Creating Knowledge More Consciously

The coauthor of 'Managing Flow: A Process Theory of the Knowledge-Based Firm', Tokyo-based business scholar Ikujiro Nonaka strives to help organizations create knowledge more consciously, drawing on Western and Eastern philosophic traditions. Nonaka summarizes and extends a body of work that could change the prevailing view of knowledge management to that of an enabler of in-depth learning. "Companies and leaders who treat knowledge management as just another branch of IT don't understand how human beings learn and create," he says. Unlike land, capital, energy, labor, and technology, knowledge is innately self-renewing. "It is produced and consumed simultaneously. Its value increases with use, rather than being depleted as with industrial goods or commodities. Above all, it is a resource created by humans acting in relationship with one another."

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