Do leadership style and actions change in Lean firms implementing Industry 4.0? Lean & Industry 4.0:

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Lean & Industry 4.0:

Do leadership style and actions change in Lean

firms implementing Industry 4.0?

MSc Supply Chain Management

University of Groningen, Faculty of Economics and Business 23.06.2019

JANIS MEINTRUP S3810712

e-mail: j.meintrup@student.rug.nl Word count: 12348

Supervisor / University of Groningen Dr. Ir. Thomas Bortolotti

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Abstract

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to investigate the role of the middle management in Continuous Improvement at Lean firms implementing Industry 4.0. Hereby, the leadership style, as well as the management actions, are further examined and categorized in the manufac-turing industry.

Design/Methodology/Approach: An embedded multiple-case study was conducted in the form of semi-structured interviews of German and Dutch companies in the manufacturing sec-tor. Additionally, secondary data from the companies and an interview with a consultant were used for the assessment.

Findings: The research shows that the change in leadership strongly depends on the perspective and phase of Industry 4.0. A coaching leadership style is prevalent during the implementation phase in Lean and Industry 4.0 perspective. After the implementation of Industry 4.0, the idea of leadership differs greatly in Continuous Improvement, where 4.0 perspective indicates a less behavior-oriented leadership style.

Practical implications: The research highlights important leadership tasks of employee in-volvement and coaching/convincing for new technologies during the implementation phase of 4.0. Moreover, it indicates process steps within Continuous Improvement, where the manager can lead in a directive instead of coaching leadership style.

Originality/value: This research adds content to the limited literature stream on the leadership theories in manufacturing, and potential synergies of Industry 4.0 and Lean. As Industry 4.0 is a very recent approach, limited insights of how to lead the shop-floor employee in Continuous Improvement initiatives are given. This research tries to fill this gap.

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1. Introduction

For decades, companies have strived to achieve operational excellence using Lean principles. Human resources are crucial for the success of Lean implementation and manufacturing (Matsui, 2007; Netland, 2016; Samson & Terziovski, 1999; Shah & Ward, 2003). Mann (2009) states 20 percent of the effort in Lean transformation is related to Lean practices and tools, whereas 80 percent is related to the change in leader’s behavior. Recently, a new approach called Industry 4.0 has emerged with the same objective, to improve operational performance (Kagerman & Johannes, 2013; Kagermann, 2017). This fourth industrial revolution – often linked to Cyber-Physical Systems (CBS) or Internet-of-Things (IoT) – is progressing, so com-panies must adapt their manufacturing processes. New enabling technologies such as Cloud Computing, Adaptive Robotics, Data Analytics, Sensors etc. are becoming more prevalent and are being implemented to enhance the manufacturing process (Wan, Cai, & Zhou, 2015). In-dustry 4.0 focuses, inter alia, on automation and thus replacing workers with machines or adap-tive robots, aligning with basic Lean interests (Doh, Deschamps, & Pinheiro De Lima, 2016). Furthermore, a few integrated Lean Manufacturing 4.0 approaches have been identified and underline possible synergistic effects (Küpper, Heidemann, Ströhle, Spindelndreier, & Knizek, 2017; Mrugalska & Wyrwicka, 2017; Satoglu, Ustundag, Cevikcan, & Durmusoglu, 2018). Despite the fact mainly technical synergies are detected, it remains unclear how Industry 4.0 affects the social (soft) components of Lean.

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5 As crucial as the leadership of the employees is for the success of Lean manufacturing (Mann, 2009; van Assen, 2018; Womack & Jones, 1996), the opposite seems to hold for Industry 4.0 on the shop-floor. Employees might be replaced with adaptive robots, which consequently re-sults in changing the way management must lead their employees (Doh et al., 2016; Hirsch-Kreinsen, 2016). The availability of new technology and data changes the way companies should establish Continuous Improvement (Wagner, Herrmann, & Thiede, 2017). Conse-quently, one could expect a massive change in the manufacturing, as well as the routine work of shop-floor employee is followed by a shift in leadership style (Doh et al., 2016; Wan et al., 2015; Waschull, Bokhorst, Molleman, & Wortmann, 2019). However, little is known about how Industry 4.0 affects the leadership style of the middle management in Continuous Improve-ment. Leadership remains an important enabler in Industry 4.0 (Agostini & Filippini, 2019; Schumacher, Erol, & Sihn, 2016). For instance, Shamim et al (2016), suggest a knowledge-oriented leadership style as crucial for implementing Industry 4.0. In contrast to Lean, Industry 4.0 is very technology-driven, which raises the question, how does the role of the management change for Lean firms implementing Industry 4.0? Consequently, this paper aims to answer the following research question: How does Industry 4.0 affect the leadership style and actions in

Continuous Improvement initiatives?

Previous literature barely addresses the impact of Industry 4.0 on the role of the middle man-agement following Lean principles. The aim of this research is to explore the leadership style in Continuous Improvement initiatives for Lean companies adapting Industry 4.0. Therefore, this thesis introduces the concept of Lean and Industry 4.0. Further, it introduces the situational leadership theory (SLT), categorizes Lean principles, and provides a theoretical framework for Continuous Improvement (CI). The theoretical impacts of Industry 4.0 on both frameworks will be indicated. After discussing the methodology, the findings based on an embedded multiple case study of four companies will be presented and discussed. Finally, it ends with a conclusion and provides first insights for possible future research.

2. Theoretical Background

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6 deeper into the role of management, the situational leadership theory is introduced and suggests a leadership style in the context of Continuous Improvement in Lean. The theoretical back-ground ends with explaining key aspects of Industry 4.0 and outlines potential influences on the middle management, hence on the leadership style and management actions.

2.1 Historical Background - Lean and Industry 4.0

Lean Production originates from the Toyota Production System (TPS). Different practices are linked to Lean Production, like Total Quality Management (TQM), Just-in-Time (JiT), and To-tal Preventive Maintenance (TPM). According to Shah and Ward (2007, p. 791), Lean Produc-tion can be defined as “an integrated socio-technical system whose main objective is to elimi-nate waste by concurrently reducing or minimizing supplier, customer, and internal variability”. Lean has evolved from a set of practices to ultimately a complex Lean business system (Hines, Holweg, & Rich, 2004). Consequently, academia shows the concept of Lean is evolving with new trends as is the definition (Pettersen, 2009).

A major goal of Lean Production is to minimize waste while synergistically making use of different practices to achieve a streamlined high quality system, in order to keep up with the pace of customer demand (Shah & Ward, 2003). Academia and practice agree on Lean’s po-tential to significantly increase operational performance (Belekoukias, Garza-Reyes, & Kumar, 2014; Shah & Ward, 2003). In return, companies successfully implementing Lean can achieve a sustainable competitive advantage (Lewis, 2000).

