Kaizen from Islamic Perspective: A Review Paper

Abstract

This article focus on the discussion of various literatures regarding Kaizen from Islamic perspective done by previous researchers. Kaizen has been a management philosophy that gained interest in most countries including Muslim majority countries such as Malaysia. The development of Kaizen was based only on the thought and observation of the Japanese scholar which focus on the material aspect and it was also based on Zen Buddhism expression and culture. The question which arises is what are the discussion done by previous researchers on Kaizen from Islamic perspective? And Kaizen from Islamic epistemological perspective. This article seeks to address these issues with the focus of descripting the discussion on the philosophies and development of concept. There are three different perspective of Kaizen from Islamic researchers’ perspective based on the discussion of previous researchers, which are the researchers that totally accepted the Kaizen brought by the Japanese, the researchers that integrate the concept of Kaizen with Islamic values and Islamic framework and the researchers that suggest the concept of Kaizen derived from Islamic sources of knowledge. Several critics of Islam on Kaizen has been rose on the sources of knowledge in the development of Kaizen and the ultimate goals of Kaizen. This qualitative content analysis research suggests that from Islamic epistemological perspective, there are critics on the concept of Kaizen bought by the Japanese and the suitability of Kaizen to be implemented to Muslim individuals has been questionable.