The Roles of Material Artifacts in Managing the Learning–Performance Paradox: The Kaizen Case

This paper aims to uncover the roles of material artifacts in managing the learning–performance paradox. It analyzes qualitative data on two transformation projects to implement kaizen (continuous improvement) collected from two manufacturing plants in a Chinese company. In both projects, material artifacts triggered social interaction, through which frontline employees were stimulated to focus on both performance and learning. However, in one project, the interplay of material artifacts that play multiple roles led to competing understandings of organizational objectives between managerial staff and frontline employees, which resulted in regression to the previous state where frontline employees focused exclusively on performance. In the other project, by contrast, the interplay of artifacts led to interrelating understandings of organizational objectives between these actor groups, which resulted in frontline employees’ constant acceptance of the learning–performance paradox. This paper contributes to extant literature by showing how the interplay of material artifacts that play multiple roles, such as triggering, supporting, disconnecting, and connecting, contributes to rendering paradox salient, as well as to creating organizational contexts for actors’ responses to it.