Womack and Jones (1996) defined three key principles for Lean production:

 Improve the flow of material and information across the business functions

 Emphasize on customer-pull rather than organization-push

 Commit to Continuous Improvement enabled by people development

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7 Factory, which can be seen as the strategic vision of Industry 4.0 (Gao et al., 2015; Roland Berger, 2014). The concept of Industry 4.0 will be explained in more detail in section 2.4. In the following sections, the Lean key principle of Continuous Improvement and the role of middle management therein is further described.

2.2 Management in Lean Production / Continuous Improvement

The literature points out the importance of human-related principles to be essential for the suc-cess of Lean implementation (Cua, McKone, & Schroeder, 2001; Flynn, Sakakibara, & Schroeder, 1995; Worley & Doolen, 2006). Specifically, a strong commitment to lead and take an active part in the Lean program, as well as to provide and attend training and education are decisive constructs for successful Lean implementation on management side (Netland, 2016). The following sections elaborate on the role of the middle management in Continuous Improve-ment or Kaizen (hereafter Continuous ImproveImprove-ment or CI).

Womack and Jones (1996) linked CI to the Lean Philosophy as it is a systematic approach to continuously reduce waste. Thus, Continuous Improvement plays a vital role in Lean compa-nies. The aim of Continuous Improvement processes are improvements in productivity, cost, and quality while involving workers as well as managers (Imai, 1986). Moreover, these im-provements must be achieved with the given resources by removing non-value adding activities (Smalley & Isao, 2011). Typically, CI creates a process-oriented thinking and is implemented in manufacturing and quality processes, and is achieved by frequent incremental improvements (Hammer & Champy, 1993; Suzaki, 1987).

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8 Doolen, 2006). Moreover, the research of van Dun, Hicks and Wilderom (2017) indicates suc-cessful Lean leaders engage positively in relation-oriented active listening and less in task mon-itoring, as well as underlining values like self-transcendence and openness to change. In sum, Lean literature argues that management in Lean, respectively CI, is strongly employee orien-tated and focusing on social interactions, like communication.

2.1.1 Management actions in Continuous Improvement

Management in CI initiatives has two major functions, namely maintenance and improvement. Maintenance refers to management actions towards maintaining the current standards in tech-nology, operations, or management by establishing these standards with trainings and disci-pline. Whereas, improvement is seen as management actions assessing and elevating current standards (Imai, 1997). Furthermore, Shook (2008) notes that leaders engage persistently in details of work and are characterized by their eagerness to become more knowledgeable about the process, but also to sustainably teach employees to learn. Different tools can be used by management to enhance the culture of Continuous Improvement. These different tools require different actions by management. One of the common management tools used in Lean compa-nies to support CI is the A3 management process. Within the process of the A3 report, interac-tions between employees and the manager, in a supervisory position, play an important role in elaborating on the different parts of the A3 report. The A3 management process by Shook (2008) describes how to effectively address problem solving, and therefore Continuous Im-provement. It includes processes to identify the root cause as well as countermeasures on a cross-functional, team-oriented level. As CI typically seeks for incremental improvements and is rather process-oriented, the A3 management process could be regarded as a CI tool (Chakravorty, 2009).

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9 the final implementation of the plan as well as evaluating the new method to ultimately start again with discovering improvement potential (Smalley & Isao, 2011). Thus, this continuous cycle aims to strive for perfection.

Figure 1- Six steps to improvement (adapted from Smalley & Isao, 2011)

As previously mentioned, one task of the Lean leader is to communicate and embed a Contin-uous Improvement culture across the shop-floor employees (Bhasin & Burcher, 2006; van Dun et al., 2017). Consequently, this requires management actions as well as trainings and education for the employees. In order to create employee commitment in CI, leaders should emphasize inter alia on collaboration, consultation and rational persuasion (Lam, O’Donnell, & Robertson, 2015). These two tools can be regarded as Continuous Improvement initiatives. This research focuses on how middle management can engage the shop-floor employees in the CI process, focusing on the six steps to improvement and the A3 management process. Further, it examines which actions the middle management carries out, within these tools, to lead the employee.

2.3 Leadership style

Leadership academia concordantly defines leadership as “influencing, motivating, and enabling others to contribute towards the effectiveness and success of the organizations of which they are members” (House, Hanges, Javidan, Dorfman, & Gupta, 2004, p. 22). Leadership per se is a common mechanism to anchor cultural values and norms, such as Lean, into organizations (Schein, 1995). The literature on leadership can be categorized in five different leadership the-ories. With respect to the competency, transformational and implicit leadership perspective, this research will focus on the behavioral and contingency perspective, as these are the most popular

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10 (Yukl, 2006). Behavioral leadership theory is characterized by two dimensions: the task-orien-tation and the people-orientask-orien-tation (Northouse, 2016; Yukl, 2006). However, other authors criti-cized this theory for neglecting the influence of the situation (Spears, 2002). Thereupon, the situational leadership theory (SLT) by Halsey and Blanchard (1970) has been introduced and further developed. In accordance with Lean interest, the situational leadership style attempts to change worker’s habits through cooperation and communication to achieve better operational performance (Pasaribu, 2015; Walumbwa & Hartnell, 2011).

The situational leadership theory is grounded on three distinctive dimensions, whereby two are leadership related: relationship behavior (RB) and task behavior (TB). The third dimension is the level of employee development (Blanchard, Zigarmi, & Nelson, 2008; Hersey & Blanchard, 1970; Hersey, Blanchard, & Natemeyer, 1979). Considering relationship and task behavior have two different levels, low and high, a matrix with four different leadership styles is defined. The Delegating leadership style (low RB and TB) proposes an observing and delegating behav-ior. Supporting (high RB, low TB) describes the leader as encouraging, supporting in problem solving, but emphasizes tasks less. Thirdly, the Directing (low RB, high TB) values the task-orientation most, neglecting the behavior-task-orientation. Lastly, Coaching (high RB, high TB) is characterized by both high relationship and task focus. Finally, Coaching leadership focuses on personal development, is well aware of employee’s weaknesses, and stresses for improvement (Blanchard et al., 2008; Goleman, 2000; Hersey & Blanchard, 1970). The different leadership styles are illustrated and summarized in figure 2.

