Framing and Managing Lean Organizations in the New Economy

Lean production has been a major research interest of scholars in the sociology of work and organizations for at least 40 years. Framing and Managing Lean Organizations in the New Economy, by Darina Lepadatu and Thomas Janoski, represents a crowning achievement in their research on lean production and is a very fitting and accessible survey of the history and state of the field. The work brings together research from management and industrial engineering, social science and sociotechnical approaches, labor and employment relations and human resource management, and scholars addressing lean production systems in different national contexts to provide a comprehensive overview of the where, why, and how of lean production practices. On top of this, the reader is provided with a basic history of lean production ideas and adaptations, along with biographies of key academic and industry figures that sparked new developments. The overall result is very impressive, very thorough, and very readable; and it will be satisfying to expert researchers and novice students. Lean production itself was long associated with Toyota and focused on continuous quality improvement, teamwork, long-term perspectives on profitability, employee tenure (for some), Just-in-Time delivery systems, robust supplier relationships, and buffering permanent employees with the use of temporary employees. A second related emphasis was on ‘‘six sigma,’’ a more managementcentered approach that focuses on measuring financial resources and management leadership and the use of data and statistics by certified professional quality-control staff. Both practices were challenged by shareholder value and ‘‘black box’’ production models popularized by General Electric under the leadership of Jack Welch (the elephants in the room, as we’ll see). The central chapters of the book focus on different disciplinary takes on lean production, and the coverage here is encyclopedic. Social science and critical perspectives focus on the downsides of lean production: management by stress, the problems flexible production systems produce, post-Fordist accounts, and debates about what portions of lean production are created by larger cultures outside of organizations versus structural changes within them. Labor and employment relations perspectives (and human resource perspectives) focus on the non-unionized nature of the employment relationship and how to make these workplaces more protective of workers. Chapter Five examines how lean production practices are used in different national contexts, focusing on Germany (codetermination, active labor market policies, universal vocational training), the Nordic countries (an extensive safety net in exchange for wage restraint), and the French regulation school (which ties together a production paradigm, accumulation regime, and mode of regulation). These chapters suggest that national labor market contexts are critical to the adaptation of different models of production and that lean production is (potentially) compatible with many national cultures. The final chapter in this section focuses on the state-led capitalist regimes of China and Singapore, noting that much of the focus there is on Just-in-Time innovations rather than labor market or employment policies. The remaining chapters of the book examine different corporate giants and their adoption and use of lean production techniques. Toyota and Honda are at the top of this list and have adopted most or all the tenets of lean production. Ford, Nissan, and McDonald’s represent a middle-range group, with McDonald’s leaning toward outright shirking. At Ford, the crises of the 1970s and the 1980s were met with quality improvement expectations that lost momentum as new management in the new millennium adopted the G.E. ‘‘tear-it-apart-andfire-everybody’’ model of making stock 64 Reviews