Purpose The aim of the study is to identify best practices from Business Excellence (BE) award-winning organizations on the use of their BE self-assessment (internal assessment) and third-party assessment (external assessment including BE award assessments) for organizational improvement.Design/methodology/approach An explanatory sequential mixed methods approach was used to gather data from 50 organizations across 17 countries with varying degrees of BE maturity. Twenty of these, representing 40% of the sample, then participated in semi-structured interviews through which their understanding of the impacts of various practices was explored in more detail. From this sub-sample, three (3) emerged as exemplars used as the case studies reported here.Findings The findings from the first and broader study of the 50 organizations demonstrate a diverse approach to BE assessments, much of which is tailored to the maturity level of each organization. BE organizations with a high BE maturity level are more likely to conduct regular self-assessments and certificate assessment. Key practices identified in the case study organizations were their unique approach to preparing the organization for assessments irrespective of the BE award criteria, the use of mock assessments to prepare for award assessments, the use of customer-led assessments, thorough action plan review process, the use of internal assessments to grow internal capabilities, participation in regular award assessments, the use of external BE assessors and experts for assessments, increased use of technology to support the assessment process, and varying assessment types by organizational BE maturity.Originality/value This research provides a specific and valuable contribution to the existing BE literature by presenting contemporary, real-world examples of best practices in BE assessment. It offers a unique perspective on how award-winning organizations tailor their strategies to meet diverse business needs and strategic objectives.

PurposeThe purpose of this study is to address a critical gap in the existing literature on business excellence implementation. While various studies have examined different aspects of business excellence, there is still a lack of comprehensive research on the optimal organizational excellence architecture (OEA) for an award-winning business excellence journey. The absence of a unified framework has led to inconsistent practices across organizations. The aim of this research based on data collected from 50 organizations across 17 countries is to address this gap and present a refined OEA model.Design/methodology/approachThis study employed quantitative and qualitative data collection methods. Member organizations from the Global Excellence Model (GEM) Council participated through an online survey administered via the Qualtrics software platform. Quantitative data were analyzed using the SPSS and Microsoft Excel software tools, while content analysis techniques were applied to the qualitative data to gain detailed insights.FindingsThe findings refine and extend the OEA model. These contributions lead to a refined OEA definition and open avenues for future research, enriching the current understanding of BE implementation.Originality/valueThis study introduces a novel concept of OEA to the literature on business excellence implementation. The refined OEA model provides a fresh perspective on the critical components necessary for an award-winning business excellence journey. This research offers significant value to both practitioners and academics by presenting a unified approach to BE implementation, effectively addressing the previously identified gap in BE research.

Purpose Research studies on offshoring and reshoring have predominantly focused on the home company, widely ignoring the offshored company in the host country. The host company's influence and contribution have been unseen. This research explores how the host company responds to the home company's location decisions to maintain the dyadic relationship. Design/methodology/approach An exploratory case study in China was conducted to examine the host company's response to reshoring. The case company has two Japanese parent companies that acted for the emergence of reshoring drivers. Primary and secondary data were collected and analysed through thematic analysis. The host company's response strategies to the home company's relocation decisions were identified and explored. Findings The findings reveal that four strategies, identified here as being cost control, market expansion, knowledge seeking and relationship bonding, were implemented by the host company. The importance of Industry 4.0 (I4.0) and knowledge transfer is also emphasised within these strategies. Practical implications This research identified active and practical strategies conducted by the host company to maintain a cooperative relationship with the home company(ies). Instead of encountering a passive response from the host company, the home company may consider working with the host to overcome difficulties caused by emerging reshoring drivers and create an outcome beneficial to both. Originality/value To the authors’ knowledge, this is the first research to study manufacturing reshoring from the perspective of the host company. It provides a new perspective to understanding this phenomenon.

The aim of this paper is to present an institutionally grounded account of CSR decoupling in developing countries. Businesses in developing countries face institutional conditions significantly different to that in developed countries. As a result of these differences, there is an increasing demand on organizations in developing countries to comply with what are observed to be diffuse CSR standards-to which they thereby engage by decoupling. These observations result in the need to re-examine the classic argument of decoupling and produce a more effective understanding of why and how CSR decoupling exists in such contexts. Little is known about the consequences of decoupling for organizations and society at large. We provide examples of decoupling in the developing world and present a comprehensive agenda for future research that explains why decoupling is pervasive and rapid change is, sadly, unlikely.

