DEPARTMENT OF TECHNOLOGY MANAGEMENT AND ECONOMICS 

DIVISION OF SUPPLY AND OPERATIONS MANAGEMENT 

CHALMERS UNIVERSITY OF TECHNOLOGY 

Gothenburg, Sweden 2021 

www.chalmers.se 
Report No. E2021:124 

  

Critical success factors for Lean 
implementation in service SMEs 
A case study of Lean implementation and organizational 
learning in a small logistics company  
Master’s thesis in Supply Chain Management and Management and Economics of 
Innovation 

 
JIM COLLANDER 
HANNA KAREM 



 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  



 

 

 
 

 

 
 

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REPORT NO. E2021:124 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Critical success factors for Lean implementation in 

service SMEs 

 

A case study of Lean implementation and organizational 

learning in a small logistics company  

 

JIM COLLANDER 

HANNA KAREM  
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Department of Technology Management and Economics 

Division of Supply and Operations Management 

CHALMERS UNIVERSITY OF TECHNOLOGY 

Gothenburg, Sweden 2021  



 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Critical success factors for Lean implementation in service SMEs 

A case study of Lean implementation and organizational learning in a small logistics company  

JIM COLLANDER 

HANNA KAREM 

 

 

© JIM COLLANDER, 2021. 

© HANNA KAREM, 2021. 

 

 

Report no. E2021:124 

Department of Technology Management and Economics 

Chalmers University of Technology 

SE-412 96 Göteborg 

Sweden 

Telephone + 46 (0)31-772 1000 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 



 

 

 
 

 

 
 

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Critical success factors for Lean implementation in service SMEs 

A case study of Lean implementation and organizational learning in a small logistics 

company  

 

JIM COLLANDER 

HANNA KAREM  

 

Department of Technology Management and Economics 

Chalmers University of Technology 

 

Abstract 

Lean is a set of management practices that has historically mostly been applied in 

large manufacturing companies. There has been little previous research on Lean 

implementation in small service companies, especially on success factors. The 

purpose of this study was to identify and assess success factors for Lean 

implementation and organizational learning within small service companies, in this 

case Express Delivery Sweden, as well as propose a recommendation for how these 

factors can be improved. 

 

An identification of the current state of success factors for Lean implementation and 

organizational learning within the case company was done to identify gaps and 

possible areas of improvement. Data collected through semi-structured interviews 

with employees, observations of meetings and company documents, constituted the 

empirical data used for analysis. Models of success factors for Lean implementation 

and organizational learning in small service companies were formulated based on 

previous research. 

 

The results show that while the case company had sufficient knowledge and training 

about Lean management, the lack of a learning culture and routines for continuous 

improvement hindered successful Lean implementation and organizational learning. 

The analysis specifically shows a connection between the lack of shared improvement 

vision within the organization and the deficiencies in communication and learning.  

 

The study concludes that the formulated models are useful for assessing and 

understanding the factors influencing the success chances of Lean implementation and 

the state of organizational learning within small service companies. Specifically, 

regarding Express Delivery Sweden, it concludes that the company needs to focus on 

ensuring a shared improvement vision in the organization as well as on accelerating 

the hiring of new employees with special care to hire people who may ultimately have 

the interest and ability to take on leadership positions in the company. 
 

Keywords: Lean implementation, Lean Service, Lean SME, Lean CSF, 

Organizational learning 

 

 

 



 

 

 
 

 

 
 

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Acknowledgments 

This Master’s thesis was carried out at Chalmers University of Technology within the 

department Technology Management and Economics, during the spring of 2021. The 

thesis has been written as a joint and equal effort between the two authors. 

 

We would like to direct a large thank you to Carl Wänström, Senior Lecturer in the 

Supply and Operations management division, for his continuous support and guidance 

throughout this project. 

 

We would also like to thank our supervisor at Express Delivery Sweden, Viktoria 

Ellerström, for her valuable advice and guidance. Finally, we would like to thank the 

rest of the team at Express Delivery Sweden for taking their time to participate in this 

study and providing valuable insights. You have all contributed to making this thesis 

possible. 

 

Jim Collander and Hanna Karem, Gothenburg 2021 

 

 

  



 

 

 
 

 

 
 

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Table of contents  

1. Introduction ...................................................................................................................................................... 4 

1.1 Background ..................................................................................................................................................................... 4 
The case company: Express Delivery Sweden ................................................................................................ 6 

1.2 Aim ...................................................................................................................................................................................... 7 

1.3 Delimitations .................................................................................................................................................................. 7 

1.4 Research questions ...................................................................................................................................................... 7 

2. Methodology ..................................................................................................................................................... 8 

2.1 Research approach ...................................................................................................................................................... 8 

2.2 Literature review .......................................................................................................................................................... 9 

2.3 Collection of data .......................................................................................................................................................... 9 
Interviews...................................................................................................................................................................... 10 
Observations ................................................................................................................................................................ 11 

2.4 Data analysis ................................................................................................................................................................12 

2.5 Reliability and validity .............................................................................................................................................12 

2.6 Ethical concerns ..........................................................................................................................................................13 

3. Theoretical framework ..............................................................................................................................15 

3.1 Organizational learning ..........................................................................................................................................15 
Learning barriers ....................................................................................................................................................... 15 
Leadership ..................................................................................................................................................................... 16 
Creating a learning organization ........................................................................................................................ 16 

3.2 Overview of Lean ........................................................................................................................................................18 
Lean in service companies (Lean service) ..................................................................................................... 20 
Service excellence ...................................................................................................................................................... 21 
Lean in SMEs ................................................................................................................................................................ 22 
Lean implementation in service SMEs ............................................................................................................. 24 

4. Empirical data ................................................................................................................................................26 

4.1 Learning and improvement processes at Express Delivery AB ...............................................................26 
Improvement meetings........................................................................................................................................... 26 
Deviation meetings ................................................................................................................................................... 27 
Training of new employees ................................................................................................................................... 28 
Training of current employees ............................................................................................................................ 28 

4.2 CSF conditions ..............................................................................................................................................................29 

5. Analysis .............................................................................................................................................................34 

5.1 Which factors influence the organizational learning in small service companies?.......................34 
Personal mastery ....................................................................................................................................................... 34 
Mental models ............................................................................................................................................................. 35 
Shared vision................................................................................................................................................................ 35 
Team learning .............................................................................................................................................................. 36 
Systems thinking ........................................................................................................................................................ 36 
Summary ........................................................................................................................................................................ 37 

5.2 Which success factors are important for enabling Lean implementation in small service 
companies? ...........................................................................................................................................................................37 

6. Recommendations ........................................................................................................................................46 



 

 

 
 

 

 
 

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7. Discussion ........................................................................................................................................................52 

7.1 CSF model for Lean implementation ..................................................................................................................52 

7.2 Senge’s model for organizational learning .....................................................................................................53 

7.3 Findings and recommendations regarding Express Delivery Sweden .................................................53 

7.4 Broader implications and further research ....................................................................................................54 

8. Conclusion .......................................................................................................................................................57 

References ............................................................................................................................................................58 

Appendix: Guiding Interview questions ...................................................................................................60 

Interview stage 1 ................................................................................................................................................................60 

Interview stage 2a: employee questions (not CEO) .............................................................................................61 

Interview stage 2b: CEO questions .............................................................................................................................63 
 

  



 

 

 
 

 

 
 

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1. Introduction 

This chapter presents the background that forms the basis of the study, including a 

theoretical background and introduction to the case company, followed by the aim, 

limitations to the study and lastly the research questions.  

 

1.1 Background 

 

Today’s companies are facing an increasingly competitive environment. The 

competitive environment in which Small- and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs) 

operate affects their chance of survival (Storey and Cressy, 1995). The market 

uncertainty for most SMEs is high, as they tend to have a smaller share of the market, 

and only have one or two major customers, reducing their ability to influence price 

(Levy & Powell, 2005). The increasingly competitive environment has led to more 

companies recognizing the importance of continuous improvement and organizational 

learning. One way in which companies have responded to the increasing competitive 

environment is by adopting Lean (Alkhoraif et al., 2019). 

 

Lean is a set of management practices which are inspired by the Toyota Production 

System used at the Toyota Motor Corporation (Liker, 2004). This includes customer 

focus, waste reduction, continuous improvement, and integration with upstream and 

downstream activities (Liker and Morgan, 2006). These practices have spread across 

the world since Lean was described by Womack et al. (1990) in The machine that 

changed the world and has been implemented and studied in many different types of 

organizations, but primarily in companies in a manufacturing context (Gupta et al., 

2016).  

 

The service sector currently encompasses more than 50% of the GDP of many of the 

world’s largest economies (CIA, 2021). If productivity improvements can be achieved 

by implementing Lean in more service companies, then there is potential for increased 

economic growth. Research about Lean within the service sector has been conducted, 

but to a much lesser extent than in the manufacturing sector (Gupta et al., 2016). 

