Help Perception of Japanese on Lean and Environment in Japan

[MohaSiher]

Hello everyone, I'm writing my Master degree thesis about the Environmental situation in Japan and Lean Manufacturing.
To complete the research I would need Japanese people or people who have lived for a certain period of time to help me by filling out a survey that lasts about 4 minutes, written in English. Could you also do me the favor of passing it on to your Japanese friends or those who live in Japan? You would really be of great help. Here I will attach the survey. ありがとうございます
Perception of Japanese on Lean and Environment in Japan

 

[Lothor]

Welcome to the forum!

I've completed your form and have a few comments/suggestions.

Would it be worth asking the nationality/residency of the person? For example, I'm British but am a permanent long-term resident of Japan. By the way, not many Japanese people use this site regularly.

It's normal to offer age ranges rather than directly ask for an age.

Would it be worth asking how people use kaizen in their jobs? For example, I'm a proofreader of academic work and regularly read professional forums to look for ways of doing things more efficiently in Word, but I don't know whether this can be referred to as kaizen or not.

I also think people need to be able to explain their answers. (I'm guessing you wanted to be considerate and keep the questionnaire short but someone who is happy to spend 4 mins on a questionnaire will probably not mind spending 10 mins.) I gave a low score for "the affinity between Japanese culture and sustainable development". On the one hand, the idea of mottainai is quite strong, particularly with the collective memory of post-war poverty. On the other hand, the Japanese economy has been built on the basis of a disposable, wasteful culture, where houses are treated as consumable items like cars to be replaced when they get too old, and I've heard that the inspection system for older cars (4 years and above) strongly encourages people to buy new ones rather than maintain them (perhaps someone else can confirm or deny this). You'd never get opinions like this from your questionnaire.

The question of awareness about scarcity should be on a scale of 1 to 10 not a Yes/No answer. Someone would have to be very unworldly to not know about scarcity.

For "Do you think Japanese companies should waste less resources to produce goods or offer services?": if Japanese companies waste too much, then they could do better, so the choices are redundant.

Finally, is it possible for you to get the questions translated into Japanese? I don't mind sharing your questionnaire on my Facebook page but Japanese friends would be more likely to answer the questions if they didn't have to translate them and they could write their answers in Japanese (you could use Google Translate to turn the answers back into English or Italian).

Good luck in your survey and I hope you find the suggestions useful.