Kaizen philosophy: The keys of the permanent suggestion systems analyzed from the workers’ perspective

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to perform a context analysis about a specific Kaizen program, suggestion systems in permanent teams, and identified the barriers and facilitators that companies encounter while implementing them from the workers’ perspective. Design/methodology/approach The authors applied an inductive method, the Grounded Theory, to develop a specific context theory using the information that emerged from a convenience sample of 182 workers in several countries. Findings The facilitators and barriers identified for the workers in the field study are aligned with those identified in previous studies, generally obtained using information provided by managers. The methodology enabled us to identify the relationships between them and their level of relevance. Research limitations/implications The main limitations were linked with the source of the data as the authors worked with a convenience sample and only analyzed the information provided by the workers. Practical implications The identified facilitators, their relationships and their relevance, contribute to understand the functioning phenomena of suggestion systems in permanent teams to facilitate organizations using this continuous improvement program more effectively. Originality/value The originality of this study, apart from identifying facilitators from the workers’ perspective, is that the used method enabled us to identify the relationships between them and know how the operators perceived their relevance.