This paper presents an explanation of why and how institutional arrangements influence the practice of CSR in Pakistan. The authors conduct in-depth interviews with CSR managers; national regulators; and, members of CSR promoting institutions. Our findings suggest that Pakistani CSR is largely found to be in support of charities and donations. Family traditions and religion are primary drivers for the adoption of CSR followed by the influence of peer pressure. Additionally, limited regulative pressures were attributed to the current ambiguity surrounding corporate regulation in Pakistan. This paper contributes to the literature on CSR by identifying internal drivers of CSR praxis.

This paper examines the institutionalisation of corporate social responsibility reporting among listed companies in Pakistan. First, we identify the influence of industry type; regulatory pressures; the presence of CSR promoting institutions; business size; and, ownership on the extent of CSR reporting. Second, we explore the managerial perceptions on CSR reporting. In so doing, the paper extends the existing literature on the debate over accountability, regulation, international standards, sustainability and the influence or otherwise of other stakeholders by exploring organisational and external institutional drivers of CSR reporting in developing countries. The quantitative content analysis of annual reports from 29 listed companies across a range of industries is used to identify the nature and scope of CSR reporting. Four annual reports from each company (2001, 2006, 2011 & 2017 – five-yearly intervals) were selected as the reporting horizon. The content analysis demonstrated considerable growth in CSR reporting, potentially enabled by various organisational and institutional factors. To explore the perceptions, motivation, and authenticity of these reports, on-site interviews with 15 managers are then conducted. The interviews highlight that public image and company recognition are the primary motivation for CSR reporting, rather than the pursuit of improved tangible outcomes. We discuss the contributions to research of institutional theory on CSR reporting and pose recommendations to both managers and regulators.

This chapter assesses the Frei administration's national and international response to the energy the Cuban Revolution unleashed in Latin America in the 1960s. It presents President Eduardo Frei as an independent actor with his own agenda, which included the backing and accelerating of Chileans' developmental project in nuclear science and technology. It also reconstructs and reevaluates the United States, particularly the CIA's, relationship with Frei.

The major research question addressed by this paper is how to evolve corporate governance beyond its traditional shareholder focus towards the broader perspective of a stakeholder focus with intrinsic value. Intrinsic value refers to the monetary value of a company, stock, currency, or product determined by fundamental analysis, without reference to extant market value. It is ordinarily calculated by summing the discounted future income generated by the company, stock, currency or product to obtain its present value. In this paper we observe the evolution of corporate governance towards an intrinsic, long-term value focus by the boards of directors, corporate executives, owners and shareholders, regulators and legislators, and other stakeholders. These major players are encouraged to develop more wisdom in order to assess the emerging threats, challenges, and opportunities from technology for intrinsic value, especially with the perspective of the public corporation as a separate legal personhood, as advocated by the European Parliament’s Committee on Legal Affairs in 2015. The rapid increase in the development of artificial intelligence (AI) and other technologies has tremendous significance for these major players broadly contributing to effective corporate governance. To facilitate the development and evolution of intrinsic value for public corporations and other entities, these major players need wisdom for more effective corporate governance in challenging times. Accordingly, this paper discusses the evolution of corporate governance and board members’ perspectives from a shareholder focus to a stakeholder focus with intrinsic value; the key success factor being wisdom for boards; the three-dimensional wisdom scale; and, the AI challenge, including the “Deadly Soul” of a new machine, to the wisdom of company executives and their boards of directors.

Developing countries are pursuing Western style best practices of corporate governance with both alacrity and aplomb. The intentions of adopting governance best practice appear to include the need for the rapid reduction of malfeasance; the establishment of reputable investment mechanisms; and, the attraction of private investment into comparatively large public sectors through both privatisation and public-private partnerships. However, the rate of growth and development in some countries, such as Pakistan, India, Thailand and Malaysia in particular is such that the institutionalisation of praxis appears to lag these sought after needs. The net result is continued corporate failure across both public and private sectors to the extent that progress towards achieving good governance is muted at best. But whether or not poor performance is a 'governance' problem, as opposed to something arguably more complex mirrors similar emerging confusion in the West where corporate governance has become the panacea for business malaise and social change itself. The aim of this paper is to explore whether broader sources of business performance issues in developing countries in general (and these four in particular) are likely to result from weaknesses in corporate governance (boards in session) or deeper underlying institutions and practices. Which of these are suspected to first contribute to systemic issues in these economies? The research identifies multiple sources of failure that are both well measured and publicised that have experienced remarkably little change, as reported by time series data sets. Quite how the corporate governance mechanism is then expected to resolve such embedded problems is discussed. That corporate governance is seen as a lasting remedy in the absence of sustained and irrevocable institutional reform is debated. The observation is then made that the burdens being placed on corporate governance in developing countries are as equally irresponsible as those in the West.