Gupta et al. (2016) have reviewed the status of the research on Lean in services and 

concluded that Lean implementation in service companies has strong potential for 

generating positive economic and financial results. They also found that it is 

important that the Lean implementation is adapted to the specific characteristics of the 

service sector, while still adhering to the same underlying principles as when used in 

manufacturing. There is therefore a need for further research on how to implement 

Lean in the service industry to support further Lean implementation.  

 

Most Lean studies have been conducted on large companies, while there is a lack of 

studies on Lean in the context of SMEs (Alkhoraif et al., 2019), even though SMEs 

account for 99% of all businesses and 50-60% of all added value in the OECD 



 

 

 
 

 

 
 

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(OECD, 2019). In their review of existing research on Lean implementation in SMEs, 

Alkhoraif et al. (2019) conclude that the implementation of Lean in SMEs carries 

with it different opportunities and challenges than in larger companies. This suggests 

that it would be of value to conduct more research on Lean implementation 

specifically in an SME context, where competition is increasing, and customer focus 

and waste reduction becomes more important.  

 

Since there is a need for further research on Lean implementation in both service 

companies and in SMEs, studies on Lean implementation in small service companies 

are especially warranted. There is currently little research that has been done, 

specifically focusing on the implementation of Lean in these types of companies. 

Case studies of the application of Lean principles in the context of small service 

companies can help guide small service companies who may have had little previous 

Lean experience and insufficient guidelines to follow, as well as help further studies 

on the topic. However, according to Knol et al. (2018) many Lean implementation 

efforts result in failure. Even if small organizations tend to have simple systems that 

promote flexibility to change and dissemination of knowledge, the expanded systems 

and higher staff numbers in large firms bring in knowledge that can be deployed to 

drive and sustain implementation (Pearce et al. 2018). There are a variety of factors 

within a small service company to consider, which will influence the chances of a 

successful Lean implementation. It is therefore crucial to examine and make sure that 

a company has the right prerequisites to adapting Lean principles and develop the 

organizational learning before a successful implementation can be initiated.  

 

A key principle of Lean is that the organization should strive to continuously improve 

and learn (Liker, 2004). In the long run, superior performance is dependent on 

superior learning, according to Senge (1990). Furthermore, the need for understanding 

how organizations learn and the need of accelerating learning is growing, as the world 

is becoming increasingly dynamic, interdependent, and unpredictable (Senge, 1990). 

Since there is a lack of research about Lean in small service companies, it is therefore 

also important to study the learning process in these types of companies to identify 

how Lean-based improvement processes can be implemented. Senge (1990) argues 

that old traditional models of top management doing all the thinking, need to be set 

aside and give way to integrated thinking and acting at all levels. Achieving this is a 

great challenge, however, so is the potential payoff (Senge, 1990). 

 

There is a clear need to study how small service companies can become better 

prepared for future Lean implementation and improve their organizational learning. 

The focus of this study has therefore been to examine factors influencing the success 

of Lean implementation and organizational learning in small service companies, and 

how these factors can be improved.  

 

  



 

 

 
 

 

 
 

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The case company: Express Delivery Sweden 

 

Express Delivery Sweden is a small company which offers customized logistics 

services. The company is focused on offering fast deliveries of time-critical goods as 

well as handling special transports of dangerous or otherwise hard-to-transport goods. 

Their current competitive advantage is that they solve problems that many 

competitors are not able to, together with the fact that they are very customer-service-

oriented with low levels of automation and good communication with the customer.  

Today, they have a team of 8 people who work with express transportation, including 

receiving orders, planning, and booking transportation, as well as following and 

troubleshooting the transport until it reaches the customer. The team members work 

mostly independently apart from short daily morning meetings as well as 

improvement meetings and deviation meetings about once a month. All orders that 

enter the joint mailbox are assigned to whoever picks the order the fastest. Whenever 

an operator has the time, they are expected to also work with other activities, such as 

sales, business development and improvement processes. The amount of time spent 

on these other activities, which are not part of the operative work, varies between 

employees from 10 to 40 percent of their working time.  

  

Several issues have been identified which negatively affect the improvement 

processes and organizational learning in the company. Although the company consists 

of a team of highly motivated logistics specialists, their current way handling orders 

results in an overall unstructured way of working, which makes it difficult to learn the 

working process for new employees. This is one of the biggest identified challenges 

for the company, as they are striving grow over the years to come. Furthermore, the 

operative work is always prioritized over other activities, as their competitive 

advantage lies in meeting the urgent needs of their customers. This has led to a lack of 

engagement and commitment to improvement processes and to cancelled 

improvement meetings, due no ideas having been brought up for discussion and 

ongoing projects are delayed. Another issue is that information on customers and 

suppliers rarely diffuses within the team, and new information and insights are 

therefore restricted to specific individuals. In the current way of working, there is also 

a lack of standardized routines, which makes it difficult to both measure performance 

and to improve specific routines. All these issues risk leading to lost opportunities for 

improvement and therefore decreased competitiveness in the long run.  

 

To solve the presented issues, the company has identified a need to establish more 

effective processes for continuous improvement and develop into a learning 

organization. To achieve this and keep their high level of service quality and customer 

satisfaction, while at the same time developing and growing as a company, Express 

Delivery could benefit from implementing Lean principles. A key part of Lean is to 

become a learning organization which focuses on continuous improvement. To have a 

scalable business model and support future growth, the company needs to move from 

strictly individual to collective organizational learning and to more structured and 



 

 

 
 

 

 
 

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formal learning processes. Express Deliveries main customers are manufacturing 

companies such as Scania and Tesla, many of whom have already worked with Lean 

for a long time. The company can therefore also benefit from Lean implementation by 

becoming more aligned with their customers.  

  

However, there are some uncertainties in the organization about the factors needed for 

the company to be ready for a Lean implementation. As mentioned before, many 

established Lean principles have mostly been evaluated for larger manufacturing 

companies. Previous efforts of planned Lean implementation within the organization 

have met internal resistance and slow progress and have therefore been postponed 

indefinitely. There is therefore a need to investigate and improve the needed 

conditions at the company to develop into a learning organization and enable a future 

successful Lean implementation.  

  

1.2 Aim 

 
The aim of this study is to identify and assess success factors for Lean 

implementation and organizational learning within small service companies, in this 

case Express Delivery Sweden, as well as recommend how these can be improved to 

increase the chances of successful organizational learning and Lean implementation 

in the future. 

 

1.3 Delimitations 
 

This thesis is delimited to only study one small service company, Express Delivery 

Sweden. Furthermore, the thesis is delimited to study the current state of the case 

company and evaluate possible improvement areas, to deliver recommendations for 

increasing the chances of a future successful Lean implementation. No 

implementation plan of the presented recommendations has been included in this 

thesis.  

 

1.4 Research questions 

1. Which factors influence the organizational learning in small service 

companies? 

2. Which success factors are important for enabling Lean implementation in 

small service companies? 

3. How can these factors be improved in the case company to enable future Lean 

implementation and organizational learning? 

  



 

 

 
 

 

 
 

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2. Methodology 

In this chapter the methodology used to conduct the thesis is presented. The chapter 

includes a presentation of the research approach, the method for reviewing literature, 

the data collection and analysis method, and lastly a discussion about the reliability 

and validity of the study.  

 

2.1 Research approach  

 

To answer the research questions of the study, a qualitative research strategy was 

used. A qualitative research method is focused on understanding people's 

perspectives, which can for example be done by conducting interviews where the 

researchers are involved and words rather than numbers are emphasized in the 

collection and analysis of data (Bell et al., 2018). The study is based on a single 

studied case company, Express Delivery Sweden, to enable in-depth analysis which 

considers as many variables related to the research questions as possible. The research 

method used in this study is inductive, which means that specific observations from 

the case company have been used to make general conclusions (Bell et al., 2018). 

Although the analysis of the study is based on already existing theory, an inductive 

research approach was chosen as Saunders et al. (2016) explain that in an inductive 

approach, collected data is used to develop the theory, and not the other way around 

as in a deductive approach. In this study, collected data was used to better understand 

the factors which influence organizational learning and Lean implementation in 

service SMEs as well as how these factors can be improved. Furthermore, a deductive 

study would require general rules to already exist which they don’t, due to the lack of 

previous research on this particular type of company.  

 

An illustration of the structure and different steps of the research approach is shown 

in Figure 1. A combination of primary and secondary data from the case company 

was used to understand the current state of improvement processes and organizational 

learning at the company. The secondary data was used to provide information about 

the goals and visions of the case company and what their current state was intended to 

be like, while the primary data was used to provide information about what the 

current state is. The combination therefore resulted in a more complete overview, than 

either could by itself. A literature study was used both to identify gaps in existing 

research, as well as finding relevant theory for the purpose of the study. A draft 

recommendation for how the improvement processes and organizational learning 

could be improved in the case company was based on both existing research and the 

data collected from the case company. The identified gaps and the draft 

recommendation were validated through discussions with the CEO to ensure that the 

study had identified relevant gaps and improvement areas. The final recommendation 

was based on the additional data obtained from this validation (see Figure 1). This 

recommendation constitutes the findings from the study regarding the appropriate 



 

 

 
 

 

 
 

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solutions for Lean-based improvement processes and organizational learning for the 

case company. 

