resistance to change that seeks to build a cohesive and committed management capable of engaging and motivating the workforce to accept change.
The research approach is based around theory development from a review of the existing literature and synthesis of a range of industry cases, practical approaches and partial solutions collected as primary data from interviews and focus groups.
Keywords: Resistance, Motivation, Knowledge Transfer, Training and Skills Development, Systems Approach, Operational, Management and Cultural Sub-systems
Dr Pauline Anne Found
Senior Research Associate, Cardiff Business School |
Ref: M06P0250