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The interest in lean practices has grown significantly over the past three decades, and its concepts and methodologies have been widely disseminated and adopted in both the manufacturing and service sectors (Antony et al., 2021). Companies progressively have recognized the strategic impact of lean philosophy and the potential of a careful lean implementation in the development of a competitive advantage. The changing business environment, intense competition, rapidly changing technology, and more demanding customers impose continuous improvement pressures on manufacturers and service providers in terms of cost reduction and quality improvement (Belhadi et al., 2019; Sum et al., 2020). Lean philosophy supports companies to focus on waste reduction, value-stream optimization, and customer satisfaction in order to efficiently and consistently deliver high quality products and services in short lead-time (Danese et al., 2018; Jasti & Kodali, 2014, 2015; Karim & Arif-Uz-Zaman, 2013; Secchi & Camuffo, 2021; Spear & Bowen, 1999; Sum et al., 2020; Womack et al., 2003).
Organizations are therefore increasingly adopting lean philosophy in a bid to eliminate waste and enhance production effectiveness by concurrently minimizing supplier, customer, and internal variability (Antony et al., 2019; Marodin et al., 2016; Shah et al., 2008; Shah & Ward, 2007; Stimec & Grima, 2019; Taj & Morosan, 2011; Tortorella et al., 2020; Yadav et al., 2020). Arrays of empirical studies prove the significant strategic impact of lean implementation on creating a quality system that produces products with little or no waste and with a short time of period, enhancing in that manner performance and competitiveness (Bhasin, 2011; Meng, 2019; Netland & Ferdows, 2016; Onofrei et al., 2019; Sangwan et al., 2014; R. Shah et al., 2008). Every quality management concept's success is dependent on the company's ability to put it into practice effectively and efficiently. In reality, however, the adoption of lean is a complicated and challenging process, and its benefits are not readily obtained (Belhadi et al., 2019; Mostafa et al., 2013; Secchi & Camuffo, 2021; Sum et al., 2020; Thomas et al., 2014). Several researchers have noted several practical concerns about Lean's competitive impact (Bai et al., 2019; Bhasin, 2011; Cocca et al., 2019; Demeter et al., 2009; Losonci et al., 2011; Tortorella et al., 2016). As a result, these performance issues have given rise to an agenda for investigating the key success factors that influence the effectiveness of lean practices deployments.