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11 The recent research of Tortorella et al. (2018) indicates that leadership during the implementa-tion of JIT and TPM is positively related to task-orientaimplementa-tion, while negatively associated with relationship-orientation. Therefore, this paper suggest to categorize JIT and TPM in Directive leadership (Spear, 2009; Tortorella et al., 2018). Mann and Kehoe (2002) suggest a participative leadership style in TQM. Moreover, leaders in TQM should be involved in order to stimulate employees and provide training and education, as well as maintaining contact with the employ-ees (Kumar & Sharma, 2018; Laohavichien, Fredendall, & Stephen Cantrell, 2011). In sum, the leadership literature in TQM indicates a high supportive behavior, however, it argues a less strong task-related behavior (Kumar & Sharma, 2018; Laohavichien et al., 2011; Mann & Kehoe, 2002; Tortorella et al., 2018). An empirical analysis of the situational leadership across different hierarchical levels, indicates the coaching leadership style is dominant when compared to the other three styles (Tortorella & Fogliatto, 2017). Another study of Nogueira, Sousa and Moreira (2018) points out that the empowering leadership style is positively associated with the success of Lean implementation. Van Dun et al (2017) found effective middle managers engage more in relation-oriented behaviors than task or change behaviors. However, due to the fact leaders should create the culture of Continuous Improvement and share this way of thinking with their employees, emphasizes the importance of relationship orientation (Almeida Marodin & Saurin, 2015; Bhasin & Burcher, 2006; Lodgaard et al., 2016). CI focuses on incremental improvement and is associated with high process-thinking, as well as empowering and training shop-floor employees, which could be categorized as a high task-orientation (Hammer &

Aspect Finding Reference

Leadership style

• Directive leadership negatively impacts Lean implementation • Task-orientation leadership style achieves higher levels of Lean

Implementation than relation-oriented

• Task- and relation-orientation are present at Lean leaders • Coaching leadership style dominant throughout different

hier-archical levels for Lean Implementation

• Empowering leadership positively related to Lean implementa-tion success, while servant leadership is negatively associated

Nogueira et al., 2018; Tortorella, de Castro Fettermann, Frank, & Marodin, 2018; Tortorella & Fogliatto, 2017; van Assen, 2018; van Dun et al., 2017

Important leadership attributes

• Communication and commitment

• Collaboration, delegation and motivating employees • Emphasize on communication and problem solving orientation • Technical knowledge as well empowerment and cooperation

important for Lean leaders

• Leader ‘s influencing tactics like collaboration, consultation, in-spirational appeals and rational persuasion achieve employee commitment in CI

• Leader should be communicative, understand shop-floor prac-tices and promote employee empowerment

• Important Lean leader behaviors: participation, team work and Continuous Improvement

Aij, Visse, & Widdershoven, 2015; Angelis, Conti, Cooper, & Gill, 2011; Dombrowski & Mielke, 2013; Gelei, Losonci, & Matyusz, 2015; Lam et al., 2015; Pamfilie, Draghici, & Draghici, 2012; Spear, 2004; van Assen, 2018; van Dun et al., 2017; Womack & Jones, 1996

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12 Champy, 1993; Imai, 1986; Shook, 2008; Smalley & Isao, 2011). Therefore, this research, based on the presented findings, summarizes the leadership style in Continuous Improvement as a coaching leadership style (see also figure 2).

Figure 2- Situational leadership in Lean context (adapted from Blanchard, Zigarmi, & Nelson, 2008)

2.4 Industry 4.0

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13 2018). Therefore, the impacts of Industry 4.0 on the role of middle management in CI are de-scribed in the following.

Industry 4.0 is massively affecting the job design of shop-floor employees and thus affects the way to lead employees (Müller, Kiel, & Voigt, 2018; Waschull et al., 2019). Dworschak and Zaiser (2014) indicate two different functions of Industry 4.0 technology changing shop-floor employees work and hence leadership, either through automation or as a tool. In order to be qualified for these new technologies, shop-floor employees have to acquire skills like creative problem solving and showing the willingness to learn using network technologies, data analysis and processing (Müller et al., 2018). This educational process should be supported by the mid-dle management (Müller et al., 2018).

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14 Figure 3 - Expected change of Leadership in CI

3. Methodology

Building on the knowledge provided in the introduction and theoretical background, the meth-odology sections describe firstly the research design and secondly how the data was collected and analyzed. Finally, it discusses how the research ensures its reliability and validity.

3.1 Research Design

The purpose of this research is to study how Industry 4.0 technologies influence the leadership and management actions focusing on the middle management supervising the shop floor em-ployees. In line with the purpose of the paper, a qualitative research in form of a multiple-case study will be conducted to investigate a rather unexplored phenomenon (Voss, Johnson, & Godsell, 2015; Yin, 2004).

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3.2 Case selection and description

In terms of replication logic, both literal and theoretical replication was expected. Literal repli-cation logic predicts similar results, whereas theoretical replirepli-cation logic expects contrary re-sults (Voss et al., 2015). The leadership style and actions might be completely different for companies that have already implemented Industry 4.0 than those that have just started. More-over, the implementation of Industry 4.0 was exclusively organized in in-house departments and is still in its early stage. As the research focuses on the effect of Industry 4.0 on a Lean principle, Lean departments were also involved. Following the replication logic, contradictory statements were expected. Furthermore, as companies are currently facing the change towards Industry 4.0, the middle managers (shop-floor supervisors) were not regarded as knowledgeable enough. This is due to the fact technologies were not yet fully implemented and the change in leadership style is anticipated. Thus, the unit of analysis is the corporate approach for either Lean or Industry 4.0.

In total two Dutch and two German companies in the manufacturing sector having Lean expe-rience and first implementation of Industry 4.0 in production were interviewed. The manufac-turing sector was selected due to the fact Industry 4.0 is mainly affecting the manufacmanufac-turing process and thus is expected to change massively. Company A, C and D are operating in the automotive market, where A is in the Netherlands and the other two in Germany. Lastly, Com-pany C manufactures for the aerospace market. Both industries are currently facing the chal-lenge of implementing Industry 4.0 tech in the production lines, which was a prerequisite for the case research. Another requirement was the company’s experience and success in Lean management. Therefore, a relatively high Lean development and implementation was required. Moreover, all companies are multinational and employ over 1,500 people. Additionally, one consultant in the operations section was interviewed to ensure better reliability of the findings. Consequently, an embedded case study research resulting in five cases was conducted, as not in every company experts from both perspectives were available (Voss et al., 2015). According to Voss et al (2015), five cases are enough to augment external validity and manage potential research bias.

3.3 Data collection

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16 semi-structured interview is to collect additional information, which the interviewee regards as potentially interesting or relevant. In turn, this reduces the risk to overlook any information related to the research topic.

The primary data is collected through semi-structured interviews in English mainly conducted face-to-face or via phone call. In both ways, the interviews were recorded with the confirmation of the participants to increase data reliability. During the interviews, a mutual general introduc-tion and quesintroduc-tions were given to clarify the research context. Specifically, each department was asked for the perspective on Lean and Industry 4.0. Thereafter, topic-related in-depth questions were asked on the effects of Industry 4.0 on leadership style and actions in CI. After interview-ing the companies, an operations consultant was interviewed to cross-check the findinterview-ings of the companies. All interviews were transcribed to provide the option to code the data. To guarantee confidentiality the information of the interviews is anonymized. A detailed overview about the interviewees and companies is provided in table 2.

