About Pär Åhlström
Pär is the Director of the Centre for Innovation and Operations Management, at Stockholm School of Economics, a group of researchers dedicated to interdisciplinary research projects at the knowledge frontier in operations management; innovation management; and information management. His own research interests particularly concern the implementation of new operations strategies.
This is Lean
Lean is the most widespread management philosophy of our time and is currently present in every industry, yet the concept is still vaguely defined and widely misunderstood. As a response to the confusion regarding the concept of lean and its application, Pär Åhlström and Niklas Modig launched This is Lean – Resolving the efficiency paradox in October 2011. The book became an instant best-seller in Scandinavia and after four years it is translated into more than ten languages has sold over 180,000 copies making it to one of the most sold lean
books of all time.
Publications
Pär has over twenty years of experience in research on lean and is one of the pioneers in the field. He has published frequently on lean in manufacturing, product development and, most recently, in services. His research is frequently cited.
“Squeezing R&D”: A Study of Organizational Slack and Knowledge Creation in NPD, Using the SECI Model”
During new product development (NPD), functional areas such as marketing, R&D, and manufacturing work together to understand customer needs, create product concepts, and solve technical issues. NPD is dependent on the creation of new knowledge and the interplay...
read more“Converging production paradigms: The STS versus Lean Production debate revisited”
Dabhilkar, Mandar & Åhlström, Pär (2013), “Converging production paradigms: The STS versus Lean Production debate revisited”, International Journal of Operations and Production Management, 33, No. 8, pp. 1019-1039.
read more“Product modularization and organizational coordination”
Persson, Magnus & Åhlström, Pär (2013), “Product modularization and organizational coordination”, International Journal of Automotive Technology and Management, 13, No. 1.
read more”Implementing Advanced Service Technology in the Public Sector: An Exploratory Study of the Relevance and Limitations of Insights from Private Sector Manufacturing Technology Implementation”
This research examined (1) to what extent a conceptual model derived from research into advanced manufacturing technology (AMT) implementations offers explanatory insight for a public sector organisation implementing advanced service technology, and (2) how, if at...
read more“Top management control and knowledge creation in new product development”
The purpose of this paper is to examine the role of top management control in stimulating innovation through their effect on the creation of knowledge in new product development (NPD) projects. Top management has a crucial role in stimulating innovation in companies,...
read more“An Instrument for Assessing lean service adoption”
The purpose of this paper is to develop and empirically validate an instrument containing operational measures of lean service. The instrument is intended for use by both researchers and practitioners. The instrument was developed and validated in an iterative...
read moreContact Pär Åhlström
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