I'm assuming you're talking about Lean in the context of Lean Manufacturing. Did you know that the Lean system was developed from the Toyota Production System?
In that regard there is an article detailing why the TPS works where other waste-elimination and productivity systems have failed. It's written by two folks from the Harvard Business Review.
Link: http://www.slideshare.net/FerdinandGrah/decoding-the-dnaoftoyotaproductionsystem
http://twi-institute.com/pdfs/article_DecodingToyotaProductionSystem.pdf (Dead)
If I remember correctly, the article identifies why the Lean system works better than other systems.