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

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

Open Innovation: The New Imperative for Creating and Profiting from Technology

Governing the Commons

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Modern Social Imaginaries

This paper describes two initiatives to develop the capabilities for innovation in two automotive firms, focusing on the efforts of individuals in their two missions: to manage an innovation portfolio and to systematically build capabilities for innovation. The research is based on longitudinal studies of two European car manufacturers and makes several contributions. First, it contributes to innovation capability theory by addressing the efforts undertaken by managers to develop the capabilities for innovation, underlining the need for political astuteness and a learning perspective. Second, it shows the challenges involved in large mature firms and the need for explicit management support.

The challenges of innovation capability building: Learning from longitudinal studies of innovation efforts at Renault and Volvo Cars

Organizing for idea generation is a recurring challenge in intensive innovation contexts. The literature on ideation has reached a compelling consensus on the features that such organizational devices must possess to support sufficient creativity: learning processes and a creative climate of confidence to promote collaboration. However, current practical methodologies struggle to simultaneously realize these two features. In this paper, we explore the potential of Serious Games, a collaborative tool that has been used since the 1960s to facilitate learning processes through the simulation of reality and a role-playing game, to induce an immersive experience and, more recently, to support the ideation process. To do so, we conducted an exploratory case study using a Serious Game to support ideation in a French medium-sized business. We then assess the strengths and areas for improvement of this Serious Game with respect to an ideation performance framework based on the existing literature. Our findings show that Serious Games are efficient tools for supporting existing knowledge exchange between participants and collaboration by providing a creative climate, but they may not sufficiently support learning of the external knowledge required to attain high levels of originality. Accordingly, we discuss some crucial parameters to be further explored to allow for the effective managerial use of such methodologies, such as the fine-tuning of the knowledge content that serves as a basis for the game.

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/Delivery.cfm/CAIM_CAIM12138.pdf?abstractid=2646220&mirid=4

Gamification of Creativity: Exploring the Usefulness of Serious Games for Ideation

Firms striving to maintain high rates of innovation need a continuous flow of new ideas This is resulting in the establishment by large firms of IT platforms to generate ideas for innovation, and to encourage employees and customers to participate in innovation contests However, there has been little published research on the use of IT platforms for idea generation by employees, and it is unclear whether they facilitate in-house innovation The purpose is to investigate how firms use IT platforms internally to generate ideas, and how their use contributes to the innovation process in large firms We rely on data from two collaborative research projects in the automotive industry: Volvo Cars and Renault We found that both firms used IT platforms as campaigns to promote innovation and to involve employees in the innovation process The findings suggest that these virtual idea campaigns support innovation in large firms mainly by (1) encouraging employee creativity in idea generation and (2) involving employees and top managers simultaneously in the innovation process This paper contributes to idea management systems theory by highlighting the importance of virtual idea campaigns for the firm's innovation process, and their dual role

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/Delivery.cfm/CAIM_CAIM12066.pdf?abstractid=2480682&mirid=5&type=2

Beyond the Generation of Ideas: Virtual Idea Campaigns to Spur Creativity and Innovation

Framing value management for creative projects: An expansive perspective.

Le pilotage des projets d'innovation en rupture est une problematique qui traverse les organisations Les outils d'evaluation devraient etre considerablement differents des outils traditionnels de gestion de projet en raison de l'incertitude multidimensionnelle des activites Toutefois, la litterature montre que les entreprises utilisent des methodes classiques de suivi, meme pour l'innovation de rupture Basee sur une recherche intervention de trente mois a l'Amont de Renault, cette these analyse les insuffisances des outils traditionnels, et propose une approche nouvelle et des instruments adaptes En partenariat avec les equipes RD 2 la qualification des enjeux strategiques de l'innovation et du pilotage associe ; 3 le suivi de l'impact organisationnel et des mecanismes d'adhesion des partenaires internes Si les points 1 et 2 s'appuient sur l'existant, le modele d'adhesion evolutif a peu d'equivalent dans la litterature et les pratiques Il explicite pourtant les evolutions differenciees des projets dans l'organisation Le modele a ete mobilise pour le processus de pilotage deploye en 2009 dans l'entreprise

Sophie Hooge

Papers

The challenges of innovation capability building: Learning from longitudinal studies of innovation efforts at Renault and Volvo Cars

Gamification of Creativity: Exploring the Usefulness of Serious Games for Ideation

Beyond the Generation of Ideas: Virtual Idea Campaigns to Spur Creativity and Innovation

Framing value management for creative projects: An expansive perspective.

Performance de la R&D en rupture et des stratégies d'innovation : organisation, pilotage et modèle d'adhésion