Observations within the companies are used as secondary data source. A company visit in com-pany F, operating in the electronics industry, enabled the researcher to check preliminary re-sults, whereas first insights about the production were provided in the first company A. During these company visits notes were taken and taken into consideration for the analysis.

Table 2 - Overview interviewees

3.4 Data analysis

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17 management actions in CI. As the unit of analysis is twofold, the perspectives are included in the coding process and thus revealed a different point of view. Therefore, the variables were deductively clustered into the different perspectives (unit of analysis) and into an overlapping section (matching perspective). Additionally, the phase of the implementation of Industry 4.0 has been included in the coding process, as huge differences were pointed out. This was done firstly within each company and finally cross-case to determine generalizable patterns. After-wards the variables were grouped into either management actions or leadership style. In sum-mary, the data analysis was in three-parts: identify the influencing patterns and categorize them in perspective and phase. The exception was the analysis for the management actions in CI, where no significant difference between neither the perspectives nor the phase was identified. The coding tree can be found in appendix B and compromises the main input for the findings.

3.5 Reliability and validity

The research utilized several measures for reliability and validity, which are crucial for case studies. Following the triangulation of evidence, multiple sources are used. Firstly, the compa-nies were asked for business-cases and data. Secondly, the constructs and theoretical framework are based on relevant academic papers. Thirdly, as additional sources an operations consultant was interviewed and observations in companies are given. Before starting the interviews, an interview protocol with open questions based on the existing literature was developed to ensure both reliability and validity (Voss et al., 2015). The different measures are summarized in the following table (Table 3).

Table 3 - Measures for reliability and validity (following Yin, 2004)

4. Findings

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4.1 Company A

For company A, only a Quality Manager with a great deal of Lean expertise was interviewed. Therefore, the findings do not present the two implementation approaches. Generally, Industry 4.0 is seen as a tool for Lean in this company.

Leadership style

Company A has a clear ideal shop-floor leader and does not see it being affected by Industry 4.0. Firstly, it is important to have employee involvement, especially for CI. Therefore, the lead-ers should involve their shop-floor employees closely to establish Continuous Improvement, and during the implementation of Industry 4.0. The company underlines the coaching leader-ship style in different ways. Firstly, the interviewee indicated that team responsibility, including the leader, for a process is of high importance. Another leadership aspect is to give strong

feed-back, which is supported by Industry 4.0. Facts are most convincing for shop-floor employees

and can be easily provided with the Industry 4.0 technologies Therefore, the leader should focus on providing strong, fact-based feedback, which is also input for Continuous Improvement. Lastly, one new responsibility for the shop-floor leader is to coach the new technologies. As interviewee A1 summarizes, company A does not see the leadership style changing in CI:

“But if I look to the role of a supervisor in that kind of environment in Company A today, at the end the task of the leader is the same. Coaching people, that are traditional management tasks that you have and train your people.”

Management actions in CI

Company A especially sees the potential of Industry 4.0 to collect data required for Kaizens in a quicker and more precise way, and thus make them more and more fact-based. However, it is a very challenging task to first create this data base, which is required to support these initia-tives.

4.2 Company B

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Leadership style

Company B also strives for a coaching leadership style in CI for shop-floor leaders. As this is an ideal in corporate perspective, the interview indicates leader education is an essential part to establish this type of leadership. Several, Lean trainings are organized continuously for the shop-floor leaders to create a Lean understanding, but also a better understanding for CI. More-over, different Lean management tools are taught periodically. As an element of the coaching leadership style, leaders are taught to empower their shop-floor employees to continuously im-prove their working stations. Moreover, company B emphasized that Industry 4.0 technologies enable both tighter management control, and fact-based input for feedback for shop-floor em-ployees. Additionally, Continuous Improvement initiatives are either directed top-down or communicated bottom-up to make sure all potential is utilized. As reasons for the coaching leadership style the company states to increase productivity by having proactive employees and taking team responsibility. During the implementation of Industry 4.0, it is important to involve and engage the employees in forms of discussions and open communication, which illustrates also a leadership task. However, they identified Industry 4.0 as a potential cause for less per-sonal leadership style, as leaders might focus more on new technologies and the resulting digital information. Their ideal of a shop-floor leader, also in context of Industry 4.0, is summarized by interviewee B2 as following:

“We also want to make sure that leaders are also trainers. So that they know their stuff. That they coach their people. But coaching is also enabling people to fulfil their tasks and enabling people to grow. So it is not like a directive leadership we are striving, but it is more people-oriented leadership skills we want to see.”

Company B sees Industry 4.0 not affecting CI per se, it is rather influencing some parts of it. Moreover, company B utilizes the A3 method for project-type Continuous Improvement initi-atives and typical Kaizens for incremental shop-floor improvements. The Kaizens are periodi-cally discussed, whereas the midfield managers have an A3 for the Continuous Improvements for a year. This ensures the top-down and bottom-up CI efforts. Company B does not see In-dustry 4.0 affecting the A3 method itself, as it is more a communication tool. However,

prob-lem-solving and root-cause analysis, as parts of the A3, are enhanced by the increasing avail-ability of information. Thus, these steps can be performed quicker with technologies in Industry

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4.3 Company C

Following that the unit of analysis is the implementation approach, so either Lean or Industry 4.0, both perspectives are presented. Consequently, first the findings of the Lean perspective are described, and followed by the perspective of Industry 4.0.

Lean perspective

Company C has a corporate Lean department to ensure progress in Lean management for all the plants and the implementation of Lean tools. Additionally, they are responsible for trainings, Lean assessments of the plants and consulting Lean projects. Lean is regarded as the basement

for Industry 4.0 and to develop Lean further. Leadership style

Again in the lens of Lean, the ideal shop-floor leader in CI is a coaching one. Several workshops

and trainings for the shop-floor leaders are scheduled to ensure the so called ‘Lean Awareness’.

This is supported by leadership guidelines, and also controlled by the HR department. Accord-ing to these trainAccord-ings, leaders should empower their shop-floor employees, where employees are led to the solution without telling them the right solution. In context of 4.0, the Lean depart-ment underlines the new responsibility of a leader to motivate and coach shop-floor employees

for new technologies. In addition, it is up to the leader to create a framework for the shop-floor

employee to enable Continuous Improvement. This implies providing enough tools, infor-mation and budget to reach the Continuous Improvement targets. The ideal of the coaching

leadership style in CI remains unchanged in the era of Industry 4.0. The thoughts on leadership

in the context of Lean and Industry 4.0 are exemplarily summarized by interviewee C4:

“I think the leadership of tomorrow is to create a room in the heads of the employees, in which they are able to answer questions by themselves. And my task as a leader is to ask my employees in the right way to the right solution. I think, that would be the perfect leader in Lean perspec-tive… but also in relation of Industry 4.0.”