 

 
Figure 1: Structure of research approach 

2.2 Literature review 

 

A literature review was conducted after formulating the research questions of the 

thesis, to create a basis for the empirical study and deepen the knowledge within Lean 

management and organizational learning. Bell et al. (2018) explain that a literature 

review helps answer what is already known about an area and what concepts and 

theories are relevant for a study. The literature has been retrieved from Chalmers 

Library and Google Scholar by using relevant keywords such as: Lean 

Implementation, Lean Service Companies, Lean SME, Service excellence, 

Organizational learning.  

 

The focus of the literature review was finding models to assess organizational 

learning as well as success factors for Lean implementation. The relevant literature 

that was found, has been used in connection to the collected data as a foundation for 

analysis as well as for formulating recommendations for the case company.   

 

2.3 Collection of data 

 

The primary and secondary data collected to perform the study is illustrated in Figure 

2. The collection of primary data was conducted through semi-structured interviews 

and observations of several meetings, to understand context as well as obstacles and 

opportunities for continuous improvement and organizational learning. Since the 

interviews give a biased view of how the company works on improvements, 

observations were done to complement the data by obtaining an impartial view of the 

company's improvement processes. Secondary data in the form of different company 

documents such as SOP (standard operating procedure) documents and notes from 

internal workshops and presentations, were used to understand the structure of the 

company as well as goals and visions for their future. This secondary data was studied 

and compared to the data from the interviews and observations to identify differences 

between the intended and actual processes at the company.  

 



 

 

 
 

 

 
 

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Figure 2: Structure of data collection 

Interviews 

 

The interviews took place in the form of semi-structured interviews to leave room for 

follow-up questions, based on the answers from the interviewee, while the overall 

structure of the interview was still similar between interview subjects. The interviews 

were conducted in 3 stages to enable adjustment of the emphasis of the research, 

depending on results of issues that emerged during interviews. Stage 1 focused on the 

current state of improvement processes and overall work structure in the company. 

During this stage, four different senior logistics agents were interviewed, with a 

summary of issues brought up during these conversations validated through an 

interview with the CEO. Stage 2 focused on understanding the current state of the 

organizational learning and success factors for Lean implementation which had been 

identified through the literature review. During this stage the same four logistics 

agents and the CEO were interviewed as well as a newly employed logistics agent. 

Stage 3 was used to validate the result and recommendations and consisted of an 

interview with the CEO. The data from all interviews was saved in the form of 

interview notes taken during the interviews by both researchers, to ensure that no 

important points were left out. The guiding questions used during interviews can be 

found in the appendix.   

 

 

 

 

 

 

 



 

 

 
 

 

 
 

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Table 1: Interview subjects per interview stage 

 

Observations 

 

During the study, 3 different types of meetings were observed to understand the case 

company's current processes better, as a complement and verification to data collected 

from the interviews. Observations is a method which refers to an observer involving 

oneself in a group for a longer period of time to observe different types of behavior 

(Bell et al., 2018) The observations were made with unstructured character, by being 

a quiet participant in meetings and listening in through digital media software. The 

purpose of the observations was to increase understanding of the current level of 

learning and improvement processes, rather than the issues discussed during 

 

Interview stage 1 

 

 

Interview subject 

 

Role 

 

Focus area  

A Sr Logistics Agent Current state of improvement work  

B Sr Logistics Agent Current state of improvement work 

C Sr Logistics Agent Current state of improvement work 

D Sr Logistics Agent Current state of improvement work 

E CEO Validate Current state of improvement work 

 

Interview stage 2 

 

 

Interview subject 

 

Role 

 

Focus area  

A Sr Logistics Agent Current state of organizational learning 

B Sr Logistics Agent Current state of organizational learning 

C Sr Logistics Agent Current state of organizational learning 

D Sr Logistics Agent Current state of organizational learning 

E CEO Current state of organizational learning 

F New Logistics Agent Current state of organizational learning 

 

Interview stage 3 

 

 

Interview subject 

 

Role 

 

Focus area  

E CEO Validate Current state of organizational learning 

E CEO Validate identified gaps and recommendations 



 

 

 
 

 

 
 

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meetings, as well as well as understanding the obstacles that currently exist which 

might hinder different learning processes. Notes were taken during the observations to 

compile the observed processes and obstacles. The following types of improvement 

meetings were observed: 

• KPI meetings: During these meetings the CEO decides on new KPI’s for the 

following quarters together with the team. The observations focused on 

understanding the current process of setting targets within the company.  

 

• Deviation meetings: The purpose of the deviation meetings is to implement 

routines and standards for handling different types of deviation in the daily 

operational work. The focus of the observations was to understand how the 

company handles deviations today and to identify their current procedures of 

improving different processes.   

 

• Continuous improvement meetings: The observations during the continuous 

improvement meetings focused on what improvement projects should be 

prioritized, how the projects have been conducted and how well implemented 

the projects were.  

2.4 Data analysis 

As the data derived from interviews, observations and documents comprise a large 

collection of unstructured material, they are not straightforward to analyze and there 

are no clear rules about how qualitative data analysis should be carried out (Bell et al., 

2018). The analysis of the data collected in this study was mostly done through 

thematic analysis, where recurring topics, similarities and differences from company 

documents, interviews and observations were compiled and related to the theoretical 

framework. 

 

The model of Critical Success Factors (CSFs) presented in Chapter 5.2 has been 

evaluated through a three-level scale (fulfilled, partially fulfilled or not fulfilled), as 

this was considered to be the most efficient way of judging the current state and 

creating an overall assessment of these factors. As all the factors are of qualitative 

character, using a wider and more detailed scale was not considered appropriate.  

 

2.5 Reliability and validity  

 

The study was conducted during the spring of 2021, during a global pandemic with 

restrictions and social-distancing requirements. Most of the data collection was 

therefore done digitally, limiting the possibility of in-person interaction and physical 

observations that could have broadened the data collection. The study is based on a 

single case company, which could limit a general application of the findings of the 

study to other companies. However, using more case companies was considered to 



 

 

 
 

 

 
 

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have spread the available resources thinner and less detailed data collection and 

analysis would have been possible, which could have led to missing important 

insights regarding the specific situation of small service companies.  

 

A big part of the primary data is based on results from semi-structured interviews, 

which can both be affected by which questions are asked and how they are asked. 

Furthermore, depending on the different answers from respondents, unscripted 

follow-up questions can vary between interviewers. This can lead to results varying 

depending on several factors (Bell et al., 2018). This was mitigated by reviewing the 

interview questions before the interviews to make sure the questions are open and 

don’t bias the interviewee and by validating the overall findings of the interviews with 

the CEO of the case company. 

 

Observations of meetings can be unreliable since the sample of meetings will be 

limited due to time constraints which leads to a limited number of meetings during the 

project. Furthermore, the content of the meetings could possibly vary a lot and not be 

completely comparable, especially during the period of the study, when the company 

recently changed several of its improvement processes. This was mitigated partially 

by attending several meetings of each type as far as possible during the research 

process. Since the results of the interviews and observations were combined to answer 

the research questions, the total primary data is expected to be more reliable than if 

only one data source would have been used. 

 

Bell et al. (2018) define the internal validity as the extent to which the observed 

results represent the whole studied population. As the study was conducted within a 

small company where most team members are included in the primary data collection, 

the issue of having an unrepresentative sample was mitigated but not completely 

avoided. By complementing the interviews with observations and secondary data, the 

studied sample was supported by additional data. The external validity is defined by 

the ability to apply the studied results to other contexts (Bell et al. 2018). Since the 

study is specifically focused on small service companies, the external validity can be 

viewed as low if not applied in the same context. Since the study uses existing 

theories based on previous research on both small companies and service companies, 

some of the findings may still be valid to companies in a similar context.  

 

2.6 Ethical concerns 

 

By being informed and aware about ethical principles involved in business research, 

and how to engage with these, it is possible to make informed decisions about the 

ethics of research (Bell et al., 2018). Before formulating the purpose and research 

approach for conducting this thesis, different ethical aspects were evaluated.  

 

The primary data collection for the study is based on interviews with a group of 



 

 

 
 

 

 
 

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participants from a company with very few employees. The invasion of privacy was 

thereby one of the main ethical concerns of this study. To avoid this, no specific 

statements or transcripts from interviews have been presented in the report, to protect 

the integrity of the participants. Therefore, only the interview guidelines are presented 

in the report, with the overall answers being compiled in the empirical data chapter.  

Furthermore, the thesis is based on a single case company, which brought up another 

important ethical aspect that was considered before conducting the thesis, the consent 

of the case company. The CEO of the company was therefore informed and involved 

in formulating the purpose of the study and the chosen research approach, to ensure 

that the study had permission and consent from the case company.  