This study explores the relationship between institutional mechanisms and corporate social responsibility (CSR) in both Pakistan and New Zealand. Institutional factors are normally categorised as being either formal or informal. It is argued that a combination of formal institutions and informal institutions in any jurisdiction shape the adoption, or otherwise of CSR by business through its adherence to acceptable governance praxis. Corporate regulation in Pakistan is heavily influenced from elsewhere, especially from British common law. By contrast the institutional realities produce remarkably different outcomes in the two jurisdictions. This study examines which formal and informal institutions influence CSR disclosures, in that businesses disclose CSR practices in response to regulations; cognitive pressures that help people understand and interpret the practice correctly; and, cultural values enforcing the same practice. Quantitative content analyses of a sample of eight listed companies’ annual reports were completed from each country. Reporting and disclosure practices were identified in both. Underlying institutions were then recorded as being recognised, acknowledged or inferred by the respective reporting business. The results highlighted that Pakistani companies disclose more about CSR than those analysed from New Zealand. This result is attributed to the recently developed corporate governance guidelines by the Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan. The informal national institutions in both countries also play a vital role in the disparity of disclosures. This is not to suggest that New Zealand listed companies lag behind those in Pakistan with respect to their contribution to CSR initiatives, simply that the disclosure levels between the two favour those companies in Pakistan.

Purpose As employees in the lower ranks of a Japanese company advance through the levels of management and seniority their role in day-to-day kaizen activities shifts from that of directly improving their own job, operations and surroundings to guiding, educating and facilitating understanding and practice. The emphasis of kaizen to the employee during career progression changes in an embedded, sequential and predictable manner. To a new employee, kaizen is a process to be implemented, something that is visible and largely provided through company training and job manuals, while not necessarily being fully understood. To the senior manager, however, one who has advanced up the corporate ladder, kaizen is tacit knowledge and accumulated experiences, and is seen as being more than just reducing costs, increasing productivity and decreasing lead times. At this point, kaizen becomes something invisible, something that can produce real influence on both the company’s profitability and the manager’s reputation. Consequently, what kaizen is actually changes from being a duty associated with employment to a matter of personal, group, collective, and organizational responsibility. The purpose of this paper is to explore the mechanism underpinning the transfer of kaizen (acknowledgement and exercise) in the Japanese workplace that results in it being sustained across multiple. Design/methodology/approach Data were collected from research participants (n = 53) through a mixed-method multi-language field design comprising questionnaires and unstructured interviews conducted in genba, the workplaces of five domain-name multinational companies in Japan. Multi-level statistical analysis identified two largely mutually exclusive generational groups. Findings During their late 40s, employees were found to transfer their understanding of kaizen between the two forms. At this age, employees were identified to shift from being student to teacher; follower to leader; and disciple to sensei. This study identified how kaizen shifts from one generation to another; when kaizen shifts through the change in responsibility of employees; and changes in the understanding and practice that creates sustained business excellence. Originality/value Importantly, the study reveals how kaizen itself is a sustainable business activity in the workplace, one that Western business is struggling to emulate.

The dichotomy of humility and hubris among participants in Executive Education courses presents faculty with a source of heterogeneity not disclosed through the common descriptive statistics of sex, age, education and employment. This article discusses the impact of this dichotomy on the design and delivery of effective executive education. In this domain, a premium is charged and the value of collective learning experiences is often promoted. The authors reflect on the value created from offering blended learning experiences to executives over the last decade. Attention is paid to which components can be delivered effectively through web-based course management systems (CMS) and which components need to be delivered through conventional face-to-face delivery. Particular attention is paid to the dichotomy of humility and hubris among participants. Humility is often found to be masked in an online experience while hubris can emerge with consequences to effective cohort learning. The latter is also more obvious in face-to-face delivery where it can, perhaps, be better managed. However, experience has shown that is not always so easily managed in in-house programs. Recommendations are made to enhance design and delivery that accounts for the humility and hubris dichotomy.

