Designing an Integrative and Ubiquitous Lean Culture: A Cartographic Exploration of Sustainable Project Discourses

This work offers a renewed interpretation of Lean culture through a cartographic approach applied to scientific discourse on sustainable projects. In the current construction sector, marked by increasing demands for sustainability, efficiency, and organizational transformation, numerous contributions highlight Lean’s structuring role as a lever for governance, value creation, and performance. However, the notion of Lean culture remains unstructured and sometimes traditional, oscillating among philosophy, tools, values, and practices. This ambiguity calls for clarification of its definitions, uses, and conceptual evolution. To address this issue, the research adopts a branching mapping methodology that identifies Lean both as a method and as a practice, aiming to analyze, visualize, and structure existing discourse through networks of co-occurrence and conceptual convergence. The analysis is conducted using an international scientific corpus and visualized through the VOSviewer platform, which highlights thematic clusters connecting Lean, organizational culture, design, sustainability, and project management. This exploration reveals discursive dynamics that progressively reframe Lean within an integrative cultural perspective. It shows how cognitive, procedural, and normative dimensions interact to support transitions toward more responsible and sustainable project practices. The article proposes a structured conceptualization of this integrative Lean culture, supported by diagrams that articulate the interactions between Lean, design culture, and sustainability objectives. The purpose of this contribution is to provide a deeper and more nuanced interpretative framework for existing discourse while identifying new avenues for research and practical application. More specifically, it seeks to underscore the ubiquitous nature of Lean through the lens of design, fostering a more integrated, cross-functional Lean approach that is closely aligned with the cultural dynamics and sustainability imperatives shaping contemporary project environments.