 

 

 
  



 

 

 
 

 

 
 

15 

 3. Theoretical framework 

In this chapter the theoretical framework that has been used for this thesis is 

presented. The chapter includes theory regarding organizational learning followed by 

theory on Lean management in both SMEs and service companies. The chapter is 

ended with a compiled list of 14 Critical success factors (CSFs) for Lean 

implementation in service SMEs.  

 

3.1 Organizational learning  

 

Bratianu (2015) describes organizational learning as a process that occurs across 

individual, group, and organizational levels through intuiting, interpreting, 

integrating, and institutionalizing. Murray & Donegan (2003) argue that 

organizational learning lets organization respond to its environment more effectively 

through improving the behavior and capabilities of its individuals. Locke & Jain 

(1995) argue that although there are numerous views and approaches on how an 

organization adopts learning, there is an agreement that learning will always occur at 

the level of the organization’s individual members. Furthermore, Marsick & Watkins 

(2003) argue that continuous learning at the individual level is something necessary, 

yet not a sufficient level of learning to influence perceived changes in financial 

performance and knowledge.  

 

To translate the learning from individuals to the organizational level, there must be 

enough knowledgeable people and an organizational culture, fostered by value- and 

vision-driven leadership, which encourages and rewards the application of new 

learning (Locke & Jain, 1995). Senge (1990) explains that leadership in learning 

organizations requires the skills to build a shared vision, bring mental models to the 

surface and challenge these, and to foster more systematic patterns of thinking. To 

benefit from its knowledge, an organization must use it routinely and apply the new 

knowledge in its everyday actions (Locke & Jain, 1995).  

 

Learning barriers 

 

According to Locke and Jain (1995), organizations face several both subtle and 

obvious barriers to learning and to identify the tools of organizational learning that 

encourage continuous improvement, it is useful to first identify possible barriers to 

organizational learning, so that organizations can avoid these barriers. Locke & Jain 

(1995) explain that any limitations the members of an organization have with respect 

to learning will effectively limit organizational learning. Schwartz & Rist (2017) 

argue that learning barriers at the organizational level include features such as 

corporate culture and organizational consensus, which can possibly lead to groupthink 

and inactivity. Furthermore, organizations sometimes fail in translating newly 

acquired knowledge into policies, procedures, and routines and instead tend to focus 



 

 

 
 

 

 
 

16 

on the exploitation of existing capabilities and opportunities (Locke & Jain, 1995).  

 

Leadership 

 

According to Schwartz & Rist (2017), something that most models of learning 

organizations identify as fundamental, is the importance of leadership. In learning 

organizations, leaders and managers are the providers of critical support that can 

enable a successful learning environment for both teams and for individuals 

(Schwartz & Rist, 2017). Leaders and managers who value and practice learning 

themselves, are regarded as better suited to nurture learning in the rest of the 

organization (Schwartz & Rist, 2017). Senge (1990) argues that leaders in learning 

organizations have the responsibility for learning, by building organizations where 

people are continually expanding their capabilities to shape their future. 

 

Schwartz & Rist (2017) explain that the role of a leader is crucial as they set the tone, 

establish the vision, and develop structures and systems that support learning. The top 

management in the organization should be able to motivate the necessary change and 

overcome the possible resistance from other members of the organization (Schwartz 

& Rist, 2017). A leadership that lacks a learning orientation is one of the most 

important barriers to overcome to become a learning organization (Locke & Jain, 

1995). This learning barrier emerges because it is management that holds the key to 

encourage any change in the organization, including a cultural change towards a more 

favorable attitude with respect to learning (Schwartz & Rist, 2017). Locke & Jain 

(1995) argue that one of the key tasks of a leader of a continuously improving 

organization is to instill a clear, shared sense of purpose within the organization. If 

management fails in providing the incentive for learning and informed change, 

suitable structures will not develop, and practices will not change (Schwartz & Rist, 

2017). 

 

Creating a learning organization 

 

Marsick & Watkins (2003) argue that learning must be captured and embedded in 

ongoing systems, practices, and structures, to be shared and regularly used to 

intentionally improve changes in knowledge performance. Furthermore, they argue 

that some of the most important characteristics emphasized for achieving valuable 

continuous learning process within the organization include; creating continuous 

learning opportunities, promoting inquiry and dialogue, encouraging collaboration 

and team learning, creating systems to capture and share learning, empowering people 

toward a collective vision, connecting the organization to its environment and 

providing strategic leadership for learning (Marsick & Watkins, 2003). 

 

Senge (1994) explains the learning organization as being a social invention composed 

of intangible elements called disciplines. He explains that discipline is a 

developmental path for acquiring certain skills or competencies and the result of 



 

 

 
 

 

 
 

17 

practicing a discipline is to be a lifelong learner. Disciplines will not necessarily 

create the learning organization, but they will create the convergence of all the efforts 

the company will need to develop into a learning organization. Senge (1994) 

describes the following five disciplines as contributions to the creation of the learning 

organization: 

 

1.     Personal mastery 

 

Personal mastery is the encouragement for personal motivation to continuously learn 

and improve the professional competences. This discipline is an essential cornerstone 

of the learning organization, as an organization’s capacity for learning cannot be 

greater than that of its members. Personal mastery means continually deepening our 

personal vision and deepening our patience and of seeing reality objectively (Senge, 

1994). 

  

2.     Mental models 

 

Senge (1994) describes that mental model focus on seeing the world in a more 

complex and adequate way. The discipline includes the ability to have conversations 

leading to learning, where people can expose their own thinking effectively and make 

that thinking open to the influence of others. Mental models of people are deeply 

ingrained assumptions that influence ones understanding of the world and how we 

take actions and people are very often not aware of their mental models or the effects 

they have on our behavior (Senge, 1994). 

 

3.     Shared vision 

 

The meaning of shared vision is to focus on the team and organization future and to 

combine personal interests with that of the organization. Creating a shared vision 

means to have a commitment for the common future. When there is a genuine shared 

vision, people learn and excel because they want to, as opposed to being told to 

through a vision statement. Many leaders have personal visions that never get 

translated into shared visions. Shared vision involves the skills of sharing pictures of 

the future that can foster genuine commitment rather than compliance (Senge, 1994). 

 

4.     Team learning 

 

The meaning of team learning is to look beyond the individual perspective of learning 

and to share the acquired knowledge with others. The discipline starts with dialogue, 

meaning the capacity of team members to suspend assumptions and enter a genuine 

thinking together. Team learning is vital since it is the teams, not the individuals, that 

are the fundamental learning unit in modern organizations. Unless the teams can 

learn, the organization cannot learn (Senge, 1994).  

  



 

 

 
 

 

 
 

18 

5.     Systems thinking 

 

Systemic thinking is the conceptual cornerstone of Senge's (1994) approach and 

encourages organizations to shift to an interconnected way of thinking (Schwartz & 

Rist, 2017). The systems thinking integrates all the other four disciplines and 

stimulates the synergy of learning integration (Senge, 1990). Senge argues that seeing 

the whole by appreciating the system instead of focusing on the parts, will result in 

more appropriate and purposeful action within the organization (Schwartz & Rist, 

2017). It is important to develop the five disciplines as an ensemble, which is 

challenging since it is much harder to integrate new tools than simply applying them 

separately. Systems thinking needs the disciplines of building shared vision, mental 

models, team learning and personal mastery to realize its potential. Building a shared 

vision fosters long-term commitment, mental models open the mindset, team learning 

develops the skills of groups beyond individual perspectives and personal mastery 

fosters personal motivation for continuous learning (Senge, 1990)  

  

Furthermore, Senge (1994) emphasizes that the core of the learning organization is a 

mind shift for all employees, especially for all managers. The essence of becoming a 

learning organization is to be able to expand the organization's capacity to create its 

future. For a learning organization, Senge (1994) argues that it is not enough to 

survive, rather adaptive learning needs to be combined with generative learning to 

enhance the organization's capacity to create. The Japanese continuous improvement 

managerial philosophy validates that ‘adaptive learning’ implies designing and 

implementing small changes that improve the quality of products and services and 

adapt the level of knowledge and performance of the organization to the level of the 

external business environment. (Senge, 1994). 

 

3.2 Overview of Lean 

 

Lean has been defined in many different ways. Krafcik (1988) first defined Lean as 

“using less of organizational resources as compared to resources deployed in mass 

production” and Womack et al. (1990) later defined it as “fusion of mass and craft 

production consisting of a set of principles and best practices aiming at continuous 

improvement”. Shah and Ward (2007) instead defined Lean as a “socio-technical 

system with focus on elimination of waste throughout the organization as well as its 

supply chain network”. Sinha and Matharu (2019) list several themes which often 

occur in these different definitions: 

• Lean is a management philosophy 

• Lean is a socio-technical system 

• Lean means striving to eliminate waste 

• Lean means striving to deliver value to customers 

 



 

 

 
 

 

 
 

19 

Liker (2004) also describes the elimination of waste as the heart of Lean and Shah and 

Ward (2007) consider waste elimination to be the “primary goal” of Lean. From a 

Lean perspective, anything which does not add value to the final product and thereby 

to the customer (either an internal customer, for example the next step in a process, or 

an end customer) is waste (Jasti and Kodali, 2015). Monden (1998) lists 7 types of 

waste to which Liker (2004) adds “unused employee creativity”, resulting in a total of 

8 different types of waste: 

1.     Overproduction 

2.     Waiting 

3.     Unnecessary transport (of materials, components or products) 

4.     Unnecessary or incorrect processing 

5.     Excess inventory 

6.     Unnecessary movement (of people) 

7.     Defects 

8.     Unused employee creativity 

  

The process of eliminating waste is essentially an improvement process where the 

ultimate, but often unachievable, goal is a process with no waste (Shah and Ward, 

2007). Any work or time which does not add value to the customer is defined as non-

value-adding, while the contrary is defined as value-adding (Liker, 2004). Shah and 

Ward (2007) list three sub-goals to the primary goal of waste elimination: quantity 

control, quality assurance and respect for humanity. 

