IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/igg/jssmet/v2y2011i3p33-50.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Value-Adding to Public Services Through the Adoption of Lean Thinking

Author

Listed:
  • Ayham A. M. Jaaron

    (An-Najah National University, Palestine)

  • Chris J. Backhouse

    (Loughborough University, UK)

Abstract

This paper describes an investigation into alternative management models applied to public call centres operations with the aim of delivering significant added value to the overall public firm. Call centres offer significant potential for value creation. However, in practice they are often created as mechanistic organisations and managed in such a way is to inhibit value creation. An investigation in a UK city council was carried out through the means of a case study using both qualitative and quantitative methods to collect data from directors, middle-managers and employees to evaluate the development of a lean thinking type of call centre. The results indicate that by implementing the lean thinking approach to the design of call centre service operations significant, but often counter-intuitive, benefits can be created. Lean thinking was found to yield improvements in service performance, value work productivity, and employees’ affective commitment. Evidence on lean value-added to the public call centres is very limited, this paper addresses this shortcoming.

Suggested Citation

  • Ayham A. M. Jaaron & Chris J. Backhouse, 2011. "Value-Adding to Public Services Through the Adoption of Lean Thinking," International Journal of Service Science, Management, Engineering, and Technology (IJSSMET), IGI Global, vol. 2(3), pages 33-50, July.
    • Handle: RePEc:igg:jssmet:v:2:y:2011:i:3:p:33-50
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://services.igi-global.com/resolvedoi/resolve.aspx?doi=10.4018/jssmet.2011070103
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Duong Thuy Pham & Ayham A. M. Jaaron, 2018. "Design for Mass Customisation in Higher Education: a Systems-Thinking Approach," Systemic Practice and Action Research, Springer, vol. 31(3), pages 293-310, June.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:igg:jssmet:v:2:y:2011:i:3:p:33-50. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Journal Editor (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.igi-global.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.