http://wildside.ipapercms.dk/SLFonden/SLforlagene/CBSPress/Titler/Creatingknowledgeadvantage/RSS.ashxiPaper PagesTue, 30 Mar 2010 09:03:51 +0200http://wildside.ipapercms.dk/SLFonden/SLforlagene/CBSPress/Titler/Creatingknowledgeadvantage/http://wildside.ipapercms.dk/SLFonden/SLforlagene/CBSPress/Titler/Creatingknowledgeadvantage/?Page=1http://wildside.ipapercms.dk/SLFonden/SLforlagene/CBSPress/Titler/Creatingknowledgeadvantage/?Page=1Nigel Holden & Martin Glisby Creating Knowledge Advantage The Tacit Dimensions of International Competition and Cooperation COPENHAGEN BUSINESS SCHOOL PRESS2010-03-30T09:03:51+02:00http://wildside.ipapercms.dk/SLFonden/SLforlagene/CBSPress/Titler/Creatingknowledgeadvantage/?Page=2http://wildside.ipapercms.dk/SLFonden/SLforlagene/CBSPress/Titler/Creatingknowledgeadvantage/?Page=22010-03-30T09:03:51+02:00http://wildside.ipapercms.dk/SLFonden/SLforlagene/CBSPress/Titler/Creatingknowledgeadvantage/?Page=3http://wildside.ipapercms.dk/SLFonden/SLforlagene/CBSPress/Titler/Creatingknowledgeadvantage/?Page=3Creating Knowledge Advantage The Tacit Dimensions of International Competition and Cooperation Nigel Holden and Martin Glisby Copenhagen Business School Press2010-03-30T09:03:51+02:00http://wildside.ipapercms.dk/SLFonden/SLforlagene/CBSPress/Titler/Creatingknowledgeadvantage/?Page=4http://wildside.ipapercms.dk/SLFonden/SLforlagene/CBSPress/Titler/Creatingknowledgeadvantage/?Page=4Creating Knowledge Advantage The Tacit Dimensions of International Competition and Cooperation © Copenhagen Business School Press, 2010 Printed in Denmark by Narayana Press, Gylling Typeset: SL grafik Cover design by Klahr│Graphic Design 1st edition 2010 ISBN 978-87-630-0230-1 Publishers’ acknowledgements We are grateful to John Wiley & Sons to reproduce figures 3.1 and 3.4, which first appeared in their publication Knowledge and Process Management. Grateful acknowledgement is made to all those sources which have granted permission to reproduce in this book material previously published elsewhere. Every effort has been made to trace copyright holders, but if any have been inadvertently overlooked, the publisher will be pleased to make the necessary arrangements at the first opportunity. Distribution: Scandinavia DBK, Mimersvej 4 DK-4600 Køge, Denmark Tel +45 3269 7788 Fax +45 3269 7789 North America International Specialized Book Services 920 NE 58th Street, Suite 300 Portland, OR 97213-3786 Tel +1 800 944 6190 Fax +1 503 280 8832 Email: orders@isbs.com Rest of the World Marston Book Services, P.O. Box 269 Abingdon, Oxfordshire, OX14 4YN, UK Tel +44 (0) 1235 465500 Fax +44 (0) 1235 465655 Email: client.orders@marston.co.uk All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or used in any form or by any means - graphic, electronic or mechanical including photocopying, recording, taping or information storage or retrieval systems - without permission in writing from Copenhagen Business School Press at www.cbspress.dk2010-03-30T09:03:51+02:00http://wildside.ipapercms.dk/SLFonden/SLforlagene/CBSPress/Titler/Creatingknowledgeadvantage/?Page=5http://wildside.ipapercms.dk/SLFonden/SLforlagene/CBSPress/Titler/Creatingknowledgeadvantage/?Page=5Table of ConTenTs List of figures, tAbLes And textboxes · 9 foreWord · 11 REFERENCES · 15 introduCtion · 17 THE BOOK CONCEPT IN BRIEF · 17 THE STRUCTURE OF THE BOOK · 20 MEETING AN UNUSUAL CHALLENGE FROM IBM · 20 LANGUAGE · 21 A BOOK WITH MBA STUDENTS IN MIND · 22 REFERENCES · 23 