"Without real exchange, you can't create knowledge. Knowledge creation is a human activity" is taken from an interview in Strategy+Business. Instantly, readers in management recognize the soft voice of "Mr Knowledge" (The Economist). It is with great sadness we acknowledge the facts of life: Ikujiro Nonaka, a leading management scholar and global authority on organizational theory, knowledge creation, leadership and innovation, and humanizing business has moved on at the age of 89.
Over many years, Professor Nonaka, tirelessly gained and shared his deep insights into how knowledge emerges from the efforts of many people inside and outside organizations. In numerous articles and best-selling books, certain themes recur and evolve – scrum, tacit knowledge, the SECI model, enabling conditions, "ba" as the context in motion, practical wisdom, and dynamic duality. With each publication, talk, and interview he extended his thought leadership across all continents of the world.
Born in Tokyo on 10 May 1935, his experience growing up during the war convinced him that Japan needed to adapt to a modern social and economic reality. After graduating from Waseda University with a B.S. in political science, he joined Fuji Electric where he gained first-hand experience in developing managers. The management program Nonaka crafted intended to help Japanese managers learn about contemporary management and was later further developed and disseminated throughout Japan.
In 1967, Ikujiro Nonaka moved to Berkeley, California – crossing the Pacific for the first time by boat – where he earned an MBA and in 1972 a PhD in Business Administration at the University of California, Berkeley. After crossing the Pacific again to become an assistant professor at Nanzan University in 1971 and full professor in 1977. After moving to the National Defence Academy of Japan in 1979, he joined Hitotsubashi University in 1982 and published "The Essence of Failure" (1984, in Japanese, co-authored with Ryoichi Tobe, Yoshiya Teramoto, Shinichi Kawata, Takao Suginoo, Tomohide Murai) - a widely read analysis of why the war-time Japanese military organization was doomed to fail. He began developing a strong interest in the question of how companies innovate. Takeuchi and Nonaka's influential article entitled "The New New Product Development Game" (HBR, 1986) revealed the organizational structure and processes, the rugby-like scrum, that had begun fostering innovation in Japanese companies.
Since the 1980s, after the publications of "The Knowledge-Creating Company" (1991) in HBR the highly acclaimed book "The Knowledge-Creating Company: How Japanese Companies Create the Dynamics of Innovation" (OUP), co-authored with Hirotaka Takeuchi, in 1995, Nonaka began developing a deeper interest in the differences and complementarities of epistemology of the West and East. He repeatedly crossed many Oceans and became globally known as the 'guru' of knowledge-based management, having proposed several concepts and theories on organizational knowledge creation processes and leadership. A foundation for his theorizing is the "SECI model," which explains how an organization creates new knowledge, innovates, and transforms. Building on Polanyi's the notion of "tacit knowledge" his ground-breaking dynamic model of knowledge-based management emphasized people and revealed novel and transformative processes in times when organizational theory emphasized static model of management and organization. In 2000, with "Enabling Knowledge Creation: How to Unlock the Mystery of Tacit Knowledge and Release the Power of Innovation" (OUP), co-authored with Georg von Krogh and Kaz Ichijo, he further explained the conditions for proper application of SECI. Practical use of this theory of knowledge creation led to publications outside of business influencing governments and society in Japan and abroad, as its fundamental principles resonate on many levels and across many social and economic contexts. At the core, knowledge creation theory clarifies how a group of human beings empathize and experience situations with each other to create new values and meanings.
Integrating management and philosophy, Nonaka synthesized organizational knowledge creation bringing together concepts ranging from Aristotle's practical wisdom to Edmund Husserl's phenomenology. With zest and determination, Nonaka continued exploring the ideas of knowledge and wisdom incorporating different views, which lead to an evolution of his school of thought and a diffusion of many practical concepts. The conditions and technological systems that accelerate and improve the quality of knowledge creation including the concept of "ba" as shared context in motion, "hypertext organization," "wise leadership" based on Aristotle's phronesis, and "middle-up-down management" which aligns all members of an organization. Recently, his work advocated humanizing strategy, making the case that management and strategy are about " a way of life." At the core, he viewed human beings as dynamic and value-creating human beings, navigating "dynamic duality", instead of making reductionist choices.
Listing his accomplishments by counting his more than 70 books including books written in Japanese, the large numbers of publications and citations – his "A dynamic theory of organizational knowledge creation" (1994, Organization Science) alone is used by more than 33000 studies – goes against the spirit of his lifework. As voracious reader he filled libraries, as perceptive interviewer he convened with captains of industry, and as curious researcher his keen eye discerned what was noteworthy, where the discoveries lay.
