The impact of organizational culture on time-based manufacturing and performance

Firms are utilizing an array of manufacturing practices in their quest for survival and success in the marketplace. The implementation of those practices has not always resulted in success stories as the focus had been mostly on technical issues, with little concern for ‘soft issues’. For example, the enabling role of organizational culture has often been ignored. Using Schein's conceptualization of culture as underlying assumptions, espoused values, and artifacts, we examine a framework that relates culture and manufacturing practices to performance. The underlying assumption of customer orientation is posited to affect espoused values such as beliefs on investing in facilities and equipment to leverage intellectual work and to promote creativity, beliefs on working with others, beliefs on making decisions that are global, beliefs on management control, and beliefs on integrating with suppliers.