  

Liker (2004) has identified 14 core principles in Lean: 

1.     Basing decisions on long-term philosophy rather than short-term goals 

2.     Creating continuous process flows to make problems more noticeable 

3.     Using a pull system to avoid overproduction 

4.     Leveling the workload 

5.     Stopping and fix a problem right away when it is detected 

6.     Standardizing processes in order to enable continuous improvement 

7.     Using visual control methods to make problems more noticeable 

8.     Using reliable, tested technology which suit the people and processes 

9.     Growing leaders who understand the processes, live the philosophy and can 

teach it to others 

10.  Developing great people and teams who follow the philosophy 

11.  Expecting and supporting partners and suppliers to improve 

12.  Seeing situations yourself so that you understand them 

13.  Making decisions slowly through consensus and implementing quickly 

14.  Being a learning organization through reflection and continuous improvement 

Although many of these principles have a connection to continuous improvement and 

organizational learning, Liker (2004) lists principles 12-14 as directly connected to 

these.  

  



 

 

 
 

 

 
 

20 

Principle 12 is at Toyota called genchi genbutsu, which essentially means to go to 

where the work is done, the source, and see the situation for yourself so that you can 

truly understand it (Chiarini et al, 2018). In Lean, it is considered essential to fully 

understand a problem before trying to solve it. Additionally, this means being able to 

identify the root causes of a problem through information-gathering and analysis. This 

is related to 5 Why, which is a tool to repeatedly ask why a problem is occurring to 

find the root causes. (Liker, 2004) 

  

Principle 13 means to emphasize doing a decision process carefully and correctly, to 

then enable a rapid implementation of that decision with relatively few problems 

(Liker, 2004). This process is referred to as nemawashi at Toyota. Liker (2004) 

describes the decision process in 5 steps: 

1.     Understanding the situation and problem properly (connected to Principle 12) 

2.     Understanding the root cause(s) of the problem (5 Why) 

3.     Analyzing alternatives broadly and having a strong motivation for the chosen 

solution 

4.     Building consensus between all parties involved 

5.     Clearly communicating steps 1-4 to make the process easy to understand 

One way to achieve step 5 is to use the A3 approach, which means that all 

information about a problem and the proposed solution should fit on an A3 piece of 

paper.  

  

Principle 14 is focused on the organization’s capacity for learning through reflection 

(hansei) and continuous improvement (kaizen). This principle is closely tied to many 

of the other principles. For example, in Lean, standardization is considered a 

prerequisite for continuous improvement (Liker, 2004). Without standardization you 

can’t tell how the process is done today and whether a new way of doing it would be 

better. You also would have no reliable way of spreading a better way of doing things 

throughout the organization. A learning organization, according to Lean, also needs to 

be stable with low employee turnover, slow promotions, and carefully managed 

successions to preserve implicit knowledge in the organization. It also requires a 

culture where it is possible to admit to mistakes so that they can be analyzed and 

learned from. (Liker, 2004) 

 

Lean in service companies (Lean service) 

 

Bowen and Youngdahl (1998) proposed to apply Lean philosophy from the 

manufacturing industry on service companies and defined this as Lean service. 

Lisiecka and Burka (2016) also state that the same Lean principles which have been 

used in the manufacturing sector can also be applied to services. Additionally, 

according to Gupta et. al (2016), the same tools applied in manufacturing can also be 

applied in services, however some differences are significant because of the inherent 

characteristics of services. Furthermore, Liker & Ross (2016) argue that all 

manufacturing organizations include services, and that all service organizations 



 

 

 
 

 

 
 

21 

handle physical goods in a way that is similar to manufacturing. The philosophy 

behind Lean principles remains unchanged, but the Lean tools and practices need to 

be tailored, when applied to the service industry. The fact that a form of adaptation is 

needed has been highlighted by many authors, the kinds of adaptations needed, have 

however not been specified (Gupta et al., 2016).  

  

Andrés-López et al. (2015) argue that service industries can benefit from the 

application of Lean philosophy through increasing organizational competitiveness and 

customer satisfaction along with reducing process variability and wastes. They argue 

that the introduction of Lean principles, in any service activity, must begin with a 

deep understanding of service inherent aspects and close knowledge of customer 

value. According to Gupta et al. (2016), one of the key challenges for services is to 

manage the intangibility of waste arising because of the difficulty to identify waste, 

together with the presence of the customer as a co-producer of the service. Andrés-

López et al. (2015) also argue that waste determination in service is complex, 

considering that the operations are intangible and therefore, organizations need to 

develop the ability to recognize waste through analyzing the customer experience.  

 

Another challenge for implementing Lean in services identified by Gupta et al. (2016) 

is the lack of awareness about the benefits of Lean in service organizations, although 

studies have shown that application of Lean in services has produced positive results. 

By using Lean tools such as value-stream mapping, standardization and visual 

management, service companies can identify and eliminate barriers and improve their 

service quality and customer experience in an efficient manner. Andrés-López et al 

(2015) also propose using these tools as part of Lean implementations in service 

companies. The application of Lean tools should be accompanied with a change in 

culture to ensure the sustainability of Lean. To achieve a successful Lean 

transformation, a willingness to change and adopt new ways of doing things is needed 

(Gupta et al., 2016).  

 

There is little research on Critical Success Factors (CSFs) for Lean implementation in 

the service industry (Lins et al, 2021). Lins et al. (2021) examine the most critical 

factors for Lean in services and define that the most commonly identified are: top 

management support, leadership involvement, employee commitment, organizational 

culture, communication and employee involvement. Furthermore, they argue that 

these factors can be influenced by organizational culture and leadership.  

 

Service excellence 

 

Liker and Ross (2016) describe Service excellence as understanding questions about 

the service offered to the customer, such as: What does the customer experience? 

How satisfied is the customer? And to what degree are we enhancing the life of each 

customer? According to Liker and Ross (2016), to achieve service excellence, it is 

important to understand what the customers expect and then going beyond that, giving 



 

 

 
 

 

 
 

22 

the customers the unexpected, as customers themselves cannot be expected to know 

what would address their needs, since they are generally limited by their own 

experiences. Offering a personalized experience for the customer is very challenging 

and the Toyota way of thinking about it is how whole systems can continuously 

improve the way they add value to customers. When speaking of “Lean” it refers to 

service excellence including the following characteristics: (Liker & Ross, 2016).  

  

• Specific countermeasures to problems will be different for different types of 

service processes and service organizations (Liker & Ross, 2016). 

• Service organizations always include both routine processes that can be 

standardized as well as nonroutine processes that require different approaches 

to improvement (Liker & Ross, 2016). 

• There are no Lean solutions, but rather ways of leading that engage everyone 

in continuous improvement toward a vision of excellence (Liker & Ross, 

2016). 

 

Lean in SMEs 

 

Companies can be categorized according to their size, in that they are either Large 

Enterprises (LEs) or Small- and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs) (Alkhoraif et al., 

2019). According to the EU definition, an SME is a company with less than 250 

employees and less than €50m in turnover or €43m in balance sheet total (European 

Commission, 2003). Alkoraif et al (2019) conclude that research on Lean in SMEs is 

greatly lagging behind similar research in LEs. They also found that levels of 

integration of Lean in SMEs are lower and knowledge of Lean is poorer in SMEs than 

in LEs. Pearce et al (2018) also state that the uptake of Lean implementation in SMEs 

tends to be slower than in larger firms, at least partly due to having less resources 

available. 

 

Akhoraif et al (2019) found, when reviewing the existing literature on Lean in SMEs, 

that there are noticeable differences between both how Lean tends to be implemented 

in SMEs and how it should be to increase chances of success. SMEs tend to be more 

focused on implementing specific Lean tools rather than more holistic 

implementations (Pearce et al, 2018). This may be because many SMEs may lack 

resources for a more comprehensive Lean implementation but at the same time 

research suggests that holistic implementations tend to have higher chances of success 

(Alkhoraif et al, 2019). Lean implementations in SMEs also tend to be more strictly 

focused on increasing just internal operational efficiency and implementations in 

other internal processes or externally in the supply chain are rare (Pearce et al, 2018). 