He was also an institution builder leaving a rich living legacy. In 2000 he moved to join the School of International Corporate Strategy at Hitotsubashi University's Business School in central Tokyo, where he continued to lecture and conduct research as professor emeritus of Hitotsubashi University. In 2019, he co-authored "The Wise Company: How Companies Create Continuous Innovation" (OUP) with Hirotaka Takeuchi further expanding the SECI spiral and inspiring wise leadership. In the 21st century he became co-founder of the Knowledge Forum where he, Hirotaka Takeuchi and Kaz Ichijo nurtured corporate executives of leading companies such as Mitsui & Co and Honda together until 2024. In the meantime, Nonaka became the First Distinguished Drucker Scholar in Residence at the Drucker School and Institute, Claremont Graduate University and the Xerox Distinguished Faculty Scholar, Institute of Management, Innovation and Organization, UC Berkeley. His influence in Silicon Valley rapidly grew because of his "new new product development game", which inspired the "Scrum" method of agile software development.
As co-author, colleague and fierce friend, he was a rich source of inspiration to many scholars including Satoshi Akutsu, Ayano Hirose, Kaz Ichijo, Kimio Kase, Noboru Konno, Ken Kusunoki, Mitsuru Kodama, Akiya Nagata, Toshihiro Nishiguchi, Emi Osono, Dai Senoo, Yusaku Takeda, Hirotaka Takeuchi, Hisao Tomae, Ryoko Toyama, Katsuhiro Umemoto, Kota Uno, Seiichiro Yonekura, Ariane Berthoin Antal, Philippe Byosiere, Robert Chia, John Child, Fabio Corno, Meinolf Dierkes, Gunnar Hedlund, Robin Holt, Johny Johansson, Florian Kohlbacher, Georg von Krogh, Jay Ogilvy, Vesa Peltokorpi, Patrick Reinmoeller, David Teece, Sven Voelpel and more. A member of the board of several companies he has a strong impact and fostered the establishment of knowledge creation teams, units and departments. For example, at Eisai, a Japanese pharmaceutical company known for its fight against Alzheimer's disease, employees devote 1% of their working hours to the S of SECI. Socialization activities help all employees acquire tacit knowledge through direct experience.
Besides his influence among Japanese corporate leaders, Nonaka's theory became the core of an annual 10-day training program for governmental agencies in ASEAN countries. Over 11 years, 220 vice-ministers and director-generals have participated in the program, and 35 organizations in Southeast Asian countries have applied the program to their public administration. In eight countries (Indonesia, Thailand, the Philippines, Vietnam, Cambodia, Malaysia, Laos, and Myanmar), almost all organizations that play a central role in capacity building for senior government officials (central and local governments) and policy research have participated. Nonaka himself has directly lectured to approximately 1,900 government officials between 2004 and 2009. Other countries in Scandinavia, Italy, Spain, and China have also created their own institutions to research and disseminate knowledge creation theory.
The accolades for his development of a theory of Knowledge-based Management are plenty in the East and West. In 2002, he was conferred with a Purple Ribbon Medal by the Japanese government and elected a member of the Fellows Group of the Academy of Management in the United States, becoming the first Asian scholar among the Group's members. Nonaka was ranked number 20th in the Wall Street Journal's "Most Influential Business Thinkers (May 5, 2008)." In Autumn 2010, he was conferred with the Zuihōshō, or The Order of the Sacred Treasure, Gold Rays with Neck Ribbon, for outstanding achievement, and long service and contributions to education. In June 2012, Nonaka received the Eminent Scholar Award from the Academy of International Business (AIB). In November 2013, he was presented with the Lifetime Achievement Award by Thinkers50. He was elected as a member of the Japan Academy in January 2016. On the other side of the Pacific, Nonaka received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Haas School of Business at the University of California, Berkeley, on November 3, 2017, during his beloved school's annual gala. In 2023, Ikujiro Nonaka was awarded an Honorary Fellowship by the Peter Drucker Society Europe.
One of the many books he was invited to contribute to is "Great Minds in Management" (OUP). In the East and West, we all have lost one of the greatest minds in management of the last and this century, who knew humanity as the wellspring of innovation and wisdom.
Patrick Reinmoeller
Georg von Krogh
Kaz Ichijo
Kimio Kase
Emi Osono
Hirotaka Takeuchi
*Our apologies for cross posting*
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Patrick Reinmoeller
Georg von Krogh
Kaz Ichijo
Kimio Kase
Emi Osono
Hirotaka Takeuchi
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