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This paper investigates barriers of implementing Total Quality Management (TQM) the Japanese Way. The study employed qualitative and quantitative method of personal interviews and questionnaire survey on Malaysian manufacturing companies. Data was analyzed using SPSS with Chi-square goodness-of-fit test and mean analysis to explain the scenario for the difficulties in TQM the Japanese Way implementation, while inferential statistics of Spearman Correlation was employed to investigate further relations among Japanese Management Style (JMS), TQM Japanese way, barriers to the TQM Japanese Way; and perception of Organizational Performance (OP) from TQM implementation in Malaysia. The initial finding suggests that people issues as the main cause. Further, the study indicates that as these barriers to TQM the Japanese Way were significantly correlated to the adoption of JMS in the companies studied, it could be the reasons to explain on why JMS variables were not significantly correlated to OP, despite positively correlated to TQM Japanese Way variables.