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

What makes organizations so similar? We contend that the engine of rationalization and bureaucratization has moved from the competitive marketplace to the state and the professions. Once a set of organizations emerges as a field, a paradox arises: rational actors make their organizations increasingly similar as they try to change them. We describe three isomorphic processes-coercive, mimetic, and normative—leading to this outcome. We then specify hypotheses about the impact of resource centralization and dependency, goal ambiguity and technical uncertainty, and professionalization and structuration on isomorphic change. Finally, we suggest implications for theories of organizations and social change.

The iron cage revisited: Institutional isomorphism and collective rationality in organizational fields (Chinese Translation)

Dorothy Leonard-Barton warns readers upfront that her new book, "Wellsprings of Knowledge: Building and Sustaining the Sources of Innovation," is not a quick read. Indeed it is not, though the author, a Harvard Business School professor, tries hard to soften a knot of strategy research with true-life examples from several technology companies. Unfortunately, business books tend to be like Arnold Schwarzenegger movies: the special effects and twists are a lot more important than the basic plot, which doesn't change much.

"Wellsprings of Knowledge: Building and Sustaining the Sources of Innovation"

Blink: The Power of Thinking without Thinking / Strangers to Ourselves: Discovering the Adaptive Unconscious

The role of knowledge-oriented leadership in knowledge management practices and innovation

– The purpose of this paper is to report the results of an exploratory investigation of the organizational impact of knowledge management (KM)., – A search of the literature revealed 12 KM practices whose performance impact was assessed via a survey of business organizations., – KM practices were found to be directly related to organizational performance which, in turn, was directly related to financial performance. There was no direct relationship found between KM practices and financial performance. A different set of KM practices was associated with each value discipline (i.e. customer intimacy, product development and operational excellence). A gap exists between the KM practices that firms believe to be important and those that were directly related to organizational performance., – The majority of the research constructs were formative, thus improving the measurement of KM practices will prove vital for validating and extending these findings. The findings were based solely on organizations from North America and Australia and may not reflect KM practices in other geographic, economic or cultural settings., – This study encourages practitioners to focus their KM initiatives on specific intermediate performance outcomes., – The paper examines the relationship between KM practices and performance outcomes. It was expected that a direct relationship between KM practices and organizational performance would be observed. It was also expected that organizational performance would mediate the relationship between KM practices and financial performance. These expectations were supported. KM practices showed a direct relationship with intermediate measures of organizational performance, and organizational performance showed a significant and direct relationship to financial performance. There was no significant relationship found between KM practices and financial performance.

Knowledge management and organizational performance: an exploratory analysis

Ninety organizations were surveyed in an exploratory investigation of the organizational impact of knowledge management (KM). A search of the literature revealed 12 KM practices. Results indicated that these KM practices were directly related to organizational performance which, in turn, was directly related to financial performance. In addition, a different set of KM practices were associated with specific value disciplines (i.e., customer intimacy, product development and operational excellence). Interestingly, a significant gap exists between the KM practices that firms believe to be important and those that turned out to be directly related to organizational performance. The implications of this study are significant for both practitioners and academics. Suggestions are offered for future work in this area.

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Knowledge Management and Organizational Performance: An Exploratory Survey

Developing information technology (IT) strategy that supports and is supported by business strategy is critical for generating business value in today’s organizations. In the face of rapidly changing business conditions and continuously evolving IT, however, organizations have yet to learn how to develop an effective IT strategy. To explore and understand the issue, we conducted a research using focus group methodology. The results from our research suggest that there are five critical success factors that organizations must consider. The research also identifies five practices and the challenges faced while developing an effective IT strategy.

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Developing information technology strategy for business value

Knowledge Management Capability and Organizational Performance: A Theoretical Foundation

Given evidence that IT capabilities are linked to business performance, well-defined procedures would be expected to exist for engineering these capabilities to high standards. Surprisingly, this does not appear to be the case. In fact, IT executives freely admit that they may not use standard, verifiable, and repeatable capabilities. To address this situation, the authors formed a group of senior IT managers from leading edge companies to share experiences and insights into how best to identify and implement effective IT capabilities. The result is a 5-step framework for enhancing IT capabilities.

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Satyendra Singh

Papers

Knowledge management and organizational performance: an exploratory analysis

Knowledge Management and Organizational Performance: An Exploratory Survey

Developing information technology strategy for business value

Knowledge Management Capability and Organizational Performance: A Theoretical Foundation

Developments in practice xvi: a framework for enhancing it capabilities