Generally, the Lean department of Company C sees a positive effect of Industry 4.0 on CI, and thus states it will enhance CI initiatives. Due to the increasing availability of data and

infor-mation, the discovery of improvement potential becomes easier. Moreover, the following steps

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21 the shop-floor employees, to perform these steps in the right way. Therefore, the management should put a greater focus on communication with the shop-floor employees as potentially more improvements will be discussed. In summary, the amount of management actions remains the same, but the actions are shifting more towards a moderating role with a greater emphasis on communication.

Industry 4.0 perspective

Company C pursues Industry 4.0 within the Digitalization department to either digitalize exist-ing processes or implement and coordinate completely new digital processes. Hereby, Industry 4.0 is regarded as the next consecutive step after Lean. As Lean is focusing more on incremental changes or improvements, the Digitalization or Industry 4.0 is questioning the entire system.

Leadership style

One of the major targets in Digitalization, respectively Industry 4.0, is to simplify the tasks for

the shop-floor employees. For example, decisions on the shop-floor can be automated or

sup-ported by gathering data beforehand and in real-time. However, it is the responsibility of the shop-floor leader to ensure the shop-floor employees can make use of the new technologies. In order to create beneficial technologies for the shop-floor employees, they should be involved in

the development process. Moreover, it is now up to the leader to pursue the right projects and

to provide the employees with the right resources to enable the best possible job on the shop-floor. In contrast to Lean, which is seen as limited, there is no preferred leadership style for CI. Indeed, the idea is to split up leader responsibilities. Specifically, that means to have one expert for each pattern of a leader, for example for education or trainings.

Company C clearly indicates that with the technologies of Industry 4.0 and the greater availa-bility of data, problem-solving and root-cause analysis can be performed quicker and more

reliable. Moreover, the communication of the leader and the shop-floor employees become

more important, as well as thinking in use-cases.

4.4 Company D

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Leadership style

The aim of the implementation of Industry 4.0 technologies in Company D is to simplify the

shop-floor tasks, but also to cope with increasing product complexity. As a consequence of

easier tasks, less coaching is required to perform the shop-floor tasks correctly. This is further supported by the idea of having instant feedback or instruction at a certain working station. The idea is illustrated by interviewee D1:

“What you also see, that knowledge is now externalized into systems as I already said, that helps you to repair something and your dashboard tells you what steps to take. Then I definitely see a supporting function of technologies. So, actually coaching or the demand of coaching gets smaller.”

Nevertheless, it remains a leadership task to motivate and ensure shop-floor employees

adapt-ing to new technologies. It is important for the leaders to create an understandadapt-ing for the need

of change in context of Industry 4.0. This could be achieved by making use of communication

network strategies, as a single leader is not capable of spreading the understanding. Moreover,

the leader should involve the shop-floor employees in the development stage for Industry 4.0

technologies, since most of the improvement ideas originate directly from the shop-floor.

Ad-ditionally, the job of the leader is characterized by supporting the right projects and looking for

budget and resources for the shop-floor employees. Management actions in CI

Company D states with production becoming increasingly data-driven, more data and infor-mation will become available. However, simultaneously the product complexity increases. In order to strive for Continuous Improvement, the Company D sees a new job profile developing, which would take over a supporting role for the management. The new job is responsible for

analyzing the data to discover improvement potential and solving the root-cause problem. This

job profile is associated with upskilling Lean experts in data analytics. Consequently, the man-agement actions in CI per se will decrease, as there will be a new supporting role.

4.5 Cross-case analysis

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Leadership style

The cross-case analysis reveals that the change in leadership in the context of Industry 4.0 de-pends on the perspective. The idea of the effects on leadership differs either from Lean perspec-tive or Industry 4.0 perspecperspec-tive. However, both perspecperspec-tives agree on four particular aspects changing in leadership in CI.

Table 4 - Cross-case analysis with codes in perspective

Through the lens of Lean, leadership style in CI does not change. The Lean experts concurringly agree on maintaining a coaching leadership style on the shop-floor. For instance, Lean experts from Company B and C explicitly stated to have a coaching leadership style as B2 “You really

want to have coaching leaders” or C4 “Yeah, that should be more and more in the direction of a coach” are both in agreement. This is underlined by the approach to constantly empower the employees on the shop-floor, thus to give the employees enough space to develop. Moreover,

in the opinion of the Lean experts, the team, including the leader, should take responsibility for

the process or workstations. Therefore, it is also a responsibility of the team to continuously

improve their working environment. Additionally, leaders should provide their shop-floor em-ployees strong feedback enhanced by the new technologies in order to improve. With Industry 4.0, the Lean experts see more data available, which can be used as strong, fact-based feedback for the employees to strive for CI.

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24 the shop-floor employees. Concurrently with the simplification of the shop-floor tasks, the

de-mand for coaching decreases. Furthermore, in the era of digitalization entire systems are

ques-tioned. Lean, and therefore also the leadership style according to Lean management, is criticized

and seen as limited, as Lean only focuses on small improvements and processes. Consequently,

a new idea of splitting up leadership responsibilities arises. In the expert’s opinion, one single leader cannot stem all the new technical requirements without neglecting the social ones. Thus, there should be experts for the employees in different leadership categories.

Industry 4.0 perspective matches Lean perspective

Concerning leadership, both perspectives agree on four tasks fall into the responsibility of a shop-floor leader. Firstly, employees should be involved in the development and implementation

phase of new technologies. As a quote from B2 with Lean perspective exemplifies “[…] but engaging during the process, like done in 4.0, a lot of talks with the operator groups to tell them where we are going and so, that is really a process” is in agreement with the Industry 4.0 expert

C2 “You should always want to involve the later customers that are actually using it“. This is

due to two major reasons. On the one side, the employees are the end-users of the technologies and benefit from the technology. On the other side, it is easier for the leader to convince the employees by providing first hands-on experience as well as the involvement, namely decision-making in this process. Thereupon, a major leadership task is to convince employees and coach

the new technologies. The following quotes illustratively show the match of both perspectives: “The supervisor, it’s his task to teach the people how to handle this kind of technology and how to respect the technology and to maintain it and keep it in a good condition.” (A1 – Quality manager)

“But at the beginning you need to show your employees, this goes in the direction of manage-ment, that this is actually beneficial for them and they should not be afraid of what’s coming and you still need to provide them the control in the beginning because otherwise you will not get to a point where your employees will heavily rely on automated machines, automated pro-cesses and so on.” (D1 – Industry 4.0 Project Manager)

In order to convince the employees and generate a common understanding for the need to go digital, the both perspectives indicate a usage of network communication strategies and a

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25 from 4.0 perspective adds “You really have to think about network communication strategies

and team leader is just one part of this puzzle of information”.

