Creating a culture for sustainability and quality – a lean-inspired way of working

Abstract

Even though much research has been carried out regarding various sustainability issues, the research into cultural aspects of sustainability and quality is very limited. The purpose of this study is to explore the culture of an award-winning company that is successfully working with sustainability and quality. The ambition is to contribute to the development of sustainable quality management. In order to identify and describe their ways of working, a case study was carried out at Sky Factory, an awardwinning innovative manufacturing company which utilises Lean principles. In-depth interviews were performed with the CEO and a number of employees focusing on exploring their way of working as well as their value base, attitudes and practices regarding quality and sustainability. The data collection also included document studies and observation. The research was inductive, based on the Grounded Theory methodology and the data was analysed with the constant comparative technique. The analysis revealed a set of categories in the form of dimensions which, combined with theory, resulted in a tentative framework. One limitation is that the study only included a single company, which may limit the possibilities for generalisation. Nonetheless, the dimensions that were identified and the framework that integrates them should be useful as a vantage point for further research.

Quality 2030: quality management for the future

“…All the authors were therefore highly interested in co-creating a national research agenda for QM. Regarding Quality 2030, used as the affirmative topic, the authors also have a history of initiating and managing projects and conducting QM research on sustainable development, particularly the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development (Eriksson et al, 2016;Fundin et al, 2018;Klefsjö et al, 2008;Lagrosen & Lagrosen, 2019;Lilja et al, 2019;Siva et al, 2016).…”

“…Cooperrider and Fry (2012) coined the term 'mirror flourishing' to describe similar boosting effects, stating that 'when people learn about and work toward building a sustainable world they too are poised to flourish in ways that elevate innovation, personal excellence and workplace well-being' (p. 3). In addition, Lagrosen and Lagrosen (2019) explored the underlying mechanisms for sustainable QM, finding that it was driven by a higher purpose (e.g. to grow and enrich life) rather than just profitability.…”

Towards societal satisfaction in a fifth generation of quality – the sustainability model

“…From a sustainability perspective, new programmes have been implemented to enhance CSR, occupational health and safety (OHSAS 18001), and responsibility for the environment (ISO 14001), and thus achieve overall societal satisfaction. Internal customer satisfaction, managed through principal values (Lagrosen & Lagrosen, 2019;Dahlgaard-Park, 2009), has been on the research agenda for many years, extending beyond internal boundaries of organisations. Target setting in contemporary organisations is redefining the definition of cost of poor quality and unleashing value by embracing both internal and external customers.…”

“…Principal values are the most critical constituents of building and transforming an organisational culture. These values have been extensively researched to achieve organisational learning for managing quality (Lagrosen & Lagrosen, 2019;Fundin et al, 2019;Dahlgaard-Park, 2009;Fundin et al, 2018;Eriksson et al, 2016;Hansson et al, 2003). Likewise, the QM relationship to sustainability has been researched from numerous perspectives (Siva et al, 2016;Garvare & Johansson, 2010;Ramanathan, 2019;Isaksson, 2019).…”

Analysing the influence of organisational culture and leadership styles on the implementation of lean manufacturing

“…'Respect for people' is comprised of organizational and leadership characteristics that need to be aligned with waste elimination and value-added creation (Treville and Antonakis, 2006). Hence, moving from a mass production model to a LM system calls for significant changes on both technical and socio-cultural aspects (Tortorella and Fogliatto, 2014), requiring proper organizational culture and leadership (Schein, 2004;House et al, 2004;Lagrosen and Lagrosen, 2019).…”