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

TL;DR: In this article, Nonaka and Takeuchi argue that Japanese firms are successful precisely because they are innovative, because they create new knowledge and use it to produce successful products and technologies, and they reveal how Japanese companies translate tacit to explicit knowledge.
Abstract: 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.
Citations
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Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: This article challenges economists' attempts to reduce knowledge to information held by individuals and to reject tacit knowledge as mere uncodified explicit knowledge and attempts to limit the scope of community of practice analysis.
Abstract: Community of practice theory is inherently a social theory. As such it is distinct from more individualist accounts of human behavior, such as mainstream economics. Consequently, community of practice theory and economics favor different accounts of knowledge. Taking a community of practice perspective, this article challenges economists' attempts to reduce knowledge to information held by individuals and to reject tacit knowledge as mere uncodified explicit knowledge. The essay argues that Polanyi's notion of a tacit dimension affected numerous disciplines (including economics) because it addressed aspects of learning and identity that conventional social sciences overlooked. The article situates knowledge, identity, and learning within communities and points to ethical and epistemic entailments of community practice. In so doing it attempts to limit, rather than expand, the scope of community of practice analysis and to stress the difference, rather than the commonalities, between this and other apparen...

538 citations


Cites background from "The knowledge-creating company : ho..."

  • ...8 Ryle is often misread, perhaps most egregiously by Nonaka (1994) and Nonaka & Takeuchi (1995)....

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Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: A resurgence of interest in the region as a scale of economic organization has been apparent within economic geography over the past decade or so as mentioned in this paper, in view of the apparent shift towards a knowledge-based approach.
Abstract: A resurgence of interest in the region as a scale of economic organization has been apparent within economic geography over the past decade or so. In view of the apparent shift towards a ‘knowledge...

523 citations


Cites methods from "The knowledge-creating company : ho..."

  • ...Drawing upon the work of the Japanese organization theorists Nonaka and Takeuchi (1995), they emphasize the importance of ‘the key epistemological moment [when] actors seek to make explicit ideas and notions about new products and techniques that, until then, had amounted to hunches or rough…...

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Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: Results from a survey of 274 senior information officers indicate that organizational emphasis on knowledge management and centralization of IT decisions affect top managers' knowledge of IT, which facilitates business managers' Participation in strategic IT planning and IT managers' participation in business planning, and both of these planning behaviors affect business-IT strategic alignment.
Abstract: Senior executives continue to be concerned about factors influencing the business effect of information technology (IT). Prior research has argued that business-IT strategic alignment facilitates business effect of IT and that contextual factors affect business-IT alignment. However, the role of knowledge considerations in the relationship between contextual factors and alignment, and the role of IT projects in the relationship between alignment and business effects of IT, have not been explicitly examined. Therefore, this paper pursues the following two research questions: (1) Based on knowledge considerations, how do planning behaviors (specifically, IT managers' participation in business planning and business managers' participation in IT planning) and top management knowledge of IT mediate the effects of two contextual factors-organizational emphasis on knowledge management and centralization of IT decisions-on business-IT strategic alignment? (2) How do aspects of IT projects (specifically, quality of IT project planning and implementation problems in IT projects) mediate the relationship between business-IT strategic alignment and business effects of IT? Results from a survey of 274 senior information officers indicate that organizational emphasis on knowledge management and centralization of IT decisions affect top managers' knowledge of IT, which facilitates business managers' participation in strategic IT planning and IT managers' participation in business planning, and both of these planning behaviors affect business-IT strategic alignment. Moreover, the results indicate that quality of IT project planning and implementation problems in IT projects mediate the relationship between business-IT strategic alignment and business effect of IT. These findings highlight the importance of considering the planning and implementation of IT projects when examining the effects of business-IT strategic alignment, and highlight the importance of considering shared domain knowledge (i.e., top managers' knowledge of IT) and planning behaviors when examining the effects of contextual factors on business-IT strategic alignment. Managers can use these results to develop more comprehensive action plans for achieving greater business-IT strategic alignment, and for translating alignment into enhanced IT effects on business performance.

520 citations


Cites background from "The knowledge-creating company : ho..."

  • ...These processes facilitate knowledge integration across business and IT managers by enabling socialization [66], which integrates knowledge through joint activities, such as working together in the same environment [67], as well as exchange, which is the communication or transfer of explicit knowledge between individuals [33]....

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Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: L'accent est mis sur ses relations avec d'autres termes basiques tels que document, texte et connaissance, notamment dans le domaine de the recherche d'information.
Abstract: L'A. se penche sur le statut du concept d'information en sciences de l'information dans une perspective interdisciplinaire. Il aborde en premier lieu la question de la definition des termes scientifiques du point de vue de la philosophie des sciences. L'histoire du mot information nous montre l'evolution de sa signification et ses relations avec la notion de connaissance. L'etude de la place du concept d'information dans les sciences naturelles, sociales et humaines montre son caractere interdisciplinaire. L'introduction du terme d'information dans les sciences de l'information et la bibliotheconomie remonte aux environs de 1950. L'accent est mis sur ses relations avec d'autres termes basiques tels que document, texte et connaissance, notamment dans le domaine de la recherche d'information. Enfin l'A. mentionne diverses perpectives theoriques sur l'information en sciences de l'information : theorie de l'information, perspective cognitive, l'information-en-tant-que-chose, l'analyse de domaines, le socio-cognitivisme, l'hermeneutique, la semiotique.

