In the decade of 1980, management techniques focusing on employee involvement, and
empowerment through teamwork approach and interactive communications and on improving
job design were not new, but Japanese companies seemed to implement such techniques
much more effectively than others .The business lesson of the 1980’s was that Japanese
firms, in their quest for global competitiveness, demonstrated a greater commitment to the
philosophy of continuous improvement than Western companies did (1). For such a philosophy
the Japanese used the term Kaizen.