B-schools have traditionally leveraged their academic expertise to provide content rich course prescriptions saleable and codified for executive audiences, allowing high repeatability and non-dependency on keynote faculty. Trading on academic credit has become a valuable tradition and increasingly important component of B-school income. However, concern is emerging whether what is being sought after by executives is what is really needed by the broader stakeholder community. Leadership to is now best thought of not as a position or a set of competencies but as an activity that generates socially useful outcomes, best learned in a community of practice. Effective leadership development must then be integrated with the changing organizational environment and context; and, must give participants the opportunity to gather and reflect on leading; ensure there is opportunity for interpretation and application of theory; and, take account of organizational, professional and sectoral differences. This research examines the leadership paradigms held by academics involved in the delivery of select executive development programs in New Zealand and Ireland and the impact of the approaches on effective leadership practices by the executives involved. A pilot survey of faculty was used to establish the predominant leadership paradigms employed in the design and delivery of the programs. A content analysis of executive education program prescriptions was also completed. While specific courses have emerged to enhance and develop leadership capacity of participants some courses were found to exclude any reference to leadership at all. B-schools in the two countries are found to have had variable impact on genuine executive leadership development. Those that have managed to create offerings with this target audience in mind, and the challenges they face will be sustainable going forward. But the key question that remains is whether executives engaged in leadership programs developed by B-schools are establishing knowledge about management or knowledge and leadership for management.

Purpose For the past three decades, the dominant economic policy environment across the Anglosphere has assumed that industrial performance results from increasing national competitiveness. The US Government and others have extensively used the tools of deregulation that emerged from the influential frameworks of Michael Porter and the Chicago School. That both the contributing analysis and attendant policy environment largely neglected the very source of national disadvantage, mostly Japanese industry in the 1970s and 1980s, remains surprising. What was going on in Japan at the time, and to some extent continues today, remains largely hidden. The aim of this paper is to expose one source of Japan’s influential competitive advantage – the human resource. Design/methodology/approach This paper, through the translation of a Japanese-language paper by Professor Emeritus Masaki Saruta, introduces the Japanese phenomenon of managed education in Aichi Prefecture, home of the Toyota Motor Corporation, and provides insight into the lifestyles of the Japanese workers who live and work in corporate castle towns that feed Toyota. Inductive content analysis was used to identify four themes that can be identified as the strategies used to produce a homogenous pool of labor that sustains the Toyota Way philosophy and Toyota Production System. Findings The content analysis identified four major themes: Toyota’s abnormal level of influence over local government, a unique education system of education management, a closed labor market and the homogeneity of labor. It is only now that business leaders in the Anglosphere are able to comprehend the vastness and depth of inculcation and nurturing policies of Toyota and other Japanese industrial giants – something business leaders in the Anglosphere today can only dream. It now becomes evident that Chandler’s visible hand remains alive and well, but critical drivers of its success in Japan and Toyota were largely invisible to the West. Research limitations/implications The research required the knowledge of one of Saruta’s works that is only published in Japanese, and therefore, inaccessible to researchers in the Anglosphere. The translation process and development of themes is reported in detail. The findings are then located in the broad context of national competitive advantage. Practical implications With the insight presented in this paper, business and government leaders may now be empowered to implement policies and practices to nurture a pool of labor more conducive with the organizational strategic policy. While leaders in the Anglosphere are able to implement policy, there also remains a new threat to economic sovereignty – the nurturing of human resources in the dormitories, refectories and shopping malls of industrial China. Social implications The development of a company-focused workforce to support corporate castle towns, one of the sources of national advantage, has been identified in this paper. The social implications are twofold. First, in Japan, the nature and influence of these towns are accepted and heralded by the community. Second, outside of Japan, and especially across the Anglosphere, these towns are a major source of competitive advantage. Originality/value Through the translation of original research published in the Japanese-language medium, this research provides otherwise inaccessible insight into the inner workings and effectively the “black box” of what was Japan Inc. in an era when business people in the West were playing catchup. As the debate on globalization extends to sovereignty across the Anglosphere, it is beholden on the academic community to provide effective solutions for industrial competitiveness.

