is an influential writer and Professor Emeritus at
Hitotsubashi University is a national university specialised in the social sciences in Tokyo, Japan. The University has campuses in Kunitachi, Kodaira, and Kanda.Hitotsubashi is considered as one of the most prestigious universities in Japan. It is ranked 25th in the world in 2011 by École des Mines de Paris.Hitotsubashi...
Graduate School of International Corporate StrategyThe , also known by an acronym ICS, is the graduate business school of Hitotsubashi University in Tokyo, Japan. It is also referred to as "Hitotsubashi ICS". ICS is the first "professional graduate school" established in Japan...
; the First Distinguished Drucker Scholar in Residence at the Drucker School and Institute,
Claremont Graduate UniversityClaremont Graduate University is a private, all-graduate research university located in Claremont, California, a city east of downtown Los Angeles...
; the Xerox Distinguished Faculty Scholar, Institute of Management, Innovation and Organization,
University of California, BerkeleyThe University of California, Berkeley , is a teaching and research university established in 1868 and located in Berkeley, California, USA...
. He is best known for his study of
Knowledge ManagementKnowledge management comprises a range of strategies and practices used in an organization to identify, create, represent, distribute, and enable adoption of insights and experiences...
. He co-authored
The Knowledge-Creating Company with
Hirotaka Takeuchiis dean of the Graduate School of International Corporate Strategy at Hitotsubashi University in Tokyo and was a visiting professor at Harvard Business School in 1989 and 1990....
. In 2008, the Wall Street Journal listed him as one of the most influential persons on business thinking., and
The EconomistThe Economist is an English-language weekly news and international affairs publication owned by The Economist Newspaper Ltd. and edited in offices in the City of Westminster, London, England. Continuous publication began under founder James Wilson in September 1843...
included him in its "Guide to Management Ideas and Gurus".
Early Life
Nonaka was born in Tokyo in 1935 and as a child he lived the Japanese defeat during
World War IIWorld War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
. Due to his nationalist spirit, he considered that to avoid a new humiliation Japan should adapt his technological and organizational skills. In 1958 Nonaka received his B.S. in political science of
Waseda University, abbreviated as , is one of the most prestigious private universities in Japan and Asia. Its main campuses are located in the northern part of Shinjuku, Tokyo. Founded in 1882 as Tokyo Senmon Gakko, the institution was renamed "Waseda University" in 1902. It is known for its liberal climate...
and then he accepted a job in
Fuji Electric, operating under the brand name FE, is a Japanese holding company that retains manufacturing companies of pressure transmitters, flowmeters, gas analyzers, controllers, inverters, pumps, generators, ICs, motors, and power equipments.-History:...
where he initiated a management program. "Soon he was collaborating with the business school at
Keio University,abbreviated as Keio or Keidai , is a Japanese university located in Minato, Tokyo. It is known as the oldest institute of higher education in Japan. Founder Fukuzawa Yukichi originally established it as a school for Western studies in 1858 in Edo . It has eleven campuses in Tokyo and Kanagawa...
to develop a management curriculum for companies all over Japan." In 1967 he moved to US where in 1968 he obtained an MBA and in 1972 a PhD in Business Administration both at
University of California, BerkeleyThe University of California, Berkeley , is a teaching and research university established in 1868 and located in Berkeley, California, USA...
.
The New New Product Development Game
In the article "The New New Product Development Game" co-authored with Hiroaka Takeuchi a colleague at Hitotsubashi University, he discusses the new emphasis that must be put in speed and flexibility during the development of new products. This article is considered to be the one of the roots of the
Scrum development frameworkScrum is an iterative, incremental framework for project management often seen in agile software development, a type of software engineering....
, one of the most used
agile software developmentAgile software development is a group of software development methodologies based on iterative and incremental development, where requirements and solutions evolve through collaboration between self-organizing, cross-functional teams...
techniques.
The SECI ModelThe theory of organizational knowledge creation developed by Ikujiro Nonaka and his colleagues The theory of organizational knowledge creation developed by Ikujiro Nonaka and his colleagues The theory of organizational knowledge creation developed by Ikujiro Nonaka and his colleagues (Nonaka 1994;...
Professor Ikujiro Nonaka has proposed the SECI model, one of the most widely cited theories in
knowledge managementKnowledge management comprises a range of strategies and practices used in an organization to identify, create, represent, distribute, and enable adoption of insights and experiences...
, to present the spiraling knowledge processes of interaction between
explicit knowledgeExplicit knowledge is knowledge that has been or can be articulated, codified, and stored in certain media. It can be readily transmitted to others. The information contained in encyclopedias are good examples of explicit knowledge....
and
tacit knowledgeTacit knowledge is knowledge that is difficult to transfer to another person by means of writing it down or verbalising it. For example, stating to someone that London is in the United Kingdom is a piece of explicit knowledge that can be written down, transmitted, and understood by a recipient...
.
SECI:
- Socialization
- Externalization
- Combination
- Internalization
External links