Organizational Knowledge Creation

In the above quote, Nonaka, Toyama, et al. (2000) lay out their (then) unorthodox understanding of an organization as an institution centered on the creation and amplification of knowledge. This view strongly contrasts to the perception of traditional Western management of an “organization as a machine for ‘information processing’” (Nonaka and Takeuchi 1995). From these contradictory views on this topic in the Western and Japanese culture, Nonaka and Takeuchi (1995) depart to develop a theory of organizational knowledge centered on the social interplay of tacit and explicit knowledge. They describe four sequential knowledge conversion modes in a two-dimensional system formed by (a) tacit and explicit knowledge and by (b) the various organizational levels (individual, group, organization). Even its critics (Gourlay 2006) admit the quasi-paradigmatic status of the this theory and recognize it as one of the most influential approaches in organizational learning and knowledge management.