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1. Introduction
Since 2002 various academic authors have begun to engage in a greater amount of research, which is slowly creating a more robust body of knowledge concerning the Japanese management approach known as Kaizen or continuous improvement. This is perhaps a reflection of the countless articles on the dissemination of management practice (practitioner) which can be found in the literature. Some of them have generated detailed literature reviews in order to build more theory around Kaizen ([41] Singh and Singh, 2009; [50] Suárez-Barraza et al. , 2011); other empirical studies have been conducted in Japan, China, the USA, Europe and Mexico ([7] Brunet and New, 2003; [6] Bradley and Willett, 2004; [1] Aoki, 2008; [47] Suárez-Barraza and Miguel-Dávila, 2011; [52] Swartling and Olausson, 2011). Thus, the dimensions of Kaizen have been studied in their approach to implementing Kaizen Blitzes or Kaizen events ([22] Laraia et al. , 1999; [29] Montabon, 2005; [55] Van Aken et al. , 2010), the sustainability of improvement projects ([3] Bateman and David, 2002; [2] Bateman, 2005), the relationship with other methods such as Lean thinking, and even with some techniques such as 5S, restrictions theory or Six Sigma ([23] Liker, 2004; [49] Suárez-Barraza and Ramis-Pujol, 2012).
It must be said, however, that virtually all research on Kaizen has focussed on the private sector, mainly due to the impact that the so-called Kaizen events have had in effecting rapid improvements in both technical (work processes) and social elements (human resources) ([5] Bodek, 2002; [31] Oakeson, 1997; [26] Melnyk et al. , 1998). Despite this abundant literature in the private sector a significant gap was detected in the public sector, where there are only small academic efforts to appraise or assess the implementation of the Japanese approach in this sector ([38] Radnor and Boaden, 2008; [51] Suárez-Barraza et al. , 2009). The likely reason for this lack of literature is the low implementation of Kaizen evidenced over the years in the public sector. According to some authors, this infrequent implementation is mainly due to the participants of management in the public sector ([53] Swiss, 1992). Furthermore, the way in which to apply the Kaizen in such a particular environment as public management may be another reason why so few efforts...