Hirotaka Takeuchi

Nonaka Ikujiro

Both Professors of Management at the Institute of Business Research Hirotaka Takeuchi

Professor of Knowledge Ikujiro Nonaka

Ikujirō Nonaka

Ikujir o Nonaka

Looks at case studies from such firms as Honda, Canon, Matsushita, and NEC, and examines two types of business knowledge, explicit and tacit

How Japanese Companies Create the Dynamics of Innovation

The Knowledge-creating Company

Ikujiro Nonaka

High-velocity change is the fundamental challenge facing companies today. Few companies, however, are prepared to continuously innovate-because they focus on the short-term and do not emphasize the wisdom needed to make sure that their interests are aligned with those of society. Practical wisdom is the bases of continuous innovation, where companies ceaselessly and repeatedly creating new knowledge, disseminating it throughout the organization, and converting knowledge to action over time. In The Wise Company, legendary management experts Ikujiro Nonaka and Hirotaka Takeuchi highlight how various companies have confronted the challenge of rapid change to create new products and new ways of doing business that benefit employees, consumers, and society. The key: a relentless self-renewal process where companies realize the future they envisions, rather than only responding to changes in the environment. Nonaka and Takeuchi argue that while knowledge-creating companies focusing on tacit and explicit knowledge can generate innovation, they cannot create it on a continuous and ongoing basis without having wisdom about human interactions and how they influence organizational structures and practices. Companies that have resilience, longevity, and sustainability share a number of characteristics, Nonaka and Takeuchi show. Strategies are based on alignment of organizational and societal benefits. Leaders grasp the core of any situation or problem quickly, and intuitively comprehend the nature and meaning of people, things, and events. But wise leadership is not enough: wisdom must infuse the organization through informal as well as formal shared interactions and communications that focus on metaphors and stories that convey the essence and meaning of strategies and actions. In short, Nonaka and Takeuchi demonstrate how continuous innovation results from companies ceaselessly and repeatedly creating new knowledge, disseminating knowledge throughout the organization, and converting that knowledge to action. The Wise Company presents a new model of knowledge-creation and practice for the twenty-first century.

How Companies Create Continuous Innovation

The Wise Company

Poche sono le imprese capaci oggi di affrontare la sfida più importante: il cambiamento ad alta velocità. La maggior parte tende infatti a concentrarsi sul breve termine, senza assicurarsi che i loro interessi siano allineati con quelli della società. La chiave di volta per lo sviluppo di una innovazione continua è riuscire a sviluppare una saggezza pratica, plasmata dai valori, dall’etica e dalla morale. Le «imprese sagge» sono, dunque, quelle capaci di incidere sulle relazioni umane per infondere nuove conoscenze nelle pratiche organizzative, convertendole in azione e innovazione continua a livello individuale, aziendale e sociale. Gli autori – riconosciuti come i padri intellettuali del knowledge management, in particolare con l’opera fondamentale The knowledge creating company – declinano questa nuova teoria attraverso le storie di gruppi dinamici, longevi e sostenibili: da Honda a Shimano, da Eisai a Toyota, da Apple a MIT Media Lab. Il minimo comun denominatore di queste realtà è la qualità dei loro leader, che hanno saputo attivare le intere strutture di cui erano a capo per creare nuovi prodotti e nuovi processi, dai quali si sono generati benefici per i collaboratori, i clienti, la comunità e la società. Emerge un modello di leadership umano-centrica, capace di innescare circoli virtuosi di creazione di conoscenza e di attivare l’innovazione quale leva del cambiamento: una leadership che si estende ai vari livelli organizzativi e in grado di generare interazioni efficaci e comunicazioni condivise.

L’impresa saggia. Come le imprese creano l’innovazione continua

Peter F Drucker

Aurelia George Mulgan

Yoichi Funabashi

Michael E Porter

Milton Ezrati

Edward J Lincoln

Morihiro Hosokawa

Nicholas D Kristof

M Diana Helwig

Leonard J Schoppa

William H Overholt

The United States and Japan

Emi Osono

Norihiko Shimizu

Extreme Toyota offers the first real, comprehensive inside look at what makes one of the world?s best companies run. With unprecedented access to the inner working of Toyota, the authors spent six years researching the company, interviewing hundreds of executives and employees, and discovering the company's secret of success. What they uncovered will surprise you and change the way you think about business. Simultaneously rigidly traditional and seriously innovative, it is precisely those internal contradictions that make the company so successful and admired.

Radical Contradictions That Drive Success at the World's Best Manufacturer

Extreme Toyota

Hirotaka Takeuchi

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