The governance research community has explored many of the attributes and relationships between directors, boards, and subsequent organisational performance. Despite that effort the establishment of actual relationships remains elusive and causality has only ever been established when failure - rather than success - has been studied. Practitioners have, in parallel with but somewhat oblivious to the efforts of the research community, been equally prolific. Every jurisdiction now has best practice governance guidelines. However, few appear to be able to prevent organisational failure. This paper presents the results of the detailed analysis of organisational failure at Taratahi Agricultural Training Centre, a publicly-owned and funded tertiary education institute in New Zealand. One of themes within this failure is the lack of action by the board of directors - they emerge as passive observers of management (rubber stamp), rather than enablers of effective corporate or institutional governance. Publicly accessible failure studies provide a potential means through which governance researchers can explore the relationship between boards and subsequent performance. Post failure, the commercial secrecy surrounding sources of competitive advantage are seldom of value. The only stigma is the embarrassment of the managers, directors or the board - for which shareholders and/or owners have expressed little sympathy to date. Providing confirmation of the source of decision-making can be obtained, failure studies provide a rich source of readily accessible data from which director attributes; collective board behaviours; and, the very nature of corporate governance can be discerned. The means through which those actors are linked to performance is the very decision(s) that leads to organisational failure, providing the source and justification is identified. Causality between managers, directors or boards and subsequent performance can then be established. The failure of Taratahi Agricultural Training Centre -NZ$36.6m assets; NZ$21m operating revenue; and, 1,000 EFT Students - followed the pursuit of a half decade long aggressive growth strategy, over which a supposedly capable, diverse and experienced board presided. However, it was not the strategy that lead to the organisation's demise but malfeasance by the organisation's Chief Executive that no director sought to question until more public exposure occurred revealing systemic problems within the organisation and complicity between the board, the CEO, select members of the top management team and implicit collusion with Audit New Zealand and the Tertiary Education Commission (TEC). The systemic nature of the failure is found to be comparable to that of Wall Street (O'Brien, 2003) in the early 2000s. Organisations typically fail when their dominant business models become obsolete. Neither the sector nor the scope of offerings from Taratahi were under significant exogenous threat, some 66% growth in student numbers had been reported during the six years preceding failure. But what emerges from the analysis is something of considerable value to the governance and practitioner research communities alike. For the board appears to have been captured by such growth without understanding, or ever questioning its source beyond that explained by the CEO - the responsibility of fiduciary duty on the board's behalf was simply not exercised.

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to explore the relationship between boards and board activity and subsequent business performance, in the context of high-growth companies, through the lens of decision making and business performance. Design/methodology/approach A critical realist approach was used to conduct a longitudinal multiple-case study of two medium-sized, quasi-public high-growth companies. Data collection included first-hand observations of boards in session, semi-structured interviews with key actors and the inspection of board and company documentation. An iterative approach to analysis was used to gain an in-depth understanding of how the boards worked and how they sought to exert influence. Findings The paper provides empirical insight about board involvement in strategic management. A proactive involvement by boards in the strategy development process and assessment of strategic options, and a collaborative form of board involvement in strategic management together with management is indicated as being important if the board is to exert influence beyond the boardroom. A conceptual model of a collaborative form of board-management interaction is developed. Practical implications The paper provides guidance for boards, suggesting that a more direct level of involvement in strategic management by the board together with management may be material to improved business performance. Originality/value The paper responds to calls for more research on the relationship between boards and business performance. It contributes much-needed first-hand evidence from within the boardroom.

Much research has been carried out exploring the attributes of, and relationships between directors, boards, governance and business performance. Despite that effort the establishment of relationships between these variables remains elusive. Causality is still yet to be established. This paper presents the results of the detailed analysis of the corporate failure of Solid Energy Limited, a state-owned enterprise in New Zealand, Solid Energy Limited. The research was conducted and is presented as case study in which the strategic decision-making business-performance relationship is explored in detail. Over the last two decades the practitioner community has been productive, both postulating upon and promoting the existence of the board-performance relationship. The collective response to achieving this outcome across the Anglosphere has emerged as either a principled-based approach or a rules-based approach. None of which has prevented the continued failure of high profile businesses. A key theme of these failures has been the concern over the actions, or lack of action of the board of directors. This case adds further support for this latter argument. Publicly accessible failure studies provide a window through which researchers can examine board decision-making, albeit retrospectively. Failure studies can provide a rich source of readily accessible data from which board behaviour - as a collective - can be identified. A historical review of the financial and productive performance of Solid Energy, since its inception in 1987 was conducted using the detailed timeline framework developed by Lockhart & Taitoko (2005). All the company's annual reports were analysed; CEO contributions and tenures reviewed; board composition and changes mapped; and, performance outcomes aligned to strategy as best possible using secondary data sources. Sources of failure, notably over-investment due to erroneous decision making were then identified. Those responsible for that decision-making, notably successive boards over a decade-long period are acknowledged as being accountable for the collapse of the company. What emerges from the analysis is something of considerable interest to both the strategy and governance communities: successive boards at Solid Energy are found to have been unable to resolve Benner and Tushman's (2003) productivity dilemma. While their commitments to exploration appear to be entirely admirable it is demonstrated to have come at the cost of their corporate's capacity to exploit. In the case of Solid Energy the boards' sustained conviction that exploration, rather than exploitation would provide a new and viable future for the company appears to have been pursued with scant regard to the company's balance sheet. Namely, the board(s) failed in their endeavour to resolve the productivity dilemma, what is demonstrated to be innovative exploration appears to destroy comparatively simple exploitation. Balance sheet gains were eroded over a sustained period of time bringing the company to near bankruptcy; the board was subsequently 'rolled'; and, multiple efforts to restructure failed to produce the desired turn around. The course for the company's failure resulting in voluntary administration then liquidation emerges over the preceding decade. Successive boards appear unable to create an ambidextrous organisation at Solid Energy: strategic decision-making was flawed.

