PurposeThis paper reviews the development of knowledge creation theory in the last quarter-century and how it has contributed to innovation management and looks into social and human aspects of innovation in the era of “Society 5.0”.Design/methodology/approachThis research aims to relate basic theoretical concepts: knowledge creation and knowledge assets, purpose, leadership, and place (Ba) for innovation to drive innovation and its management as a whole ecosystem. It also discusses the application to innovation management systems open innovation, and social innovation.FindingsToday's innovation demands socio-economic fusion that goes beyond current corporate boundaries. By preparing the system (knowledge ecosystem) as the basis, we could build the bridge, and such fusion would be possible.Research limitations/implicationsThis paper shows the framework of the idea. Evidence-based research based on “knowledge assessment” will be discussed on another occasion.Originality/valueThis research is to explain knowledge management, innovation, and social innovation beyond the corporate framework.

Drawing on Alasdair MacIntyre's book, After Virtue, we criticize current approaches to business ethics and corporate social responsibility. Both Kantian approaches that stress the importance of good intentions, and utilitarian approaches that stress the importance of good results come under MacIntyre's critique, as do Moore's ethical intuitionism and Stevenson's emotivism. In their place, a return to Aristotle shows us the importance of good habits, good practices, and the unity of the several virtues. The example of Winston Churchill is used to illustrate virtue-based leadership.

In the face of increasing uncertainty and changes, corporations must dynamically examine their business environment and activate the knowledge creation process in a future-oriented manner without getting hung up on analyzing their past (much like driving a car using only the rear-view mirror). In the previous article, we discussed the basics of scenario planning. We should not use this tool as a mere technique. Our knowledge of the world and the environment around us is important because it underlies our scenarios. When we look toward the future in an uncertain environment, we necessarily create knowledge proactively. Scenario planning and knowledge creation are commonplace when working on knowledge of innovations that shape the future. In this article we focus on the importance of having “scenario mind,” the philosophy underlying scenario planning. With any managerial tool, you cannot create real knowledge if you use only superficial know-how, like procedures described in manuals, to seek quick results. In the following sections, we discuss how scenario planning must be recognized as a “discipline of knowledge” to be embedded as a way of thinking and behavioral pattern of each individual or organization, not as a mere tool.

This issue pulls together the work of three authors from Japan and the United States, coagulating a collaboration that extends more than a decade. While Ogilvy is the main wordsmith in English, he ...

This article covers the basics of scenario planning: Why scenarios? What are scenarios? How do you develop scenarios? After covering the preliminaries—the constitution of the scenario team; interviews; research; the identification of a focal issue; set and setting for a scenario workshop; staffing; the trajectory of a scenario planning project—the article moves on to describe several methods for identifying a finite set of diverse scenario logics. After a set of scenarios has been developed, there are several different routes from scenarios to strategy. Early indicators can help identify which of several scenarios is in fact unfolding.

Strategic planning exercises often begin with the observation, "We need a better story to tell." We argue that this is not just a figure of speech but that the narrative form is uniquely appropriate to both the development and the effective communication of good strategies. Drawing on recent literature in the relatively new field of narratology, we argue that the temporal structure of stories allows for a reach into the future that evidence-based, analytic approaches cannot achieve. The case of Nakamura's turnaround at Matsushita/Panasonic is cited as an example of narrative strategy.

This essay contributes to Dr. Ikujiro Nonaka’s knowledge creation theory and in particular what Peter Ducker termed a theory for a post-capitalist society. The following four sections look back over thirty years from the beginning of the Japan miracle and current management theory as the development of the knowledge creation theory. It concludes with the author’s proposal of ‘purpose engineering’.

Everyone talks about innovation; but these days, even that concept has changed. Essentially, companies need to make a shift from an analytical to a creative model—from the pursuit of innovation as basically a product‐driven concept, to the idea of innovation as the day‐to‐day practice of all members of an organization.

The five floral characters, i.e., number of pollen grains per flower, pollen grain diameter, anther length, number of ovules per flower and pollen-ovule ratio (P/O), were studied oil 119 strains of 53 species in Brassica and allied genera with respect to the breeding system. There were large variations in all five characters among species, especially the number of pollen grains, number of ovules per flower and P/Os showed larger variations. The values range widely from 23-24 x 10(4) of Eruca spp. to 0.3 x 10(4) of Diplotaxis viminea and from 19800 of Hutera rupestris to 100 of D. viminea in the number of pollen grains and P/Os, respectively. The P/O was significantly correlated to the energy cost per flower. Both indices were closely related with the breeding system of species. The lowest P/Os and the smallest energy costs were found in the obligate autogamous species, while the xenogamous species showed higher and larger, but more fluctuating P/Os and energy costs. In the facultative autogamous amphidiploid species in Brassica crops, both P/Os and energy costs per flower were similar to those of xenogamous species; however, P/Os were lower than their xenogamous parental species. The relationships of P/Os with natural selection are also discussed.

Stereoselective reductive metabolism of various p-substituted acetophenone derivatives was studied using isolated rat liver 3alpha-hydroxysteroid dehydrogenase (3alpha-HSD). Kinetic experiments were performed and analyzed by measuring the products by HPLC using a chiral column. The results demonstrated that the presence of an electron-withdrawing substituent on the benzene ring plays an important role in determining the reduction rate in the syntheses of various (S)-alcohols from their corresponding carbonyl compounds. A plot of log {(V(max)/K(m))X/(V(max)/K(m))H} versus the substituent parameter (pi, sigma(para), Es) shows an increasing rate mainly for electron-withdrawing substituents, with a correlation coefficient (r(2)) of 0.97 which was obtained for triplicate data that were significant at the p<0.0001 level. With this in mind, new drugs can be designed that exploit this reduction pathway by introducing an electron-withdrawing group adjacent to the reduction site when a reduction reaction is desired, or by adding an electron-donating group when minimization of the reduction pathway is desired.