Moreover, leadership in CI should concentrate on setting the framework, hence making room for the employees to improve. Therefore, it’s the responsibility of leadership in Industry 4.0 to

pursue the right projects and technology implementation to enable the best job the shop floor

employees can do. Additionally, leaders should provide enough resources and budget to realize the improvement ideas, which mostly originate from the shop-floor.

Contradictions between Industry 4.0 and Lean perspectives

Table 5 - Contradictions in perspectives

As both approaches are implemented separately, the view of leadership differs. For instance, the Lean experts point out the importance of employee empowerment. In contrast, from the Industry 4.0 perspective, there is no need to further empower employees, as the shop-floor tasks become increasingly more simplified with new technologies. Additionally, all Lean depart-ments agree on the ideal of coaching leadership style on the shop-floor, whereas 4.0 experts state less coaching will be required in future. As the tasks become easier or automated, they do not see the need for a coaching leadership style anymore. This difference could be explained by the focus area of both approaches. Where Lean focuses strongly on human or social aspects, Industry 4.0 is rooted in technologies. Consequently, the Industry 4.0 perspective is

considera-bly more technologically driven.

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26 of Lean and Industry 4.0. Consequently, Lean experts state Lean is the basement for Industry

4.0. As C4 exemplifies for the Lean perspective “So, Lean is the basement and you have to

construct new Lean tools or new Lean 4.0 tools”. Through the lens of Lean, technologies in 4.0

have a supporting function for the methods or tools of Lean. Therefore, the Lean leadership is barely affected. In contrast, Industry 4.0 experts see Lean now as limited and Industry 4.0 is the

consecutive next level after Lean management. D1 contradictorily states:

“I mean, let’s say Lean management has come to certain limits. […], but if you want to make a step ahead you need digital support.”

The comparison between both approaches in the cross-case analysis shows a difference in lead-ership style during the different phases of Industry 4.0. Consequently, two major phases are identified, namely the implementation phase of Industry 4.0 and the real CI after

implementa-tion of 4.0 tech. Whereas, Lean experts and Industry 4.0 mainly agree on the leadership

ele-ments during the implementation phase, the perspectives differ greatly on the after

implemen-tation phase. In Lean perspective, the two phases do not differ greatly, as the social aspects,

concerning the shop-floor employees, still take center stage. Less surprisingly, the 4.0 experts are predicting a greater change between the phases. The characterization of the phases with the discussed variables is illustrated in the table below (Table 6).

Table 6 - Change in leadership during phases

Whereas both perspectives agree on employee involvement during the implementation phase, as well as the leader’s task to coach and motivate new technologies, the perspectives are con-tradictory after the implementation phase. In the consecutive phase, Lean experts emphasize the importance of involving and empowering shop-floor employees by the leader. In contrast, Industry 4.0 experts stress shop-floor task simplification and the resulting decreasing demand

for coaching. In summary, the 4.0 perspective is pointing toward a less people-oriented

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Industry 4.0 will positively affect process steps within the Continuous Improvement process. Experts agreed on Industry 4.0’s potential to enforce CI initiatives. Generally, as more data will be available, more improvements will be in place. This is also underlined by the observations in companies, where a digital shop-floor board led to more Kaizens. However, experts stated that in accordance with the leadership style, management actions in CI initiatives will shift more towards communication tasks. Indeed, experts did not see Industry 4.0 affecting the process step of generating original ideas, consequently it is out of scope. The table below (Table 7) summarizes the findings.

Table 7 - Management actions in CI

With the fourth industrial revolution, production becomes more data-driven. Consequently,

more machine data and data in general is available. Combined with the right data-analytical

skills, the discovery of improvement potential will be easier. As a second consequence, a new

job profile emerges to make use of all the collected data. This new job profile, which could be

either part of a technical support team or a Lean expert, focuses on analyzing the data to find improvement potential. Moreover, data-analytics is fact-based and hence more reliable, conse-quently the management can make the decisions faster. This is exemplary summarized by in-terviewee C4

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28 In summary, the management actions in CI will shift more towards moderating or

communica-tor tasks, but less management actions are required in the actual improvement process steps.

5. Discussion

At first, both perspectives on Industry 4.0 are compared. Secondly, it is followed by the findings concerning the leadership style, which are put into the theoretical concept of situational leader-ship. Then, the potential change in leadership style in CI will be discussed. Thirdly, the findings concerning the management actions in CI are discussed in the theoretical framework. Finally, both conceptual frameworks are combined to suggest a change in leadership style for the dif-ferent steps in CI.

5.1 Lean & Industry 4.0

Both perspectives possess a different point of view on Industry 4.0. Lean experts state Lean as the basement for Industry 4.0 applications or technologies, whereas Industry 4.0 experts indi-cate Industry 4.0 as the next consecutive step. However, these statements imply Lean has to precede Industry 4.0. Generally, this is supported by the article of Rossini, Costa, Tortorella and Portioli-Staudacher (2019), who found a greater company-readiness for Industry 4.0 when Lean was adequately implemented before. Additionally, Sanders et al. (2016) claim Industry 4.0 implies Lean manufacturing, which underlines Lean being the basement for Industry 4.0. The logic of having Lean first is further supported by the literature showing synergies between Lean methods or tools and Industry 4.0 technologies (Küpper et al., 2017; Leyh, Martin, & Schäffer, 2017; Tortorella & Fettermann, 2018; Wagner et al., 2017). Therefore, this research adds content to the recent literature stream on the relation of Industry 4.0 and Lean (Rossini, Costa, Tortorella, & Portioli-Staudacher, 2019; Tortorella & Fettermann, 2018).

Proposition 1: Lean should be the basement and previous step before implementing Industry

4.0.

