Qualitative investigation of standardisation in service organizations – a Lean Service viewpoint

The issue of standardisation has not yet been widely researched in the service industry. At the same time standards are the main management methodology to achieve quality and repeatability in service delivery processes. Moreover, standards according to Lean methodology are a means of gathering and spreading knowledge across the organization. The study aims to investigate standardisation in service organizations in the light of the Lean Management framework. The study employs the qualitative research approach. A sample of 30 service managers were asked open-ended questions referring to existing standards. The gathered stories were processed according to content analysis principles. The study concludes that the current approach to service standardisation is very far from Lean Management, which is a huge challenge for Lean Service dissemination.