Leanness of countries: Improve both GDP per capita and inventory turns: The Leanness phenomena of Austria, Germany, Japan, and Pakistan (1991-2012): Consistent growth, more inventory turns

Lean Management (LM) has become the generally accepted best practice for firms pursuing operational excellence. A growing number of success stories confirms that adopting LM principles contributes significantly to the competitiveness of firms, but research does not address this adoption at the country level. This book should be seen as an early attempt to comprehend the rules of leanness measurement and assessment at the macroeconomic level. Although macroeconomic issues regarding the upstream diffusion of LM principles are addressed by only few research studies, granting LM principles a macroeconomic bias is reasonable, may have a usability feature for decision-makers, and could have an inspiring research potential. This book, therefore, questions thus: "Do these demonstrated benefits diffuse upstream to country level?" The suggested model simulation results show that LM principles adoption at country level is only at entry level: only four out of the 65 sample countries – Austria, Germany, Japan, and Pakistan – demonstrate the phenomenal ability to increase consistently their inventory turnover along the studied period (1991-2012), hand-in-hand with increasing GDP per capita.