How have Japanese companies become world leaders in the automotive and electronics industries, among others? What is the secret of their success? Two leading Japanese business experts, Ikujiro Nonaka and Hirotaka Takeuchi, are the first to tie the success of Japanese companies to their ability to create new knowledge and use it to produce successful products and technologies. In The Knowledge-Creating Company, Nonaka and Takeuchi provide an inside look at how Japanese companies go about creating this new knowledge organizationally. The authors point out that there are two types of knowledge: explicit knowledge, contained in manuals and procedures, and tacit knowledge, learned only by experience, and communicated only indirectly, through metaphor and analogy. U.S. managers focus on explicit knowledge. The Japanese, on the other hand, focus on tacit knowledge. And this, the authors argue, is the key to their success--the Japanese have learned how to transform tacit into explicit knowledge. To explain how this is done--and illuminate Japanese business practices as they do so--the authors range from Greek philosophy to Zen Buddhism, from classical economists to modern management gurus, illustrating the theory of organizational knowledge creation with case studies drawn from such firms as Honda, Canon, Matsushita, NEC, Nissan, 3M, GE, and even the U.S. Marines. For instance, using Matsushita's development of the Home Bakery (the world's first fully automated bread-baking machine for home use), they show how tacit knowledge can be converted to explicit knowledge: when the designers couldn't perfect the dough kneading mechanism, a software programmer apprenticed herself withthe master baker at Osaka International Hotel, gained a tacit understanding of kneading, and then conveyed this information to the engineers. In addition, the authors show that, to create knowledge, the best management style is neither top-down nor bottom-up, but rather what they call "middle-up-down," in which the middle managers form a bridge between the ideals of top management and the chaotic realities of the frontline. As we make the turn into the 21st century, a new society is emerging. Peter Drucker calls it the "knowledge society," one that is drastically different from the "industrial society," and one in which acquiring and applying knowledge will become key competitive factors. Nonaka and Takeuchi go a step further, arguing that creating knowledge will become the key to sustaining a competitive advantage in the future. Because the competitive environment and customer preferences changes constantly, knowledge perishes quickly. With The Knowledge-Creating Company, managers have at their fingertips years of insight from Japanese firms that reveal how to create knowledge continuously, and how to exploit it to make successful new products, services, and systems.

The knowledge-creating company

The corporation of the 1990s: Information technology and organizational transformation

The Business Value of Computers

Predicting corporate failure

A bibliometric study on intelligent techniques of bankruptcy prediction for corporate firms.

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A parsimonious model to forecast financial distress, based on audit evidence

La teoria de recursos y capacidades argumenta que la competitividad de la empresa se relaciona con la posesion de ciertos medios que, por su escasez, singularidad o carestia, permiten que la empresa disfrute de ventajas competitivas sostenibles. Las inversiones en TIC son relevantes en este sentido, no solo por su papel como instrumento operativo sino tambien, y sobre todo, por sus interacciones con activos intangibles que, como la experiencia o la capacidad para innovar, pueden dar lugar a sinergias y en ultimo termino a ventajas competitivas. Este trabajo examina el impacto de las inversiones en TIC sobre la supervivencia empresarial, entendida como un indicador externo de salud financiera y exito competitivo.

/pdf/las-tic-como-inductores-de-competitividad-y-facilitadores-fmvcikl412.pdf

Las TIC como inductores de competitividad y facilitadores del éxito empresarial

A risk map is a tool, based on various information systems, that aims to identify the activities or processes at risk, quantify the probability of these events and measure the potential damage associated with their occurrence. This kind of map provides three valuable contributions to a Manager: integrated information about company global exposure, summaries of the total economic value of the risks assumed at any given time, and tools to explore these sources of risk. The risk map is implemented in a graphic interactive dashboard, similar to a scorecard, able to emphasize abnormalities or deviations; it also allows the user to navigate trough all available data at different levels of disaggregation (drill-down). Concerning the company's financial problems, the map helps keep track of the key vulnerabilities - such as increases in the levels of nonperforming loans or exposure to a particular category of customers - and, in this sense, it can support the development of concrete strategies aimed to prevent financial failure. This paper extends previous evidences from banking and offers a metamodel of risk in non-financial firms, and a map specifically designed to monitor the key processes that lead to the events to insolvency and financial failure.

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Mapa de Riesgos: Identificación y Gestión de Riesgos

This paper provides empirical evidence on the prediction of non-financial companies’ failure. We develop several models to evaluate failure risk in companies from Galicia. We check the predictive ability of parametric models (multivariate discriminant, logit) compared with auditor’s report. Models are based on relevant financial variables and ratios, in financial logic and a in financial distress situations. We examine a random sample of companies in cross-sectional perspective, checking the predictive capacity at any given time, also verifying is models give reliable signals to anticipate future events of financial distress. Findings suggest that our models are extremely effective when applied in medium and long term, and that they offer higher predictive capabilities than external audit.

/pdf/bankruptcy-prediction-models-in-galician-companies-32zwub4le0.pdf

Bankruptcy prediction models in Galician companies. Application of parametric methodologies and artificial intelligence

/pdf/dea-as-a-business-failure-prediction-tool-application-to-the-2eyqf4zghk.pdf

Pablo de Llano Monelos

Papers

A parsimonious model to forecast financial distress, based on audit evidence

Las TIC como inductores de competitividad y facilitadores del éxito empresarial

Mapa de Riesgos: Identificación y Gestión de Riesgos

Bankruptcy prediction models in Galician companies. Application of parametric methodologies and artificial intelligence

DEA as a business failure prediction tool. Application to the case of galician SMEs