There is, I think, something ethereal about i —the square root of minus one. I remember first hearing about it at school. It seemed an odd beast at that time—an intruder hovering on the edge of reality.

Usually familiarity dulls this sense of the bizarre, but in the case of i it was the reverse: over the years the sense of its surreal nature intensified. It seemed that it was impossible to write mathematics that described the real world in …

I and i

How has Japan become a major economic power, a world leader in the automotive and electronics industries? What is the secret of their success? The consensus has been that, though the Japanese are not particularly innovative, they are exceptionally skilful at imitation, at improving products that already exist. But now two leading Japanese business experts, Ikujiro Nonaka and Hiro Takeuchi, turn this conventional wisdom on its head: Japanese firms are successful, they contend, precisely because they are innovative, because they create new knowledge and use it to produce successful products and technologies. Examining case studies drawn from such firms as Honda, Canon, Matsushita, NEC, 3M, GE, and the U.S. Marines, this book reveals how Japanese companies translate tacit to explicit knowledge and use it to produce new processes, products, and services.

The knowledge-creating company : how Japanese companies create the dynamics of innovation

How have Japanese companies become world leaders in the automotive and electronics industries, among others? What is the secret of their success? Two leading Japanese business experts, Ikujiro Nonaka and Hirotaka Takeuchi, are the first to tie the success of Japanese companies to their ability to create new knowledge and use it to produce successful products and technologies. In The Knowledge-Creating Company, Nonaka and Takeuchi provide an inside look at how Japanese companies go about creating this new knowledge organizationally. The authors point out that there are two types of knowledge: explicit knowledge, contained in manuals and procedures, and tacit knowledge, learned only by experience, and communicated only indirectly, through metaphor and analogy. U.S. managers focus on explicit knowledge. The Japanese, on the other hand, focus on tacit knowledge. And this, the authors argue, is the key to their success--the Japanese have learned how to transform tacit into explicit knowledge. To explain how this is done--and illuminate Japanese business practices as they do so--the authors range from Greek philosophy to Zen Buddhism, from classical economists to modern management gurus, illustrating the theory of organizational knowledge creation with case studies drawn from such firms as Honda, Canon, Matsushita, NEC, Nissan, 3M, GE, and even the U.S. Marines. For instance, using Matsushita's development of the Home Bakery (the world's first fully automated bread-baking machine for home use), they show how tacit knowledge can be converted to explicit knowledge: when the designers couldn't perfect the dough kneading mechanism, a software programmer apprenticed herself withthe master baker at Osaka International Hotel, gained a tacit understanding of kneading, and then conveyed this information to the engineers. In addition, the authors show that, to create knowledge, the best management style is neither top-down nor bottom-up, but rather what they call "middle-up-down," in which the middle managers form a bridge between the ideals of top management and the chaotic realities of the frontline. As we make the turn into the 21st century, a new society is emerging. Peter Drucker calls it the "knowledge society," one that is drastically different from the "industrial society," and one in which acquiring and applying knowledge will become key competitive factors. Nonaka and Takeuchi go a step further, arguing that creating knowledge will become the key to sustaining a competitive advantage in the future. Because the competitive environment and customer preferences changes constantly, knowledge perishes quickly. With The Knowledge-Creating Company, managers have at their fingertips years of insight from Japanese firms that reveal how to create knowledge continuously, and how to exploit it to make successful new products, services, and systems.

The knowledge-creating company

\"What are your assumptions (implicit as well as explicit) about the most effective way to manage people?\" So began Douglas McGregor in this 1960 management classic. It was a seemingly simple question he asked, yet it led to a fundamental revolution in management. Today, with the rise of the global economy, the information revolution, and the growth of knowledge-driven work, McGregor's simple but provocative question continues to resonate-perhaps more powerfully than ever before. Heralded as one of the most important pieces of management literature ever written, a touchstone for scholars and a handbook for practitioners, The Human Side of Enterprise continues to receive the highest accolades nearly half a century after its initial publication. Influencing such major management gurus such as Peter Drucker and Warren Bennis, McGregor's revolutionary Theory Y-which contends that individuals are self-motivated and self-directed-and Theory X-in which employees must be commanded and controlled-has been widely taught in business schools, industrial relations schools, psychology departments, and professional development seminars for over four decades. In this special annotated edition of the worldwide management classic, Joel Cutcher-Gershenfeld, Senior Research Scientist in MIT's Sloan School of Management and Engineering Systems Division, shows us how today's leaders have successfully incorporated McGregor's methods into modern management styles and practices. The added quotes and commentary bring the content right into today's debates and business models. Now more than ever, the timeless wisdom of Douglas McGregor can light the path towards a management style that nurtures leadership capability, creates effective teams, ensures internal alignment, achieves high performance, and cultivates an authentic, value-driven workplace--lessons we all need to learn as we make our way in this brave new world of the 21st century.

The Human Side of Enterprise.

