Persistence of Management Practices Post-Intervention
Field interventions evaluating organizational improvements often suffer from operational backsliding or decay once active external consulting oversight concludes.
Picture this
Think of learning how to ride a bicycle with a trainer holding the handlebars. Once a rider masters balance, steering, and braking routines, they continue riding smoothly on their own even after the trainer leaves because riding is faster, easier, and more useful than walking.
What the evidence says
Management practice adoption dropped by only 3 percentage points on average (from 63.4% to 60.4%) 12 months after consultants left, demonstrating that lean practice adoption creates permanent structural habit shifts.
- Who
- 14 treatment plants across multiplant Indian textile firms monitored over a 12-month post-intervention follow-up window (August 2010 to August 2011).
- How
- Unannounced 1-year follow-up survey measuring adoption across 38 management practices after active consulting ended in August 2010 without prior participant notification.
What to do
Embed newly introduced operational standard operating procedures into daily supervisor routines and visual tracking templates to ensure long-term persistence without continuous external oversight.
From the source
"These improvements in management practices were also persistent. The management practice adoption rates dropped by only 3 percentage points, on average, between the end of the first wave in August 2010 (when the consultants left) and the start of the second wave in August 2011."
541 Management in India QJE.pdf