519 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The study found that a belief in self-ownership was positively associated with organizational ownership - suggesting a collaborative type of ownership situation for both information and expertise and for both internal and external sharing situations.
Abstract: Beliefs of organizational ownership relate to whether information and knowledge created by an individual knowledge worker are believed to be owned by the organization. Beliefs about property rights affect information and knowledge sharing. This study explored factors that help determine an individual's beliefs about the organizational ownership of information and expertise that he or she has created. Four different situations of organizational ownership (information vs. expertise/internal vs. external sharing) were considered. The study found that a belief in self-ownership was positively associated with organizational ownership - suggesting a collaborative type of ownership situation for both information and expertise and for both internal (intraorganizational) and external (interorganizational) sharing situations. Organizational culture and the type of employee also influenced the beliefs of organizational ownership in all four scenarios. We conclude the paper with implications for practice and future research.

507 citations


Cites background from "The knowledge-creating company : ho..."

  • ...Knowledge management involves managing organization knowledge as a corporate asset and harnessing knowledge creation and dissemination as key organizational capabilities [40]....

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References
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Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The objective of KMS is to support creation, transfer, and application of knowledge in organizations by promoting a class of information systems, referred to as knowledge management systems.
Abstract: Knowledge is a broad and abstract notion that has defined epistemological debate in western philosophy since the classical Greek era. In the past few years, however, there has been a growing interest in treating knowledge as a significant organizational resource. Consistent with the interest in organizational knowledge and knowledge management (KM), IS researchers have begun promoting a class of information systems, referred to as knowledge management systems (KMS). The objective of KMS is to support creation, transfer, and application of knowledge in organizations. Knowledge and knowledge management are complex and multi-faceted concepts. Thus, effective development and implementation of KMS requires a foundation in several rich literatures.

9,531 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: This research suggests that a knowledge infrastructure consisting of technology, structure, and culture along with a knowledge process architecture of acquisition, conversion, application, and protection are essential organizational capabilities or "preconditions" for effective knowledge management.
Abstract: A hallmark of the new economy is the ability of organizations to realize economic value from their collection of knowledge assets as well as their assets of information, production distribution, and affiliation. Despite the competitive necessity of becoming a knowledge-based organization, senior managers have found it difficult to transform their firms through programs of knowledge management. This is particularly true if their organizations have long histories of process and a tradition of business success. This research examines the issue of effective knowledge management from the perspective of organizational capabilities. This perspective suggests that a knowledge infrastructure consisting of technology, structure, and culture along with a knowledge process architecture of acquisition, conversion, application, and protection are essential organizational capabilities or “preconditions” for effective knowledge management. Through analysis of surveys collected from over 300 senior executives, this research empirically models and uncovers key aspects of these dimensions. The results provide a basis for understanding the competitive predisposition of a firm as it enters a program of knowledge management.

4,646 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors explore the nature of value co-creation in the context of service-dominant (S-D) logic and develop a conceptual framework for understanding and managing value cocreation.
Abstract: Central to service-dominant (S-D) logic is the proposition that the customer becomes a co-creator of value. This emphasizes the development of customer–supplier relationships through interaction and dialog. However, research to date suggests relatively little is known about how customers engage in the co-creation of value. In this article, the authors: explore the nature of value co-creation in the context of S-D logic; develop a conceptual framework for understanding and managing value co-creation; and utilize field-based research to illustrate practical application of the framework. This process-based framework provides a structure for customer involvement that takes account of key foundational propositions of S-D logic and places the customer explicitly at the same level of importance as the company as co-creators of value. Synthesis of diverse concepts from research on services, customer value and relationship marketing into a new process-based framework for co-creation provide new insights into managing the process of value co-creation.

3,114 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors examined how aspects of intellectual capital influenced various innovative capabilities in organizations and found that human, organizational, and social capital and their interrelationships selectively influenced incremental and radical innovative capabilities.
Abstract: We examined how aspects of intellectual capital influenced various innovative capabilities in organizations. In a longitudinal, multiple-informant study of 93 organizations, we found that human, organizational, and social capital and their interrelationships selectively influenced incremental and radical innovative capabilities. As anticipated, organizational capital positively influenced incremental innovative capability, while human capital interacted with social capital to positively influence radical innovative capability. Counter to our expectations, however, human capital by itself was negatively associated with radical innovative capability. Interestingly, social capital played a significant role in both types of innovation, as it positively influenced incremental and radical innovative capabilities. It is widely accepted that an organization’s capability to innovate is closely tied to its intellectual capital, or its ability to utilize its knowledge resources. Several studies have underscored how new products embody organizational knowledge (e.g., Stewart, 1997), described innovation as a

3,008 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, the authors outline a perspective on knowing in practice which highlights the essential role of human action in knowing how to get things done in complex organizational work and suggest that the competence to do global product development is both collective and distributed, grounded in the everyday practices of organizational members.
Abstract: In this paper, I outline a perspective on knowing in practice which highlights the essential role of human action in knowing how to get things done in complex organizational work. The perspective suggests that knowing is not a static embedded capability or stable disposition of actors, but rather an ongoing social accomplishment, constituted and reconstituted as actors engage the world in practice. In interpreting the findings of an empirical study conducted in a geographically dispersed hightech organization, I suggest that the competence to do global product development is both collective and distributed, grounded in the everyday practices of organizational members. I conclude by discussing some of the research implications of a perspective on organizational knowing in practice.

2,670 citations