Alkhoraif et al (2019) also found that Critical Success Factors (CSFs) for the 

implementation of Lean in SMEs include employee involvement and participation, 

senior management assistance and dedication, teaching and learning as well as the 

ability to manage organizational change. Good communication between management 

and workers as well as managers having previous personal experience with Lean were 



 

 

 
 

 

 
 

23 

also found to be CSFs. Belhadi et al (2018) list partially similar success factors, with 

leadership and managerial involvement, ability to change the company’s culture, 

long-term vision, allocation of time and financial resources as well as training and 

empowerment for workers being the most common CSFs. Pearce et al (2018) 

particularly emphasize the importance of management knowledge and support for 

Lean implementation in SMEs. 

 

Alkhoraif et al (2019) found that a company being an SME does impact its ability to 

implement Lean. The lesser negotiating power of SMEs compared to LEs (due to 

being smaller) makes it harder to implement Lean completely since they have a 

limited ability to influence their suppliers and customers. This is probably also a 

reason for why, as stated above, SMEs tend to have a stricter focus on just 

implementing Lean in their own operations than LEs. Pearce et al (2018) also found 

that most Lean implementations in SMEs are focused internally. This leads to 

principles for how to implement Lean in procurement and distribution having to be 

adapted to SMEs. Other inhibiting factors to Lean implementation in SMEs include a 

lack of management time and competence regarding Lean, lack of sufficient budget 

for the implementation and lack of needed infrastructure, such as IT systems 

(Alkhoraif et al, 2019). Pearce et al (2018) found that SMEs are particularly 

dependent on management knowledge and support in their Lean implementations. 

They found that SMEs are not only dependent on their manager’s for spreading 

knowledge about Lean but also for formulating and spreading a clear vision for why 

the implementation should be done, since SMEs lack the organizational support 

systems which are usually present in larger organizations. 

 

Enablers for Lean implementation in SMEs include easier communication due to less 

employees and fewer hierarchical levels in the company, greater adaptability in 

operations due to the smaller size and being less reliant on economies of scale and 

greater impact of the individual leader which can be beneficial if the leader is 

dedicated to the implementation (Alkhoraif et al, 2019). However, Alkhoraif et al 

(2019) found that overall, SMEs are still at a disadvantage when it comes to 

implementing Lean. 

 

Alkoraif et al (2019) arrive at some general guidelines for Lean implementation in 

SMEs: 

• Organizational culture needs to be supportive and dedicated to Lean 

implementation. 

• The budget and infrastructure needed for the implementation have to be 

planned and secured in advance 

• Management needs to decide on which version of Lean to implement 

• Customer value needs to be defined 

• Employees have to be given necessary training in Lean 

• The Lean implementation needs to have a long-term perspective rather than 

focusing on short-term results 



 

 

 
 

 

 
 

24 

 

Regarding Lean tools, Belhadi et al (2018) conclude, based on their review of 

available research, that it is often not possible nor desirable for SMEs to utilize all 

Lean tools and that focus should instead be on just using the most feasible and easy-

to-use, like 5S (a system for organizing workspaces), TQC (total quality control), 

SMED (single-minute exchange of dies), JIT (just-in-time) and VSM (value-stream 

mapping).They also emphasize that management needs to have a long-term view of 

Lean implementation rather than focusing on short-term results.  

 

Knol et al. (2018) found 12 CSFs for Lean implementation in SMEs: 

1. Top management support - top management takes responsibility for and is 

involved in Lean implementation 

2. Shared improvement vision - a shared improvement vision in the company in 

line with the company strategy 

3. Good communication - Exchange of ideas, information, and knowledge 

throughout the company 

4. Leadership - team leaders take responsibility for and are involved in 

improvement  

5. People focus - where organizational systems which help rather than constrain 

employees 

6. Learning focus - where both positive and negative experiences are shared and 

learned from 

7. Sufficient resources - sufficient time and budget available for Lean 

implementation 

8. Management and workers receive sufficient training in Lean 

9. Process data from all levels is available 

10. Few suppliers are selected for long-term relationships with two-way feedback 

11. Long-term relationships with customers with two-way feedback 

12. Targets, assessments, and rewards for employees are aligned with 

improvement vision 

 

Knol et al. (2018) also argue that which CSFs are most important vary depending on 

the stage of Lean implementation the company is currently at. They also state that 

CSFs for SMEs are largely similar to LEs but that there are some areas that differ.  

 

Lean implementation in service SMEs 

 

The literature recommends starting the Lean implementation with the easier-to-use 

tools, especially for SMEs. This would include for example 5S, VSM, TQC and JIT, 

which could all be applicable in service companies. At the same time, it is 

recommended to have a holistic approach to the Lean implementation which involves 

the entire company. 

 



 

 

 
 

 

 
 

25 

Based on CSFs identified for Lean implementation in service companies and SMEs, 

the following list of 14 CSFs for service SMEs (Table 2) has been compiled. The list 

is strongly based on the list by Knol et al (2018) with additions made where other 

authors have identified other factors or aspects of factors which Knol et al (2018) had 

not included. These additions include adding top management experience to CSF 1, 

customer focus as CSF 7, sufficient infrastructure to CSF 8 as well as capability of 

organizational change as CSF 14. The reasoning behind adding CSFs for both service 

companies and SMEs together is that this the list should then have a good chance of 

containing all CSFs important for small service companies. If these CSFs are present, 

then there is therefore a greater likelihood that the company will be able to implement 

Lean and achieve strong organizational learning and continuous improvement. 

 

  

1 Top management experience and support - top management has previous experience with 

Lean and takes responsibility for and is involved in Lean implementation 

2 Shared improvement vision - a shared improvement vision in the company in line with the 

company strategy 

3 Good communication - Exchange of ideas, information, and knowledge throughout the 

company 

4 Leadership - team leaders take responsibility for and are involved in improvement  

5 People focus - where organizational systems which help rather than constrain employees 

6 Learning focus - where both positive and negative experiences are shared and learned from 

7 Customer focus - customer value is clearly defined, and the organization strives toward 

creating customer value with minimal waste 

8 Sufficient resources and infrastructure - sufficient time, budget, and infrastructure available 

for Lean implementation 

9 Management and workers receive sufficient training in Lean 

10 Process data from all levels is available 

11 Few suppliers are selected for long-term relationships with two-way feedback 

12 Long-term relationships with customers with two-way feedback 

13 Targets, assessments, and rewards for employees are aligned with improvement vision 

14 Capability of organizational change - the organization’s ability to change culture, structure, 

and processes 

Table 2: Critical Success factors for Lean implementation 



 

 

 
 

 

 
 

26 

4. Empirical data 

The empirical data presented in this chapter has been collected through employee 

interviews, observations of meetings as well as from company documents, as 

described in Chapter 2. The chapter includes a description of the company’s learning 

and improvement processes, including relevant meetings and training of new 

employees, followed by descriptions of the conditions of the Critical Success Factors 

(CSFs) from Chapter 3 in Table 2 at the company. 

 

4.1 Learning and improvement processes at Express Delivery AB 

 

The learning and improvement processes at the company have historically been 

largely informal, where new ideas and insights have mostly spread through casual 

discussions around the office or on the chat app the company uses. Improvement 

initiatives have previously been on a purely voluntary basis, which has left 

improvement processes regarded as side tasks without high priority.  

 

The new CEO has introduced several formal meetings, the improvement meetings, 

and the deviation meetings (presented in detail below), to create more structured and 

predictable organizational learning and continuous improvement at the company. All 

employees are expected to dedicate at least 5% of their working-time on improvement 

processes. This goal is not being prioritized today, as all the interviewees (except for 

the CEO) claim that they lack the time required to focus on improvement processes.   

 

Apart from the improvement meetings, the CEO has arranged workshops for different 

developing purposes, such as KPI-setting workshops and workshops to establish core 

values and strategic focus. Daily morning briefings are used to update and discuss the 

team members state of mind regarding operational work. The CEO uses the morning 

meetings to spread general information to all employees participating in the meetings. 

The morning meetings are of informal character where the CEO asks the whole team 

how they are doing and if anyone has anything they want to announce or discuss. The 

main purpose is to check the “pulse” of the team and have a timeslot where anyone 

can bring any topic up to the team. There is no clear agenda for the meeting and no 

notes being taken during these meetings. 

 

Improvement meetings 

 

The company utilizes a digital improvement board, through a web-application that 

focuses on helping teams organize and track their work, on which employees can post 

improvement suggestions. Through the digital platform, the different suggestions are 

categorized under New tasks, Upcoming tasks and Completed tasks, with each 

ongoing task being assigned to a specific person in the team. Improvement meetings 

are scheduled to be held once monthly, chaired by the CEO, to discuss and approve 



 

 

 
 

 

 
 

27 

any new improvement suggestions as well as follow up on the implementation of 

previously approved improvements. The meetings are scheduled to take 45 minutes. 

