| Summary: | The discipline of Operations Management has made significant impacts on both Academia and Industry by individuating unique operational practices that lead to superior organisational performance. Predominantly research has assessed the impact of operational techniques at the organisational level. Micro-economic theories have then been utilised to explain how operational practices result in unique capabilities, and so derive organisational outputs. However, scholarship has identified an issue with this method of explanation. By assessing operational techniques at the organisational level, research has assumed how operational techniques operate at the micro-routine level. Furthermore, under this logic operational practices are often conceived as a 'black box', which are actioned unproblematic on a day-to-day basis within organisational routines to achieve these outputs. New research in other management disciplines have shown that organisational features present at a macro- level often have vastly different properties when viewed from a micro-routine dynamic perspective. As such, it is unclear how operational techniques work at the micro-level within routines, and the performance benefits that they engender. To address the issue this research takes a novel approach within OM by utilising a practice- based routine perspective. This perspective analyses individual's actions in naturalistic settings, as such, it details how operations management techniques affect peoples' behaviours as they enact their work within routines. An operations management technique called lean new product development is studied within a single case setting to understand the effects it is having on individuals' learning behaviours within organisational routines. The impact lean new product development has on learning was chosen given its prominence in explaining superior performance at the organisational level within the lean literature. Critically the practice-based perspective allows learning to be operationalised via specific behaviours within the routine, and so assess the impact of lean new product development at the micro-level. This research details a mechanism of how techniques such as lean new product development result in stimulating learning. It was shown that wider social dynamics affect how these techniques are utilised within routines. Contrary to prevailing research indicates that the performance benefits of operational techniques are subject to dynamic, complex, and often fragile social processes occurring at the micro routine level, not apparent at the macro, organisational level. As such, the research contributes to the literature as to how operational techniques can improve routine performance and result in capability formulation.
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