The concept of ba was originally proposed by the Japanese philosopher Kitaro Nishida and was further developed by Shimizu.' Although our concept of ba draws extensively from these works, we have adapted it for the purpose of elaborating our model of knowledge creation. For those unfamiliar with the concept, ba can be tbought of as a shared space for emerging relationships. This space can be physical (e.g., office, dispersed business space), virtual (e.g., e-mail, teleconference), mental (e.g., shared experiences, ideas, ideals), or any combination of them. What differentiates ba from ordinary human interaction is the concept of knowledge creation. Ba provides a platform for advancing individual and/or collective knowledge. It is from such a platform that a transcendental perspective integrates all information needed. Ba may also be tbought of as the recognition of the self in all. According to the theory of existentialism, ba is a context which harbors meaning. Thus, we consider ba to be a shared space that serves as a foundation for knowledge creation.

Acetylpyridines (1-3) are known as aroma components of foods, perfumes, and smoking suppressants, showing several biological activities and constituting part of the structure of some important biologically active compounds. We purified and characterized an enzyme that catalyzes the stereoselective reduction of acetylpyridines so that we could clarify its function. The enzyme participating in the reductive metabolism of 4-acetylpyridine (1) in the rat liver was purified by successively applying ammonium sulfate fractionation, anion-exchange, gel filtration, and affinity chromatography, and it was definitively identified as 3alpha-HSD. It preferentially reduced acetylpyridines (1-3) and acetophenone (7) to their corresponding (S)-alcohols, with high enantioselectivity. Kinetic analyses of the compounds were performed, and the V(max)/K(m) values decreased in the order of 4-, 2-, and 3-acetylpyridine (1, 3, 2), while acetophenone (7) showed almost the same value as 3-acetylpyridine (2). These results suggested that the reduction of the substrates by 3alpha-HSD is affected by the nitrogen atom in the aromatic ring.

In Brassica species, alloplasmic lines displaying cytoplasmic male sterility (CMS) are established by combining the nucleus from B. rapa with the cytoplasm from Diplotaxis muralis. The failure to observe restriction fragment length polymorphism (RFLP) patterns of mitochondrial genes (coxII, coxIII, atpA, atp6, atp9, cob, nad3, nad6, and nad9) between alloplasmic lines of B. rapa and D. muralis indicates that introgression of the B. rapa nucleus into the cytoplasm of D. muralis does not cause any alterations in the structure of the mitochondrial genome. To investigate how the nucleus influences the cytoplasm, we examined the expression of mitochondrial genes in the leaves of euplasmic and alloplasmic lines of B. rapa and D. muralis. We detected higher levels of mitochondrial gene mRNAs in alloplasmic lines of B. rapa than in D. muralis. Patterns of mitochondrial gene transcription also differed among the alloplasmic lines of B. rapa. Thus, expression of mitochondrial genes in alloplasmic lines of B. rapa differed in the leaves compared to D. muralis. Overexpression of mitochondrial genes may be the result of novel interactions between the nucleus and the mitochondria in alloplasmic lines of B. rapa. Further study is necessary to clarify how these phenomena are involved in CMS.

Abstract In recent years, the importance of knowledge as a source of sustainable competitive advantage has been discussed by a myriad of authors (Drucker, 1993; Leonard-Barton, 1992; Nelson, 1991; Prahalad and Hamel, 1990; Quinn, 1992; Sveiby, 1997; Teece, Pisano, and Shuen, 1990; Toffler, 1990). Knowledge is undoubtedly an indispensable resource to create value for the next generation of society, industries, and companies.

Despite the widely recognised importance of knowledge as a vital source of competitive advantage, there is little understanding of how organisations actually create and manage knowledge dynamically. Nonaka, Toyama and Konno start from the view of an organisation as an entity that creates knowledge continuously, and their goal in this article is to understand the dynamic process in which an organisation creates, maintains and exploits knowledge. They propose a model of knowledge creation consisting of three elements: (i) the SECI process, knowledge creation through the conversion of tacit and explicit knowledge; (ii) `ba', the shared context for knowledge creation; and (iii) knowledge assets, the inputs, outputs and moderators of the knowledge-creating process. The knowledge creation process is a spiral that grows out of these three elements; the key to leading it is dialectical thinking. The role of top management in articulating the organisation's knowledge vision is emphasised, as is the important role of middle management (`knowledge producers') in energising ba. In summary, using existing knowledge assets, an organisation creates new knowledge through the SECI process that takes place in ba, where new knowledge, once created, becomes in turn the basis for a new spiral of knowledge creation. = 2000 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.

Despite the widely recognised importance of knowledge as a vital source of competitive advantage, there is little understanding of how organisations actually create and manage knowledge dynamically. Nonaka, Toyama and Konno start from the view of an organisation as an entity that creates knowledge continuously, and their goal in this article is to understand the dynamic process in which an organisation creates, maintains and exploits knowledge. They propose a model of knowledge creation consisting of three elements: (i) the SECI process, knowledge creation through the conversion of tacit and explicit knowledge; (ii) ‘ba’, the shared context for knowledge creation; and (iii) knowledge assets, the inputs, outputs and moderators of the knowledge-creating process. The knowledge creation process is a spiral that grows out of these three elements; the key to leading it is dialectical thinking. The role of top management in articulating the organisation's knowledge vision is emphasised, as is the important role of middle management (‘knowledge producers’) in energising ba. In summary, using existing knowledge assets, an organisation creates new knowledge through the SECI process that takes place in ba, where new knowledge, once created, becomes in turn the basis for a new spiral of knowledge creation.