This handbook looks to provide academics and students with a comprehensive and holistic understanding of the phenomenon of innovation. Innovation spans a number of fields within the social sciences and humanities: Management, Economics, Geography, Sociology, Politics, Psychology, and History. Consequently, the rapidly increasing body of literature on innovation is characterized by a multitude of perspectives based on, or cutting across, existing disciplines and specializations. Scholars of innovation can come from such diverse starting points that much of this literature can be missed, and so constructive dialogues missed. The editors of The Oxford Handbook of Innovation have carefully selected and designed twenty-one contributions from leading academic experts within their particular field, each focusing on a specific aspect of innovation. These have been organized into four main sections, the first of which looks at the creation of innovations, with particular focus on firms and networks. Section Two provides an account of the wider systematic setting influencing innovation and the role of institutions and organizations in this context. Section Three explores some of the diversity in the working of innovation over time and across different sectors of the economy, and Section Four focuses on the consequences of innovation with respect to economic growth, international competitiveness, and employment. An introductory overview, concluding remarks, and guide to further reading for each chapter, make this handbook a key introduction and vital reference work for researchers, academics, and advanced students of innovation. Contributors to this volume - Jan Fagerberg, University of Oslo William Lazonick, INSEAD Walter W. Powell, Stanford University Keith Pavitt, SPRU Alice Lam, Brunel University Keith Smith, INTECH Charles Edquist, Linkoping David Mowery, University of California, Berkeley Mary O'Sullivan, INSEAD Ove Granstrand, Chalmers Bjorn Asheim, University of Lund Rajneesh Narula, Copenhagen Business School Antonello Zanfei, Urbino Kristine Bruland, University of Oslo Franco Malerba, University of Bocconi Nick Von Tunzelmann, SPRU Ian Miles, University of Manchester Bronwyn Hall, University of California, Berkeley Bart Verspagen , ECIS Francisco Louca, ISEG Manuel M. Godinho, ISEG Richard R. Nelson, Mario Pianta, Urbino Bengt-Ake Lundvall, Aalborg

The Oxford Handbook of Innovation

Auditing best practice for effective product innovation management

Modern organisations are under ever increasing competitive pressure to maintain market share, enhance product range, improve efficiency and reduce cost. The process by which organisations attain these improvements is through innovation. Over recent years, significant research has focused on the issue of managing the process of developing ideas towards eventual organisational innovations. However, the process by which these ideas are generated and effectively managed is one which currently operates in an "ad hoc" fashion. This paper strives to present a structured and holistic approach to managing idea generation. A literary survey of both innovation and creativity is undertaken to determine their inter-relationships and core traits. Following this, a methodology is presented to facilitate the organisational management of the "Idea Generation" process. An integrated software tool to support the process is also introduced. The purpose of this tool is to provide an infrastructure for the effective management of ideas and their transfer to the larger innovation process.

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Idea management for organisational Innovation

Purpose – The paper aims to examine the theory of project and multiple project management and develop a framework tool to facilitate the management of a portfolio of multiple projects across an organisation and enhance the overall effectiveness of the process.Design/methodology/approach – The methodology adopted in this paper was first, to undertake a literature survey of the area and to distil the key elements affecting the management of multiple projects within organisations. A number of interrelated tools to support effective management are then developed and applied to a mall to medium‐sized enterprise (SME) to validate their applicability.Findings – The paper highlights that greater organisational efficiency and less conflict can be achieved through greater structure and understanding of the intricacies of managing multiple projects.Practical implications – Organisations can reduce the pressure imposed on staff as a result of the matrix structure by clearer deployment of strategies to projects and in...

Multiple project management: a modern competitive necessity

Business competitiveness and sustainability depends on the effective management of innovation. To be effective, innovation needs to take place within every area of an organisation and by association within organisational networks that include key suppliers, customers and other strategic partners. Distributed innovation management is the process of managing innovation both within and across networks of organisations that have come together to co-design, co-produce and co-service the needs of customers. As innovation collaboration spreads outside the reporting structures of any one organisation, its management faces new challenges that must be addressed if collaboration is to be successful. This paper presents a discussion on the relational capabilities that need to be nurtured if distributed innovation management is to occur. It introduces an integrated framework and tools to support innovation from the individual employees to the distributed network level. Finally, it presents a case study of distributed innovation between a consortium of six organisations within the biotechnology area.

Managing within distributed innovation networks

Manufacturing is increasingly about knowledge creation, learning, flexibility and continuous improvement. Consequently, knowledge in manufacturing is not only a matter of systems and management. According to Bloom’s taxonomy, the cognitive domain relates to mental skills (knowledge), the affective domain relates to growth in feelings or emotional areas (attitudes), while the psychomotor domain is concerned with manual or physical skills (skills). Knowledge management relates to business processes where the creation, transfer, and adaptation of knowledge are basic elements. A knowledge dimension that is similar to the ‘general world’ versus ‘arbitrary specialized world’, and that has been emphasized in the literature is the concept of ‘tacit knowledge’ versus ‘explicit knowledge’. This dimension suggests that there are two types of knowledge: tacit, which is embedded in the human brain and cannot be expressed easily and explicit knowledge, which can be easily codified. Both types of knowledge are important, but Western organizations have focused largely on managing explicit knowledge.

David O'Sullivan

Papers

Auditing best practice for effective product innovation management

Idea management for organisational Innovation

Multiple project management: a modern competitive necessity

Managing within distributed innovation networks

What is Knowledge