Relationship between just-in-time manufacturing practices and performance: A meta-analytic investigation Alan W. Mackelprang 1 , Anand Nair * Department of Management Science, Moore School of Business, University of South Carolina, 1705 College Street, Columbia, SC 29208, United States 1. Introduction Since the 1970s, global manufacturing has witnessed fierce competitive environment. This challenging environment forced firms to identify additional sources of competitive advantage. For many firms, just-in-time (JIT) manufacturing practices have provided a competitive boost and enabled them to meet the demands of global competition. A comprehensive adoption of JIT practices can be quite expensive, nevertheless, many firms see implementing JIT practices as a worthwhile investment that will generate significant returns via cost savings for years to come. The allure of JIT is due to its perceived ability to help firms reduce their costs while improving other operational metrics by eliminating non-value added activities. However, despite widespread global adoption of JIT practices, skeptics have questioned the successful application of JIT practices outside of Japanese culture (Heiko, 1989) and even doubted the effectiveness of JIT practices in Japanese firms (Kim and Takeda, 1996). The skepticism surrounding JIT mirrors the mixed results found in research studies relating JIT practices to performance. For example, Dean and Snell (1996) found a lack of significant relationships between JIT practices and performance, while Shah and Ward (2003) identified significant positive relationships between them. Despite the inconsistencies found in the extant literature, JIT has remained popular in practice and is still widely utilized in firms around the globe. The continued popularity of JIT in practice paired with inconsistent research results linking JIT practices to specific performance outcomes has provided impetus for a growing body of research devoted to understanding JIT. Varying conceptualizations of JIT can be observed in extant literature. In some cases JIT has been defined as a managerial or manufacturing philosophy (Upton, 1998), while others indicate that JIT is simply a set of practices (Flynn et al., 1995). Although researchers agree that JIT requires the usage of some specific practices, there has been no consistent agreement regarding which practices comprise JIT (Goyal and Deshmukh, 1992; Shah and Ward, 2007). For example, White (1993) suggests that a firm can be considered to practice JIT if they are using at least one of ten possible JIT practices, while other researchers have left it up to firms to decide what they deem to be JIT practices (Handfield, 1993). Notwithstanding the lack of consensus among researchers as to what constitutes JIT and if the implementation of JIT practices is positively associated with performance, firms continue to allocate resources towards activities that are widely regarded as JIT practices. Given the importance of JIT among practitioners and its significance in operations management research, a generalized understanding of the relationship between individual JIT practices and performance is both warranted and necessary. This study aims to fulfill two broad research objectives. First, JIT has been studied in a wide range of contexts and settings. It is crucial for theory development as well as for practical adoption of JIT practices in firms, to understand which JIT practices to Journal of Operations Management 28 (2010) 283–302 ARTICLE INFO Article history: Received 18 September 2008 Received in revised form 21 October 2009 Accepted 23 October 2009 Available online 4 November 2009 Keywords: Just-in-time practices Performance Meta-analysis of correlations Theory development ABSTRACT Just-in-time (JIT) manufacturing is among the most commonly researched topics in the area of operations management. This study examines the relationship between JIT manufacturing practices and performance outcomes by means of meta-analysis of correlations approach. Based on an in-depth analysis of literature spanning from 1992 to 2008, the results of this meta-analytic investigation support a positive relationship between JIT manufacturing practices and aggregate performance. However, the findings suggest that not all individual JIT practices are associated with all types of performance outcomes. This study highlights the JIT practices that have the greatest impact on individual performance outcomes and emphasizes the role of moderating factors in the relationship between JIT practices and performance. Theoretical and managerial implications are discussed and directions for future theory building in JIT are presented. ß 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. * Corresponding author. Tel.: +1 803 777 2648; fax: +1 803 777 3064. E-mail addresses: Alan_mackelprang@moore.sc.edu (A.W. Mackelprang), nair@moore.sc.edu (A. Nair). 1 Tel.: +1 803 777 3482; fax: +1 803 777 3064. Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Journal of Operations Management journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jom 0272-6963/$ – see front matter ß 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.jom.2009.10.002