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

When the authors detail specific examples of knowledge creation, the reader's interest awakens. (The Wall Street Journal)

Nonaka and Tekuchi demonstrate for the reader how it is possible to transfer tacit knowledge into explicit, which in turn is used to create new knowledge. (Knowledge Management, June 2000)

Nonaka is indispensable. (Financial Times)

Nonaka and Takeuchi have written an academic study that summarises their theories and presents case studies illustrative to a western audience ... a guide to practitioners, based on materials for workshops and consultancy by the authors. (Financial Times)

Provides a perceptive and very relevant analysis of how Japanese companies go about creating new knowledge organizationally ... One of the most valuable new books I have covered ... for some time. (Long Range Planning)

The book, an esoteric mixture of philosophy and practical guidance, has been a business bestseller in the US. (Charles Leadbeater, Financial Times)

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.