Hitotsubashi on Knowledge Management

A once-in-200-years shift is taking place today...from the Industrial Society to the Knowledge Society.

For one thing, the two societies differ in the -means of production? they utilize. In the Industrial Society, we relied on machinery, assembly line, and robots as the means of production. In the Knowledge Society, every member of society has the means of production within his or her head and hand. Head is used as a metaphor for ?explicit? knowledge. Hand is used as a metaphor for ?tacit? knowledge. Knowledge is made up of two opposites, namely explicit knowledge and tacit knowledge. This book shows that new knowledge is created through?synthesis,? which is a continuous and dynamic process that reconciles and transcends opposites.

For another, the two societies differ in the pace of change and the degree of complexity. We are living in very turbulent times and in a very complex world today. The more turbulent the times, the more complex the world, the more paradoxes there are. One of the main reasons that companies fail today is their tendency to kill paradoxes by sticking to old routines. Knowledge is the key to success in a world where only the paranoid survive. Since knowledge becomes obsolete as soon as it is created, new knowledge has to be created constantly and ubiquitously.

Written by leading professors at Tokyo?s Hitotsubashi University Graduate School of International Corporate Strategy, this book is a bold attempt to re-think management from a knowledge perspective. How should we think about strategy, organization, branding, global competition, or IT from the point of view of knowledge? Read on for new insights.

Dr. Takeuchi is the Dean of Hitotsubashi Business School in Tokyo, the world’s leading center of Knowledge Management. A Visiting Professor at Harvard University in 1989 and 1990, he has written over thirty articles for the Harvard Business Review, California Management Journal and Journal of Retailing. He co-authored Can Japan Compete? with Michael Porter and has been described by BusinessWeek as one of the Top 10 “management school professors for inhouse corporate education programs” in the world.

Dr. Nonaka is the Xerox Distinguished Professor in Knowledge Management at University of California, Berkeley and Professor of Hitotsubashi’s School of International Corporate Strategy. He is widely published in top journals and won Best Book of the Year Award in Business and Management in 1996 for The Knowledge Creating Company (Association of American Publishers) and Best Book Award in Management (Financial Times/Booz Allen & Hamilton) for Intellectualising Capability (1996).