The Knowledge-Creating Company: How Japanese Companies Create the Dynamics of Innovation (Hardcover)

This book addresses the generation-old question of why the Japanese are so successful in business. The authors, professors of management at Hitosubashi University, contend that Japanese firms are successful because they are innovative, that is, because they create new knowledge and use it to produce successful products and technologies. They identify two types of organizational knowledge: explicit knowledge, contained in procedures and manuals, and tacit knowledge, learned only by experience. U.S. managers tend to focus on explicit knowledge and stress approaches such as benchmarking, while the Japanese focus on tacit knowledge. Using corporate examples such as Honda, NEC, Nissan, 3M, and GE, the authors provide insights that reveal how to blend the best of both worlds. This scholarly volume is highly recommended not only for academics (especially in organizational theory) but also for readers doing business in and with Japan.?Joseph W. Leonard, Miami Univ., Oxford, Ohio
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

"A fascinating, exciting exposure to a new way of thinking about the knowledge-based company....Provides a model of knowledge creation that will be a touchstone of future work in this field....This important, imaginative book will challenge and intrigue managers and management scholars alike."--D. Eleanor Westney, MIT Sloan School of Management in the Sloan Management Review

"A fascinating volume that will interest philosophers, managers, and more common readers....The analyses are so thorough that they make the one- and two-page descriptions in Forbes magazine seem like elementary fairy stories. The authors have done their research well and provide delightful details."--Minneapolis Star Tribune

"Knowledge creation is to the 90s what excellence was to the 80s. I can't imagine a better book on organizational design for innovation. Nor can I imagine a better common focus for managers and scholars. This is the best and most original blend of organizational theory and practice we are likely to see for some time."--Karl E. Weick, University of Michigan School of Business Administration

"This is the most creative book on management to come out of Japan. The same authors who introduced the rugby approach to new product development, now bring us a myriad of new concepts: tacit knowledge, the oneness of mind and body, middle-up-down management, hypertext organization, to name a few. The insights for this book originated in Japan, but the managerial implications are universal. It is a must read for managers competing in the borderless world."--Kenichi Ohmae, Ohmae and Associates

"Nonaka and Takeuchi take on a subject that is truly on the frontier of management: the process by which companies learn and create competitively valuable knowledge. What is refreshing about this book is that Nonaka and Takeuchi go beyond the slogans that have characterized much of the previous work on this subject, and delve into the specific organization structures and processes involved in organizational creativity and learning. They bring a wealth of specific, in-depth company evidence to bear on the task. The result is an important book which will advance both the literature as well as corporate practice."--Michael E. Porter, C. Roland Christensen Professor of Business Administration, Harvard University

"This book provides the best and deepest insights into how Japanese companies innovate. For the first time ever, Western managers will be able to learn how Honda, Canon, Matsushita, and others tap the intellectual capital of their workers to create and expand knowledge. At the same time, the book shows what Japanese managers are learning from Western companies to compete more effectively in the emerging 'knowledge society.' The book taps the best of two worlds like no other book I have ever read."--Yotaro Kobayashi, Chairman and CEO, Fuji Xerox Co., Ltd.

"The authors' major points are clear--and clearly contradict currently held business management theories."--Booklist

"...highly recommended...for readers doing business in and with Japan."--Library Journal