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

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.