How has Japan become a major economic power, a world leader in the automotive and electronics industries? What is the secret of their success? The consensus has been that, though the Japanese are not particularly innovative, they are exceptionally skilful at imitation, at improving products that already exist. But now two leading Japanese business experts, Ikujiro Nonaka and Hiro Takeuchi, turn this conventional wisdom on its head: Japanese firms are successful, they contend, precisely because they are innovative, because they create new knowledge and use it to produce successful products and technologies. Examining case studies drawn from such firms as Honda, Canon, Matsushita, NEC, 3M, GE, and the U.S. Marines, this book reveals how Japanese companies translate tacit to explicit knowledge and use it to produce new processes, products, and services.

The knowledge-creating company : how Japanese companies create the dynamics of innovation

The Social Psychology of Organizations.

Emotion and Adaptation

\"What are your assumptions (implicit as well as explicit) about the most effective way to manage people?\" So began Douglas McGregor in this 1960 management classic. It was a seemingly simple question he asked, yet it led to a fundamental revolution in management. Today, with the rise of the global economy, the information revolution, and the growth of knowledge-driven work, McGregor's simple but provocative question continues to resonate-perhaps more powerfully than ever before. Heralded as one of the most important pieces of management literature ever written, a touchstone for scholars and a handbook for practitioners, The Human Side of Enterprise continues to receive the highest accolades nearly half a century after its initial publication. Influencing such major management gurus such as Peter Drucker and Warren Bennis, McGregor's revolutionary Theory Y-which contends that individuals are self-motivated and self-directed-and Theory X-in which employees must be commanded and controlled-has been widely taught in business schools, industrial relations schools, psychology departments, and professional development seminars for over four decades. In this special annotated edition of the worldwide management classic, Joel Cutcher-Gershenfeld, Senior Research Scientist in MIT's Sloan School of Management and Engineering Systems Division, shows us how today's leaders have successfully incorporated McGregor's methods into modern management styles and practices. The added quotes and commentary bring the content right into today's debates and business models. Now more than ever, the timeless wisdom of Douglas McGregor can light the path towards a management style that nurtures leadership capability, creates effective teams, ensures internal alignment, achieves high performance, and cultivates an authentic, value-driven workplace--lessons we all need to learn as we make our way in this brave new world of the 21st century.

The Human Side of Enterprise.

A multimethod field study of 92 workgroups explored the influence of three types of workgroup diversity (social category diversity, value diversity, and informational diversity) and two moderators ...

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Why Differences Make a Difference: A Field Study of Diversity, Conflict and Performance in Workgroups:

Building on person-environment fit theory and social exchange theory, the relationship between job demands and innovative work behaviour was assumed to be moderated by fairness perceptions of the ratio between effort spent and reward received at work. This interaction of job demands with perceptions of effort-reward fairness was tested among 170 non-management employees from a Dutch industrial organization in the food sector. Results demonstrated a positive relationship between job demands and innovative work behaviour when employees perceived effort-reward fairness rather than under-reward unfairness.

Job demands, perceptions of effort-reward fairness and innovative work behaviour

As hypothesized, data from 170 employees of a Dutch firm showed that the quality of leader-member exchange mediated positive relationships between a mastery orientation and leader-rated in-role job performance, leader-rated innovative job performance, and job satisfaction. In contrast, a performance orientation was negatively related or unrelated to those outcomes. These findings suggest that employees with stronger mastery orientations are more effective on the job because they tend to establish higher-quality exchanges with their supervisors. Important and recurring questions in organizational science are why employees perform well in their jobs and why they are satisfied with their jobs. Achievement goal theory and research suggest that

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Employees' goal orientations, the quality of leader-member exchange, and the outcomes of job performance and job satisfaction

Activation theory suggests that intermediate rather than low or high levels of quantitative job demands benefit job performance and job satisfaction among managers. Using an equity theory framework...

Fairness perceptions as a moderator in the curvilinear relationships between job demands, and job performance and job satisfaction

This introduction essay proposes a challenging program for researchers eager to explore factors and process mechanisms contributing to the benefits and costs individuals and groups incur from pursuing innovative approaches. With respect to individual innovation, such moderating factors might be found in the characteristics of the innovative idea, the innovator, co-workers, supervisors, the broader organizational context, and in national culture. Examples of factors that are likely to shape the beneficial and detrimental outcomes of group innovation include knowledge, skills and ability of group members, group tenure, diversity among group members, group processes (clarifying group objectives, participation, constructive management of competing perspectives), and external demands on groups. This Special Issue contains a state-of-the-science paper, three articles dealing with the benefits and costs of individual innovation, and three articles addressing the bright and dark sides of group innovation. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Onne Janssen

Papers

Job demands, perceptions of effort-reward fairness and innovative work behaviour

Employees' goal orientations, the quality of leader-member exchange, and the outcomes of job performance and job satisfaction

Fairness perceptions as a moderator in the curvilinear relationships between job demands, and job performance and job satisfaction

The bright and dark sides of individual and group innovation:a special issue introduction

Joint Impact of Interdependence and Group Diversity on Innovation