Lean management strategy and innovation: moderation effects of collective voluntary turnover and layoffs

Abstract

We investigated the impact of lean management strategy on organisational innovation. Integrating lean management and human resource management, we consider how and why different types of reductions in the workforce can influence the relationship between lean management strategy and organisational innovation in different ways. Specifically, we examined the moderating effects of collective voluntary turnover and layoffs in the relationship between lean management strategy and innovation. We tested our hypotheses using data from a large longitudinal dataset. We found that lean management strategy was significantly associated with organisational innovation. We also found that employee layoffs positively moderated the relationship between lean management strategy and innovation, whereas employee turnover negatively moderated the relationship between lean management strategy and innovation. Overall, we found that the effects of layoffs and collective voluntary turnover on the relationship between lean management strategy and organisational innovation.

Keywords:

• lean management strategy
• organisational innovation
• collective voluntary turnover (CVT)
• layoffs
• human resource management

Disclosure statement

This study is supported by Korea University Business School Research Grant. No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Data availability statement

The dataset is not publicly available and only accessible to researchers with approved projects. More information on the dataset can be found at http://www23.statcan.gc.ca/imdb/p2SV.pl?Function=getSurvey&SDDS=2615.

Notes

1 While the voluntary turnover literature has primarily focused on an individual’s choice to stay or leave his/her organisation, recent studies have proposed the importance of studying voluntary turnover rates at the collective level (Shaw, 2011; Nyberg & Ployhart, 2013). Collective turnover is the ‘aggregate levels of employee departures that occur within groups, work units, or organizations’ (Hausknecht & Trevor, 2011, p. 353). Studies have reported that antecedents and consequences of collective turnover are quite different from individual turnover (Nyberg & Ployhart, 2013).