Kaizen is about achieving continuous improvement through change in the ongoing organizational culture. It is about building systems in the organization, which consistently question whether there is a better way.

When applied to the workplace, Kaizen means continuous improvement involving everyone i.e., treating managers and workers alike. The aim of Kaizen is to eliminate waste in all systems and processes through combined team effort. Kaizen is a company-wide philosophy oriented towards continuous improvement. In business organizations, it applies to continuous improvement of both managers and employees. The main idea is to maintain and improve work standards, delegating the responsibility to the workers.

Father of Kaizen, Masaaki Imai, defined Kaizen as "a means of continuous improvement in personal life, home life, social life, and working life. At the workplace, Kaizen means continuous improvement involving both managers and workers alike. The Kaizen business strategy involves everyone working together in an organization to make improvements without large capital investments."

In Japanese, the concept of continuous quality improvement is pronounced as "kaizen". "Kai" means "change" and "Zen" means "good". In Chinese, this is pronounced as "Gai Shan". "Gai Shan" means "change for the better" or "improve". "Gai" means "change" or "the action to correct", "Shan" means "good" or "benefit". "Benefit" is more related to the Taoist or Buddhist philosophy, which gives the definition as the action that "benefits" the society, but not a particular individual.

MBA Review Magazine, Kaizen, Mantra for Success, Organizational Culture, Kaizen Business Strategy, Capital Investments, Japanese Economy, Self-Assessment, Total Production System, TPS, Kaizen Approaches, Organizational Growth, Corporate Strategy, Kaizen Activities, Business Organizations.