5.2 Leadership style

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29 Table 8 - Leadership changes in Situational Leadership theory (Blanchard et al., 2008; Hersey & Blanchard, 1970)

5.2.1 Implementation phase

During the implementation phase, both perspectives mainly agree on the leadership tasks. In-volving shop-floor employees during the implementation of new technologies is also consid-ered in literature (Camuffo & Gerli, 2018; Karsh, 1997; Nogueira et al., 2018). Moreover, it is up to the leader to coach the new technologies or implementations to the shop-floor employees, which is implied by the suggested coaching leadership style in CI in Lean literature (Nogueira et al., 2018; Smalley & Isao, 2011; van Dun et al., 2017). The leadership task to set the frame-work for improvement comes closest to the approach of employee empowerment in Lean inter-est (Nogueira et al., 2018; van Assen, 2018). By setting the framework, the leader gives their employees the space and creates mutual commitment for CI, which is additionally supported by the consultant “[…] then there are the good managers, who are present at the right decisions

with the right process steps, but also take enough responsibility to motivate the other

employ-ees” (Lam et al., 2015; Netland, 2016). These leadership tasks characterize a high supportive

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30 Proposition 2: During the implementation phase, Lean and Industry 4.0 perspectives suggest

a coaching leadership style in CI.

Related to the coaching leadership style, in particular four leadership tasks are important during the implementation phase. Especially the cases, but also academia, indicate the high importance of leader’s task to coach and motivate their shop-floor employees for the new technologies (Karsh, 1997; Müller et al., 2018; Nogueira et al., 2018; Spear, 2004). Furthermore, implement-ing new technologies can be motivatimplement-ing for the shop-floor employees, as the technology ought to have a supporting function (Schuh et al., 2015). This is further supported by the interviews and the observation, as interviewee B2 states:

“And then exactly what B3 has shown, they have it very structured on the screen. And they were really directly like, can I have this? Because it is really simplifying and it is more organized where I get my information. That was the selling point where people get enthusiastic about it.”

Proposition 2.1: During the implementation phase of Industry 4.0, both perspectives suggest

coaching and motivating for new technologies remains a leadership task.

However, to ensure this enthusiastic reaction, leaders must ensure the supporting function of technologies. This task is threefold. Firstly, as already indicated in order to motivate and con-vince the shop-floor employees about the new technologies, leaders involve their employees in this development process (Camuffo & Gerli, 2018; Karsh, 1997; Nogueira et al., 2018; Shamim et al., 2016). This is summarized by Interviewee D1:

“Where you need employee involvement is while developing the system. […] That is where you need the involvement of the employees, you need their feedback, you need their ideas.”

Proposition 2.2: During the implementation phase of Industry 4.0, both perspectives suggest

employee involvement at the development and implementation stage of new technologies as a leadership task.

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“They [leaders] should, in the future, focus more on enabling and providing their people with the resources they need, to do the best job they can. That also involves asking them what kind of tool, or solution, or what is it that you need to do the best job you can do. This is something that has been underestimated in the past and this is something more on an organizational topic.”

Proposition 2.3: During the implementation phase of Industry 4.0, both perspectives suggest a

framework setting leader for the employee to drive CI.

All in all, these propositions contribute to the research on leadership in Lean organizations, especially during implementation of technologies in the fourth industrial revolution, by show-ing up important leadership tasks.

5.2.2 Phase after implementation

The idea to use the (production) data given with Industry 4.0 to provide strong feedback is recognized in academia and in the industry, as data helps to rationally persuade employees (Lam et al., 2015; Mrugalska & Wyrwicka, 2017; Poksinska et al., 2013). Lean focuses more on the social side, and therefore indicates a high supportive behavior. This is supported by literature, underlining aspects of employee empowerment and employee involvement, also in the context of new technologies (Camuffo & Gerli, 2018; Karsh, 1997; Lam et al., 2015; Shook, 2008; van Dun et al., 2017). As CI still focuses on incremental improvements, and leadership style is associated with process-thinking the dimension of task behavior remains high (Blanchard et al., 2008; Hersey & Blanchard, 1970; Smalley & Isao, 2011). These findings confirm the literature on leadership in CI suggesting a coaching leadership style (Liker & Convis, 2012; Nogueira et al., 2018; Poksinska et al., 2013).

Proposition 3.1: Following Lean perspective in Industry 4.0, leadership style remains

coach-ing in CI after the implementation of Industry 4.0 technologies.

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“So the communication, project management and people skills, social skills are key. […] Yes, the management role will be to get the right experts from the different departments who are required on one table and to moderate and manage it.”

Proposition 3.2: After the implementation of Industry 4.0, both perspectives agree on

commu-nication as leadership task receiving a greater emphasize

In contrast to Lean, both the industry and the literature on Industry 4.0 emphasize more greatly on the technical aspects. Practice and theory agree on the target of Industry 4.0 to simplify tasks on the shop-floor or even automate simple steps (Lu, 2017; Thames & Schaefer, 2016). As a consequence less coaching is required, where literature somewhat agrees on (Hirsch-Kreinsen, 2016; Schuh et al., 2015). In accordance with the operations consultant, the idea of splitting up leadership responsibilities is emerging in the era of Digitalization. Especially in contrast to leadership literature in Lean, this approach is surprising. According to Lean literature, a single leader should be expert in technical and social skills and highly knowledgeable in Lean to best support the shop-floor employees (Almeida Marodin & Saurin, 2015; Mann, 2009; Worley & Doolen, 2006).This new idea is reflected in the so called “swarm leadership” in Industry 4.0 by Kelly (2018), who states leadership should shift from a single agent to a collaborative commu-nity. Further, interviewee C3 argues:

“The idea is to split it up. One person talks about content. The other one is the so called “feel good” manager. “Are you feeling okay? Do you need any more trainings? Are you feeling satisfied with how you work?” The one thing is the holiday, disciplinary work, whatever. The other is “Am I working on the right topics? Is the project going the right way? Are we on track? Are we on time? Are we on budget?” So splitting that up enables leadership to actually be better at what they’re supposed to do. This is also something that is changing in terms of lead-ership.”

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33 Proposition 3.3: Following Industry 4.0 perspective, the supportive or relationship behavior

in leadership decreases after the implementation of Industry 4.0.

5.3 Management actions in CI

Table 9- Management actions in CI

The cases have shown that the idea to gather and analyze data to drive Continuous Improvement is put into practice. This amplifying effect is supported by the literature, where in general it is stated that Industry 4.0 technologies, especially the greater availability of data, will have a mas-sive positive impact on CI (Wagner et al., 2017; Wan et al., 2015). Moreover, the steps to dis-cover improvement potential and analyze the current methods are improved by the new tech-nologies (Smalley & Isao, 2011; Wagner et al., 2017). Thus, less management actions are re-quired in the analytical steps. The cases, the observation and the consultant are in agreement, that a new job profile is developing in shop-floor data-analytics to support management in CI initiatives. This is slightly supported by the recognition that operators will change and require different skill sets in Industry 4.0 (Küpper et al., 2017; Rüttimann & Stöckli, 2016; Waschull et al., 2019). Interviewee D1 describes the new job profile as following:

“I think there is a new job profile developing. Still there are lot of jobs that have to be in the analogue world, where you don’t have data and you just have to look at processes. […] But what you see there is a new job profile, also within in the Lean experts arriving, that are able to look more into machine data or process data, and then make their hypotheses and optimiza-tions based on data.”

