The knowledge creating company : How Japanese companies create the dynamics of innovation [printed text] / Ikujiro Nonaka, Author ; Hirotaka Takeuchi, Author . - New York : Oxford University Press, 1995 . - xii, 284 p. : ill. (b & w) ; 24 cm.
ISBN : 978-0-19-509269-1
Seeks an answer to the question: exactly what are the unique characteristics of Japanese firms in product development behaviour? This book concludes that Japanese firms uniquely manage knowledge, and they create it in the course of product development.

Class number:	658.4038
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 skillful 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.
Contents note:	1. Introduction to knowledge in organizations; 2. Knowledge and management; 3. Theory of organizational knowledge creation; 4. Creating knowledge in practice; 5. Middle-up-down management process for knowledge creation; 6. A new organizational structure; 7. Global organizational knowledge creation; 8. Managerial and theoretical implications