The knowledge Creating Company

THE KNOWLEDGE CREATING COMPANY
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(30September 2010)
The knowledge Creating Company
Main thesis or argument of the article
Nonaka, & Takeuchi, 1995 in the book the knowledge-creating company contributes to the idea of knowledge and the role it plays in business organizations. He tries to explain the long term strategy that a company can use in order to stay in business even when the business is faced by market shifts, proliferation of technology, intense competition, and obsolete products among other challenges (Collins, 2001). He tries to bring out the importance of knowledge to a company and how to use it to remain at a competitive advantage.
The traditional systems of western management that view an organization as a mechanism of processing information and the ideas that knowledge can only be useful if it is formal and systematic are challenged by the article. The traditional views of evaluating the value for knowledge as similar which are hard and quantifiable i.e. increased efficiency, improved return on investments, and lower costs is also challenged by introducing a different view of knowledge and its uses to make a business successful.
The paper gives clear examples of successful competitive companies found in Japan i.e. Honda, Canon, Sharp, NEC, Kao, and Matsushita and their ability to use knowledge in their quest to satisfy customers, developing new products rapidly, and introducing dominant new technologies. Their success is pegged on the distinctive approach in managing creation of new knowledge. This is explained by the use of the spiral of knowledge which explains the integration of the tacit and explicit to bring about success. The authors use socialization, externalization, combination, and internalization (SECI) as the means to organizational success that explains knowledge source and creation (Nonaka, & Takeuchi, 1995).
This Japanese approach has time and again been criticized by western managers who regard it as odd and incomprehensible. Despite this criticism harnessing knowledge of the company can create long term growth and thus the company remains afloat despite of any turmoil’s that may appear.
Why did the authors write the paper?
The paper is written for one basic purpose, it intends to challenge the western concepts of uses of knowledge in managing a business and introduce more dynamic approaches in which knowledge can be utilized to ensure the business remains competitive and profitable at all times. The author gives a long term solution to competition that enables a company utilize knowledge to have a competitive advantage. He compares Japanese companies that have adopted this system and have become leaders in their industry (Marescaux, 1997).
The author gives an example of the slogan “Theory of Automobile Evolution” Nonaka, & Takeuchi, 1995 leads to a design concept that is meaningful and thus steering Honda to produce an urban car...