How the Japanese Interpret Kaizen: An Exploration of Japanese Spirit

Abstract

Following its comprehensive defeat in Pacific theatre of World War II and destruction of much of its production capacity, between early 1950s and Oil Crisis of 1973, Japan recorded an average annual economic growth rate of 10% and an average annual export growth rate of 20%. During Oil Shock of 1973, when other countries fell into economic decline, industrial production efficiency enabled Japan to become a competitive and dominant force in world markets (Barnwell, 2007). Such achievement, when other major economies were faltering, lead to intense (Western) analysis and discussion in a hunt to discover source of such success. Ultimately, this success was attributed to two factors: relationship between Government and industry, and success of name corporations including Toyota, Sony, Panasonic, and Honda (Abe & Fitzgerald, 1995). Investigation of these large successful corporations leads to field of and underlying concept of -- a cornerstone of Japanese management -- with Toyota Production System being exemplar of Japanese quality management and operations management techniques.This literature review notes that while much is known about concept of kaizen within organization there remain aspects that are still not fully understood or are misunderstood; that current (English language) academic literature may fail to provide accurate accounts of Japanese point of view, and differences between Japanese and perspectives. For this paper, author has considered only English language literature, including contributions from Japanese academics. For simplicity, reference made to both the US and Western by cited works is considered to imply same entity or idea.