Scoping Review of Kaizen and Green Practices: State of the Art and Future Directions

Lidia Sanchez-Ruiz, Beatriz Blanco, Juan A. Marin-Garcia and Elsa Diez-Busto
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Lidia Sanchez-Ruiz: Business and Management Department, University of Cantabria, Avda. Los Castros s/n, 39005 Santander, Spain
Beatriz Blanco: Business and Management Department, University of Cantabria, Avda. Los Castros s/n, 39005 Santander, Spain
Juan A. Marin-Garcia: ROGLE, Department of Organización de Empresas (Business and Management), Universitat Politécnica de Valéncia, Camino de Vera s/n, 46022 Valencia, Spain
Elsa Diez-Busto: Business and Management Department, University of Cantabria, Avda. Los Castros s/n, 39005 Santander, Spain

IJERPH, 2020, vol. 17, issue 21, 1-19

Abstract: Given the importance that environmental management is acquiring, the main aim of this work is to know what the state of the field kaizen and green practices is at present. A systematic narrative review is conducted in accordance with the PRISMA Statement. Two databases (Web of Science and Scopus) were searched. Finally, after applying the defined inclusion and exclusion criteria, 19 documents were analyzed. Based on the results, it might be concluded that, despite the growing interest in the relationship between kaizen and green practices, this is a topic in the early stages of development, with a clear predominance of case studies. It is, therefore, necessary to develop more research on this kaizen and green issue as improving environmental management is undeniably becoming a must in today’s competitive environment. For instance, more research is needed on the application of kaizen tools as results obtained so far seem not to be conclusive. Additionally, more academic and rigorous studies should be developed on this topic as many of the analyzed papers seem to be clearly created for dissemination among practitioners, some of them lacking the traditional academic structure and scientific method during their development.

Keywords: kaizen; continuous improvement; green production; clean production; sustainability; systematic review; PRISMA (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

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