When a new improvement suggestion is brought up, the employees discuss whether to 

implement the suggestion and, if so, who should be responsible for the 

implementation project as well as when it should be completed. The employee 

responsible should then present the progress of this implementation on subsequent 

improvement meetings.  

 

However, the improvement meetings that were observed during the course of the 

study, did not fulfill their intended outcome as several struggles were observed. First 

of all, several improvement meetings were postponed or canceled due to a lack of 

improvement suggestions. The improvement meetings which were held often were 

not attended by all employees. Communication problems were observed during the 

meetings, where there were misunderstandings about who was responsible for 

improvement projects and when these problems should be completed. There also 

seemed to be a pattern where most improvement projects were given to the same 

person. 

 

 Deviation meetings 

 

The deviation meetings were introduced by the new CEO and are scheduled to be 

held every two weeks. The purpose of these meetings is to discuss all deviations that 

have been registered in a joint Excel sheet, and evaluate the probability, impact, 

severity, and response of each deviation. The CEO leads the discussions by going 

through all new registered deviations, letting the team member that has documented 

each deviation elaborate on the issue. The meetings were scheduled to take 45 

minutes. 

 

During the first deviation meetings observed in the study, there were a lot of 

misunderstandings regarding the expected preparations for the meetings. The team 

members had not registered their deviations in the same documents or in the same 

way. The standard operating procedure (SOP) that the team members were expected 

to follow when registering a deviation was written in English with instructions that 

were not interpreted in the same way by the whole team. The last meetings have been 

more productive according to the CEO, who argues that everyone in the team has a 

pretty good idea of the purpose of the meetings and sees a growing interest for 

handling the deviations, following the new process.  

 

Not all team members are present during the deviation meetings to follow new 

agreements made within the team. One interviewee also expressed that because of 

lack of time, it is difficult to follow the meetings and what is being said, as the 

operational work continues in parallel with the meetings. Most of the interviewees 

agree that the first deviation meetings observed during the study were faced with 



 

 

 
 

 

 
 

28 

some challenges, such as communication misunderstandings, but agree that the 

introduction of deviation meetings is important.               

 

Training of new employees 

 

The previous way of training new employees has not been successful according to the 

CEO, as the routines for introducing new employees have varied depending on who 

runs the introduction. There is currently no standardized introduction process for new 

employees, which makes the training progress difficult to follow. Each new employee 

has previously been given a mentor from the team to shadow and work beside. All the 

employees work in very different ways and their decision making is currently based 

on experience and personal preference.  

 

The company is now evaluating the introduction process for new employees by letting 

a new employee answer questions about the learning progress and evaluate 

differences between different employees' ways of working. Based on this evaluation 

process, the new employee and the assigned mentor will present a new introduction 

process.  

 

Training of current employees 

 

All the employees have been given access to a digital learning platform with different 

courses, some optional and some mandatory, assigned by the CEO. The Express team 

is expected to take a Lean introduction course, a Root-cause analysis course, an Excel 

course and a Risk management course during the first two quarters of this year. All 

the interviewees within the express team argue that there is a lack of time to prioritize 

the courses, since their daily operational work occupies most of their time. 

 

The CEO has expressed that there is a general lack of learning motivation within the 

team. The aim of the assigned courses is getting the team to understand that a more 

structured way of working will result in becoming more confident as an individual. 

The purpose is to engage the individual in the reorganization of the company and 

increase the competence level within the team. The CEO wants to encourage decision 

making based on facts and on the strategic direction of the company. One of the main 

goals of the courses is to increase the level of self-awareness within the team. The 

CEO finds it challenging to understand in what way the team members are able to 

embrace the information from the courses.  

 

  



 

 

 
 

 

 
 

29 

4.2 CSF conditions 

 

Below the collected data regarding each of the CSFs studied is summarized. 

 

Top management experience and support 

 

The CEO has previous experience with working in organizations which have already 

implemented Lean and has previously been responsible for implementing Lean in a 

new team within an organization. However, the CEO has no previous experience with 

Lean implementation in a whole organization. The CEO also has experience of taking 

several Lean courses in different career stages. The CEO chaired all improvement-

related meetings and all interview subjects agreed that the CEO was very involved in 

leading, supporting and encouraging the improvement processes.  

 

Shared improvement vision 

 

No improvement vision has been stated during interviews, apart from the fact that the 

CEO has established new routines to encourage improvements. The overall vision for 

the company stated in the company documents is: “We invent quick and seamless 

supply chain setups for literally anything”. The company has a long-term goal of 

developing from an individual dependent actor of express transport to a learning 

supply chain organization. Some of the subgoals to reach this include education and 

training of employees and establishing a Lean way of working.  

 

When asked what the vision and goals for the company was during the interviews, all 

the interview subjects had different answers. The most common theme mentioned was 

growth, which was mentioned by 5 out of 6 interview subjects. Other than growth, 

there was little commonality between interview answers. When it comes to the 

strategy to realize the vision, no employee other than the CEO could state what this 

strategy was and most of the interviewees mentioned that this was something the CEO 

was working on.  

 

Good communication 

 

The company uses a chat app and email in combination with in-person talks and 

telephone calls, to communicate internally on a daily basis. Additionally, there are the 

daily morning meetings where new information is often discussed. During the 

different meetings there are no notes being taken and shared. Not all the team 

members are present during all meetings, due to their different work-schedules, which 

limits the diffusion of information. Overall, the formal communication is currently 

limited, and information is generally not saved in a structured way. 

 



 

 

 
 

 

 
 

30 

The interview subjects agree that there is good informal communication throughout 

the company using in-person conversations, telephone calls and the chat app. New 

information is spread quickly and openly to the entire team. However, one subject 

described the communication as unstructured while another believed there were too 

many communication channels, which made it difficult to keep track on where to find 

specific information.  

 

Leadership 

 

The company had previously planned to have two team leaders in place to lead the 

two separate teams the company recently split the employees into. However, the only 

chosen team leader chose to not take the position and there seems to be an overall 

lack of interest to take the positions among the employees. Therefore, there are 

currently no team leaders. The only other leader within the organization is the CEO 

who, as mentioned previously, is deeply involved in the improvement processes. 

 

People focus 

 

The organization has few hard rules for how the employees should do their jobs and 

does not have a formal corporate culture. None of the interview subjects has in any 

way expressed that they consider rules and structures of the organization to be a 

limiting factor if suggesting new ideas or improvements. 

 

Learning focus  

 

Positive and negative experiences are not shared in any structured or formal way 

throughout the company. However, during the interviews all the employees claimed 

that there is a lot of informal communication of experiences, through telephone calls, 

the chat app and during the morning briefings. These experiences are not documented 

in any structured or accessible way and there are no formal processes for learning 

from these experiences.  

 

There is currently no established routine for receiving or giving feedback from 

customers or suppliers. Some of the team members expressed that they do document 

specific comments from customers, so that information is shared with the rest of the 

team. However there seems to be different routines for sharing information among the 

team. Most of the team members expressed that they learn a lot from experience, and 

they continuously develop their own way of working. However, little of the 

information from their individual learning experiences is shared with the rest of the 

team.   

 

  



 

 

 
 

 

 
 

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Customer focus  

 

The definition of customer value varies between employees. The most common theme 

brought up when asked about their value proposition is being fast, which most 

employees mentioned as part of the customer value. Other than being fast, there were 

few common themes between employees, with answers varying between good control 

of the transport, dedication, proactivity, high delivery precision, flexibility, high 

service, trust, accessibility, and low price. The CEO has identified a struggle of 

measuring quality for their type of service and argues that a clear definition and 

measurements are needed and wanted in the future.  

 

The employees describe the company as very customer focused by delivering tailor-

made solutions to the customer’s problems. This includes comparing different options 

and finding the lowest-cost solutions meeting the needs of the customer. 

 

Sufficient resources and infrastructure 

 

All employees considered there to be sufficient budget and infrastructure available for 

the improvement processes. However, a major difference within the team is that the 

CEO also considered there to be enough time for these processes, while most of the 

employees argued that there was insufficient time for the improvement processes.  

 

The CEO expects the employees to dedicate 5% of their working time on 

improvement processes and claims that this has been communicated clearly. 

However, all other employees said that they did not dedicate time to improvement 

processes and either worked on improvements whenever there was time available, 

which could be outside of work hours, or not at all. 

 

Management and workers receive sufficient training in Lean 

 

As stated previously, the CEO has received training in Lean. The rest of the 

employees were required to take a basic course in Lean during the first or second 

quarter 2021. Other than this, most employees stated that they had some previous 

training or experience with Lean, either from their formal education or previous 

employers, but to a limited extent. 

 

Process data 

 

Very little process data is currently available within the company. A few KPIs are 

used as a strategic measurement but most are not directly process-related. Some 

examples of currently used KPI:s are, “Hit rate for transport requests” and “Delivery 

precision”.  The CEO claims that the company is not interested in measuring 

individual performance by their efficiency of working, since they focused on 

“freedom with responsibility”. Furthermore, both the team and the CEO have 



 

 

 
 

 

 
 

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expressed that it is difficult to measure their operational work, since some orders are 

more complicated and time-consuming than others.  