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34 in these CI initiatives management should emphasize on great communication and rational per-suasion, enforced by greater data-availability (Aij & Teunissen, 2017; Almeida Marodin & Saurin, 2015; Lam et al., 2015; Wagner et al., 2017; Worley & Doolen, 2006). To put it in a nutshell, the findings confirm the literature stream on Industry 4.0’s potential to enhance CI and data availability having a major impact (Lu, 2017; Satoglu et al., 2018; Wagner et al., 2017). Proposition 4: There are less management actions required in CI initiatives due to the support

from a new job profile and the technologies, including higher data availability, of Industry 4.0.

5.4 Leadership style in the six steps to CI

Combining the six steps to CI (Smalley & Isao, 2011) and the situational leadership theory (Blanchard et al., 2008; Hersey & Blanchard, 1970) reveals the different leadership styles in the different steps (see table 10). The step of generating original ideas is out of scope, as no changes were indicated.

Table 10 - Situational Leadership in CI

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“So, it’s really about coaching leadership to enable the teams to improve their work and teams can improve their work using the standards as we call them, the level one enablers. […] Yeah, coaching leadership is what we want to see.”

With production becoming increasingly data-focused, the greater availability of data is leading to the requirement to analyze this data to drive CI (Rüttimann & Stöckli, 2016; Wagner et al., 2017). In 4.0 perspective, all steps will be supported by a new job profile, which in turn means less supportive behavior from the leader. Especially, the aforementioned steps of discovery and analysis will be the remit of the new job. Consequently, the leader can be directive in these steps, as CI remains highly process-oriented (Hersey & Blanchard, 1970; Smalley & Isao, 2011). As already discussed, the leadership style during the implementation phase, especially of new technologies, should be coaching. With the implementation of Industry 4.0 tech, tasks will become more simple to perform for the shop-floor employees and the data-availability steadily increases (Lu, 2017; Wagner et al., 2017; Waschull et al., 2019). As a consequence, leaders can be more and more delegating, since tasks either become automated or simplified and the new job profile supports the analytical part (Hersey & Blanchard, 1970; Hirsch-Kreinsen, 2016; Müller et al., 2018). However, the beginning and ending process steps within the cycle of CI, the communication tasks become a greater challenge for leaders (Aij & Teunissen, 2017; Worley & Doolen, 2006).

Proposition 5: In Lean perspective coaching leadership style should be prevalent in CI,

whereas the Industry 4.0 perspective suggests a directive leadership style in the discovery and analysis steps of CI and could become increasingly delegating.

In conclusion, the thesis confirms the dominant ideal of coaching leadership style in CI, ex-pressed by Lean literature, even after the implementation of new supporting technologies. These findings add content in two literature streams. On the one side, it tackles the research gap of leadership theories in Lean context (Seidel et al., 2019). On the other side, it shows up in dif-ferent stages how leadership style varies with the implementation of Industry 4.0, and contrib-utes to the emerging body of literature on leadership in the fourth industrial revolution (Agostini & Filippini, 2019).

5.5 Managerial implications

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36 respectively convincing, for the new technologies. In this context, managers should ensure the supporting function of technologies for shop-floor employees. Moreover, it indicates perspec-tives on Industry 4.0 and Lean might be different inside the same company. Another managerial implication of the research is that Lean should precede Industry 4.0. Due to the fact Lean creates a greater company-readiness for Industry 4.0, managers should emphasize on Lean first (Rossini et al., 2019). For example, in a greenfield approach, the implementation of Industry 4.0 should follow after Lean is sufficiently implemented and synergies are detected. Thereupon, depending on the degree of both implementations, the leader should prioritize differently. For instance, following a coaching leadership style if Lean is not sufficiently implemented. After the implementation of supporting technologies, leaders can be more directive in the process steps of CI (see table 10). Lastly, managers should think about creating a collaborative approach for Lean 4.0, and thus a shared understanding of Lean and Industry 4.0 would be spread throughout the organization.

Secondly, the research shows how technology and an emerging new job can support the man-agement in CI initiatives. Manman-agement should focus more on the communications tasks within these initiatives. Therefore, managers should focus on their communication and moderating skills, which are required to manage the increasingly cross-functional projects (in CI). Further, it underlines the importance of data-analytic skills for both the leaders and the support, which can be taught in corporate education programs.

6. Conclusion

The last chapter will summarize the main findings and furthermore present the limitations of the research and provide directions for future research.

6.1 Main findings

The industry is going through a massive change and the need for appropriate leadership on the shop-floor is highly recognized, also in the context of Industry 4.0. Based on interviews in four different companies, an additional interview with a consultant and personal observations, this research has examined leadership in CI in the context of 4.0. The aim of the research was to identify a change in leadership style and management actions in the fourth industrial revolution, and find important leadership patterns in CI on the shop-floor. Finally, the discussion answered the research question “How does Industry 4.0 affect leadership style and management actions

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37 The findings underline changes in leadership in the context of Industry 4.0. However, the strength of the changes depends on the perspective, the current phase of Industry 4.0, and the priority the company takes for Lean or Industry 4.0. The research has shown different changes in leadership style depending on the perspective after the implementation of new technologies. Consequently, the Lean perspective of the ideal leadership for CI remains a coaching leader, characterized by high supportive/relationship behavior and high task behavior. In contrast, from the perspective of Industry 4.0, a decrease in the relationship dimension is found which makes it a less coaching leadership style (Table 10).

Still both perspectives agree on having coaching leaders during the implementation of Industry 4.0 in Lean companies. Involving their employees in the technology development process and consequently coaching and motivating them to use the new technologies, remains an important social aspect of leadership on the shop-floor. Furthermore, communication between shop-floor employees, experts and leaders, is more in focus in the recent leadership tasks. Finally, it is up to the leader to support the right technology projects and provide enough resources to set a framework for the shop-floor employees to enable their Continuous Improvement.

In terms of management actions, the research has shown that a new job profile is emerging, and new technologies are enforcing the process steps within CI. In summary, Industry 4.0 has an amplifying effect on CI initiatives, especially in analytical and problem-solving areas. Conse-quently, this paper has illustrated that less management actions are required in the initiatives in 4.0, but again more communication tasks fall into the responsibility of the leader.

As managerial implications, the research expresses important leadership attributes and patterns during the implementation of Industry 4.0. Moreover, it reveals the importance of having Lean as a preceding step before the implementation of new technologies. Finally, this thesis suggests the different leadership styles during the process of CI initiatives and therefore provides a man-agerial framework.

6.2 Limitations and future research

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Lean & Industry 4.0: