What is it about?
This article looks into research on Kaizen and Continuous Improvement (CI) from the 1980s up until 2017. Kaizen is studied and described as well as how the relationship between Kaizen and CI is portrayed. The findings show that Kaizen and CI attained special interest during the mid 1990s, after which the interest seems to have cooled down. However, the findings imply that a regenerated interest for the areas have sparked post 2010. Also, the result indicate that Kaizen is on one hand accepted by one part of the management community and on the other hand completely ignored by the other.
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Why is it important?
If there exists an aspiration to increase the success rate of Kaizen implementation, the results from the study highlight the need to address and clarify epistemological, terminological and theoretical issues.
Perspectives
The mixed methods approach developed, and the results presented in the paper is a result of great collaboration in the research team. The team consisted of Professor Carmen Jaca from Tecnun - University of Navarra and Professor Ingela Bäckström and myself from Mid Sweden University. It was extremely rewarding to cooperate on such an interesting, and as it turns out unresearched, topic as Kaizen, which I think is reflected in the manuscript.
Daniel Carnerud
Mid Sweden University
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Kaizen and continuous improvement – trends and patterns over 30 years, The TQM Journal, June 2018, Emerald,
DOI: 10.1108/tqm-03-2018-0037.
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