The purpose of this paper is to identify the factors that promote the successful adoption of lean practices in manufacturing firms operating in developing economies in South America. Design/methodology/approach Based on the results obtained from using structural equation modeling to analyze the collected data, the authors argue that manufacturing organizations need to identify the factors that assist in successfully adopting lean practices in manufacturing firms operating in developing economies in South America. A dataset of 1,809 responses, gathered from manufacturing firms as part of the World Management Survey, was used to find support for the proposed hypotheses