Considerable academic effort has been applied to the identification of relationships and to a lesser extent causality between various input and output variables within the context of corporate and institutional governance. Despite that effort little is really known about effective governance (Sonnenfeld, 2004; Carver, 2010) and its relationship with performance. The aim of this paper is to review what governance researchers are publishing as reported in the subject's leading international journal; to develop and apply a classification to the research methodologies; and, to reflect on the value of their aggregate contribution to both the research and practitioner communities. A complete review of governance research published in the leading academic journal, "Corporate Governance: An International Review" was conducted. The review began with Volume 1, Number 1 and continued to the most recent publication, Volume 22, Number 5. Select citations, as a proxy for impact, were recorded from Google Scholar, and subsequent analysis completed on a paper by paper basis using a classificatory research screen (De Bakker, Groenewegen & Den Hond, 2005) modified for the purpose. Contributions to governance research were observed to fall into one of three categories theoretical, a perspective or largely descriptive. Within the theoretical offerings (68.3%) the largest single contribution came from empirical positivist contributions that attempt to explain the relationship between phenomena form of various input output models. Almost without exception this research stream is observed to use large data sets, is readily published, and has high citation rates. A second subcategory of research is observed to employ a broader mix of quantitative and qualitative techniques, including case study research. Invariably these latter researchers are seeking greater understanding of the phenomena in question but almost always at the expense of generalisability. The third subcategory of theoretical research contribution is by comparison conceptual. Much of this research is informed by empirical enquiry and understanding, therefore, it is not entirely grounded (Glaser & Strauss, 1967). Despite these latter efforts the subject is still widely recognised as lacking a unifying theory (Carver, 2010). The lack of theory, in spite of the vast empirical contribution in this journal appears to be the consequences of normal science (Kuhn, 1977). By comparison contributions offering a perspective (normative in nature) were observed to be relatively rare (9.1%). The descriptive category, by contrast was observed to produce a significant number of the contributions published (22.6%). Dailey, Dalton and Rajapolan's (2004) observation that most governance research is conducted from an agency perspective is no longer upheld. Nor is the view that there are an overwhelming number of governance definitions - both the absence of definitions and the presence of implicit and untested assumptions are found to be commonplace within this body of research. The domain of governance research is observed to suffer from underlying assumptions of which few appear to be recognised, identified or explored by governance researchers. Despite these deficiencies considerable output has been achieved to date. Whether or not the research community can achieve greater impact in the future may require a Kuhnian scientific revolution of some scale.

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to develop a definitive and insightful working definition of kaizen for practitioners and academics in the West through which they may better understand the kaizen phenomenon and its intangible but critical underpinning philosophy. Design/methodology/approach – A phenomenological study of the utility of kaizen within in the bounds of active kaizen environments in name Japanese industrial organisations was conducted over a three-year period in Japan. The research explored how Japanese workers acknowledge, exercise, identify and diffuse kaizen in a sustainable manner. Findings – Kaizen is found to be a broad philosophical approach to work that serves different purposes for different members of the organisation, where no universal definition appears to exist yet differing ideologies are tolerated. Kaizen in Japan has a considerably deep meaning: it channels worker creativity and expressions of individuality into bounded environments, and creates an energy that drives a shared state of mind among employees to achieve proactive changes and innovation in the workplace. Originality/value – This paper competently bridges the Japanese-Anglosphere cultural divide in social and business contexts. It contributes to the development of practitioner understanding of the utility of kaizen in Japan through unhindered cross-cultural research methodology, enabled by researcher competency and fluency in Japanese language and culture.