Global Organizational Knowledge Creation

Abstract

Abstract In the previous two chapters, we analyzed the management process and organizational structure most conducive to organizational knowledge creation. The knowledge-creating Japanese companies we encountered in the last four chapters-Honda, Canon, Matsushita, Kao, and Sharp-have gone increasingly global. This raises two questions. First, can the organizational knowledge-creation process used by these Japanese companies work outside of Japan? Second, what adjustments are necessary when Japanese companies start to work jointly with non-Japanese counterparts in a foreign country? The very ethnic and cultural homogeneity that has facilitated the sharing of rich tacit knowledge among the Japanese has the potential of becoming a competitive disadvantage in the ethnically and culturally diverse global economy. Japanese companies may not be able to manage that diversity. But the two cases in this chapter show that the organizational knowledge-creation process used by Japanese companies can work on a global scale, although some adjustments are necessary.