Research on the impact and mechanisms of lean management on the green development of traditional small and micro manufacturing enterprises

To achieve the “dual carbon” goals, manufacturing businesses must pursue green development. Compared to larger enterprises, the path towards green development is fraught with difficulties for the numerous traditional small and micro manufacturing enterprises. Lean thinking offers new solutions to the pain points and challenges of green development for these enterprises. However, existing research primarily focuses on large enterprises, with limited studies on traditional small and micro manufacturing enterprises; moreover, the conclusions on lean green development remain contentious and fail to effectively guide these enterprises through their green development bottlenecks. Therefore, this paper constructs a lean green development mechanism model for traditional small and micro manufacturing enterprises based on the grounded theory research method and the “resource-behavior-performance” model. It validates the model with empirical data from 333 traditional small manufacturing enterprises in China. The results show that in the actual development process of traditional small and micro enterprises, implementing lean organization and lean production significantly improves environmental performance, but the impact on economic performance is complex. Additionally, the influence of lean strategies on green development performance is not significant, not fully realizing their potential guiding role. Further in-depth analysis of traditional small and micro manufacturing enterprises with a mature level of lean management reveals that as the level of lean management improves, the guiding effect of lean strategies begins to emerge; both lean organization and production have a significantly positive impact on economic performance. The findings are theoretically and practically significant for overcoming the green development challenges faced by traditional small and micro manufacturing enterprises, help to broaden the research scope of lean green development, and provide decision-making and theoretical support for promoting the seamless implementation of lean green development in the traditional manufacturing sector.