 

Suppliers 

 

The company has more than 200 suppliers of various types. They are mainly transport 

companies but vary from single-person transport firms to larger transport providers. 

About half of the suppliers are based in Sweden.  

 

For Sweden-based suppliers, the selection process is informal and individual 

employees can simply call up any firm and hire them. This is stated to be because 

Sweden-based firms tend to be serious and follow the laws and rules that apply. If 

there are any trouble with them the employee can either choose to try to teach them 

what to do instead or decide to not use them again. 

 

For foreign suppliers the selection process is a bit more formal. It is harder to find 

information about them and to know if they will follow laws and rules. Therefore, 

there is a supplier contract which they must sign, including the terms and conditions 

they must follow when working for the company.  

 

There is no formal evaluation of suppliers and no formal feedback processes. This is 

instead for the individual employee to do on an ad hoc basis if there are any issues. 

The employees therefore have their own favorite suppliers which they prefer to work 

with, and the individual employees are free to choose whatever available supplier they 

want for every order. There are no formal long-term contracts with suppliers but there 

are informal long-term relationships with many suppliers which individual employees 

have worked with for several years. 

 

Customers 

 

The company has a mix between long-term customer relationships and single-order 

arrangements. Most of the orders come from recurring customers which put in orders 

every day or at least several times every week. However, the company currently has 

few long-term contracts with these customers. The CEO stated that this is something 

that they are working on changing and that they want to sign more long-term 

contracts with the largest customers in the future.  

 

Feedback is generally done on an order-by-order basis when problems arise, and the 

company doesn’t have any structured or formal feedback processes with customers 

outside of this. Some individual employees state that they sometimes have informal 

telephone discussions with the customers about the relationship and what can be 

expected from the future on an ad-hoc basis. 

 

  



 

 

 
 

 

 
 

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Targets, assessments and rewards for employees are aligned with improvement vision 

 

The employees can earn a bonus based on several criteria. The fulfilment of these 

criteria is assessed by the CEO. These criteria are: 

• Required courses completed 

• Sales to new customers 

• Work effort and performance 

Other than this, there are no targets or measurements of individual employees. The 

CEO stated that contribution to improvement processes is considered as a part of the 

work effort and performance.  

 

Capability of organizational change  

 

The CEO states that the company is struggling to change its organization. Several 

interview subjects have stated that there is resistance to changing the organization and 

culture which has historically existed. Some possible reasons for this brought up 

during interviews is that the work is based on great individual freedom and everyone 

working as generalists, handling any type of order. 

 

 The CEO has wanted to change the organization to have employees be more 

specialized and work more according to standardized routines, which has not been 

popular with most employees. The motivation for this is to increase efficiency, enable 

faster training of new employees and enable the creation of teams with different 

responsibilities within the company as the company grows, since currently this 

training takes a long time due to the need of learning to handle all types of orders. The 

employees have instead stated that it would be less enjoyable to be more specialized 

and it would make them feel less like true logistics experts who can handle any kind 

of order. The employees have also said that one of the main reasons for why they 

work at this company is precisely because they want to work as generalists. This 

resistance has led to the CEO postponing several changes that were initially planned 

to be implemented earlier.  

  



 

 

 
 

 

 
 

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5. Analysis 

 

In this chapter, the organizational learning in the case company is analyzed related to 

the theory presented in the theoretical framework. Additionally, an analysis of the 

current state of the presented Critical Success Factors (CSFs) for the case company is 

conducted. 

 

5.1 Which factors influence the organizational learning in small 

service companies?  

 

This section analyses the findings about Express Delivery Sweden’s current level of 

organizational learning, to answer the first research question of the study. The data 

presented in section 4.1 is analyzed related to the theoretical framework presented in 

section 3.1, to identify important factors influencing organizational learning within 

the case company. Senge’s (1994) 5 disciplines are used as a guideline to assess 

different factors influencing the organizational learning at Express delivery Sweden, 

followed by a summary answering the research question.  

 

Personal mastery  

Senge (1994) argues that personal mastery is one of the contributions needed to create 

a learning organization and according to the CEO there is a general lack of learning 

motivation within the team, which can hinder the creation of a learning organization. 

The employees argue that they have not been able to prioritize the assigned 

educational courses to a full extent, which aim at increasing the competence level 

within the team. As Murray & Donegan (2003) explain, improving the behavior and 

capabilities of and organizations individuals is what creates a learning organization, 

which further stresses the importance of personal mastery. The team members have 

not expressed a resistance or a negative view of the educational courses, nor a very 

enthusiastic view of them.  

The fact that a clear vision is not shared within the company can contribute to not 

fully understanding the purpose and importance of personal mastery (Schwartz and 

Rist, 2017). The introduction of the educational courses shows initiatives being made 

to encourage personal mastery, however the motivation and reason to continuously 

learn and improve the professional competences is not clear within the 

team.  Schwartz & Rist (2017) argue that if management fails in providing incentives 

for learning and informed change, suitable structures will not develop, and practices 

will not change. The current learning efforts within the company do not provide 

enough learning incentives for changing the current structure of learning. The lack of 

learning motivation and unclear vision, limits the level of personal mastery within the 

company.   



 

 

 
 

 

 
 

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Mental models 

 

Some communication problems have been observed during meetings that have led to 

several misunderstandings within the team. The way that the team shares experiences 

and feedback from customers is not organized following a specific structure, which 

makes it difficult to learn from experiences within the team.  

Senge (1994) explains that the discipline of mental models includes the ability to 

expose one's own thinking effectively and make that thinking open to the influence of 

others. The organization has made efforts and scheduled time for employees to reflect 

on current processes and possible improvements, through both meetings and several 

platforms, however the level of influencing others has not been reached. A lot of the 

learning within the operational work is based on individual experience, which makes 

each employer's mental model different. Furthermore, not all the team members are 

present in all meetings and have partaken in different online courses. This also affects 

the team members' different mental models, which can hinder their level of 

understanding each other. No efforts to reach a common mental model have been 

made within the organization, which becomes a barrier for both learning and mutual 

understanding.     

Shared vision  

 

All the team members have different ways of expressing the vision of the company. 

As the CEO is still working out the strategy to realize the vision, no other employee 

has been able to state what this strategy is. Senge (1994) argues that one of the 

contributions to the creation of the learning organization is creating a shared vision, 

meaning having a commitment for the common future within the team. The vision of 

the company and the strategy to reach it is under construction, however a discussion 

about a shared improvement vision is currently not present at all. Although the CEO 

has taken the initiative to introduce an improvement board, there seems to be no 

shared vision about how to practically use this tool. This becomes clear since the 

improvement board is seldom updated, and the improvement processes are not 

described as a high priority by the team. Senge (1994) explains that when there is a 

genuine shared vision, people learn and excel, because they want to, as opposed to 

being told to through a vision statement. The current lack of engagement in 

improvement processes shows that the shared vision has not become clear, which can 

hinder the will to learn and follow any stated vision.  

 

Furthermore, Marsick & Watkins (2003) argue that one of the most important 

characteristics for achieving a valuable continuous learning process within the 

organization is to empower people toward a collective vision. It is thereby not enough 

for management to state an improvement vision for the organization, without it being 

a part of every employee’s way of working and having everyone in the team commit 

to the vision. The interviews with employees confirmed a lack of collective vision 



 

 

 
 

 

 
 

36 

which is also connected to having different mental models within the organization. 

The lack of a shared vision within the company is considered a barrier for learning 

that needs to be overcome, to make room for continuous learning.  

 

Team learning 

Senge (1994) explains the need of Team learning as looking beyond the individual 

perspective of learning and to share the acquired knowledge with others. The way that 

Express Delivery handles new insights from their daily work today is limited to an 

individual level, where experiences are not documented in any structured or 

accessible way and there are no formal processes for learning from these experiences 

as a team. As Locke & Jain (1995) argue, an organization needs to routinely apply 

new knowledge in everyday actions, to benefit from it. As the employees rarely share 

new knowledge in a structured and formal way, it is difficult to translate the 

knowledge into policies and routines, which Locke & Jain (1995) argue leads to a 

focus on existing capabilities instead of exploration and experimentation of new 

capabilities. The learning that is done on an individual level is thereby limited by the 

fact that there are no established routines to translate the knowledge into action.  

The CEO has focused on new learning goals for the individuals of the team, by the 

introduction of mandatory courses that team members are expected to partake in 

individually. According to Schwartz and Rist (2017), leaders who value and practice 

learning themselves are better suited to nurture learning in the rest of the organization 

and should be able to motivate the possible resistance from other members of the 

organization. The leader has in this case only assigned courses for everyone in the 

team to do on their own without leading by example, which explains the lack of 

learning motivation the CEO is experiencing within the team. The fact that every 

individual in the team partakes in different courses without sharing new knowledge 

with the rest of the team, hinders the Team learning.  

Systems thinking 

 

Senge (1990) explains that the systems thinking integrates all the other four 

disciplines and stimulates the syner