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS · 24 chapter 1 KnoWLedge MAnAgeMent: PrACtiCes, ProPositions or A PHiLosoPHY? · 27 OBJECTIVES OF THIS CHAPTER · 27 INTRODUCTION · 27 KNOWLEDGE AND KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT · 31 TACIT KNOWLEDGE · 40 ARTICULATION · 47 TACIT KNOWLEDGE: THE MIGHTY CLAIMS · 48 REFERENCES · 50 chapter 2 KnoWLedge MAnAgeMent’s goLden triAngLe · 57 OBJECTIVES OF THIS CHAPTER · 57 INTRODUCTION · 57 MODE, MEANS AND MECHANISM · 60 THE JAPANESE LANGUAGE AND TACIT KNOWLEDGE · 632010-03-30T09:03:51+02:00http://wildside.ipapercms.dk/SLFonden/SLforlagene/CBSPress/Titler/Creatingknowledgeadvantage/?Page=6http://wildside.ipapercms.dk/SLFonden/SLforlagene/CBSPress/Titler/Creatingknowledgeadvantage/?Page=6OTHER LANGUAGES AND TACIT KNOWLEDGE · 64 KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT AND THE INTERPLAY OF THE WORLD’S LANGUAGES · 67 REFERENCES · 68 chapter 3 tACit KnoWLedge: WHY trAnsfer is trAnsLAtion · 71 OBJECTIVES OF THIS CHAPTER · 71 INTRODUCTION · 71 TRANSFER AND TRANSLATION · 72 USEFUL CONCEPTS FROM TRANSLATION THEORY · 75 MODELLING KNOWLEDGE TRANSFER AS TRANSLATION · 84 TRANSLATABILITY AND CONVERTIBILITY · 89 BACK TO TACIT KNOWLEDGE · 90 REFERENCES · 92 chapter 4 exPLoring tACit KnoWLedge in firMs’ CrossCuLturAL interACtions: HAZArds And CAutions · 97 OBJECTIVES OF THIS CHAPTER · 97 INTRODUCTION · 97 REFERENCES · 112 chapter 5 CAse studY 1: siMPLY tHe grouP: CreAting A KnoWLedge-bAsed CHinese brAnd · 115 PART 1: THE COMPANY BACKGROUND, PHILOSOPHY, BUSINESS GROWTH · 115 THE COMPANY BACKGROUND · 116 PART 2: INTERPRETATION FOR KNOWLEDGE INSIGHTS · 134 REFERENCES · 139 chapter 6 CAse studY 2: denso CorPorAtion: CreAting sPirit for Cutting-edge teCHnoLogY · 1412010-03-30T09:03:51+02:00http://wildside.ipapercms.dk/SLFonden/SLforlagene/CBSPress/Titler/Creatingknowledgeadvantage/?Page=7http://wildside.ipapercms.dk/SLFonden/SLforlagene/CBSPress/Titler/Creatingknowledgeadvantage/?Page=7PART 1: THE COMPANY BACKGROUND, THE DENSO SPIRIT · 141 PART 2: INTERPRETATION FOR KNOWLEDGE INSIGHTS · 172 REFERENCES · 178 chapter 7 CAse studY 3: noVo nordisK: trAnsLAting KnoWLedge for More KnoWLedge · 181 PART 1: NOVO NORDISK: COMPANY BACKGROUND AND THE CONCEPT OF FACILITATION · 181 PART 2: INTERPRETATION FOR KNOWLEDGE INSIGHTS · 196 REFERENCES · 202 chapter 8 CAse studY 4: oLe LYnggAArd CoPenHAgen: CreAting KnoWLedge AdVAntAge · 203 PART 1: THE COMPANY BACKGROUND, APPLYING A KNOWLEDGE-BASED APPROACH · 203 PART 2: INTERPRETATION FOR KNOWLEDGE INSIGHTS · 214 REFERENCES · 218 chapter 9 tACit KnoWLedge: Codes And underCurrents · 221 OBJECTIVES OF THIS CHAPTER · 221 PRELIMINARY REFLECTIONS ON THE FOUR CASE STUDIES · 221 INFORMANT COMPANIES’ REACTIONS TO THE CASE STUDIES · 222 REFLECTIONS ON METHODOLOGY · 223 TACIT KNOWLEDGE: PROPOSITIONS FOR INSIGHTS · 224 TACIT KNOWLEDGE AND MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS · 235 TACIT KNOWLEDGE AND TRUST · 237 TACIT KNOWLEDGE: THE TIME FACTOR · 239 DEMARCATING RATHER THAN DEFINING TACIT KNOWLEDGE · 240 DIMLY PERCEIVED UNDERCURRENTS AND STRANGE CODES · 2412010-03-30T09:03:51+02:00http://wildside.ipapercms.dk/SLFonden/SLforlagene/CBSPress/Titler/Creatingknowledgeadvantage/?Page=8http://wildside.ipapercms.dk/SLFonden/SLforlagene/CBSPress/Titler/Creatingknowledgeadvantage/?Page=8BACK TO KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT VIA ARISTOTLE · 243 REFERENCES · 245 chapter 10 CreAting KnoWLedge AdVAntAge · 247 OBJECTIVES OF THIS CHAPTER · 247 TACIT KNOWLEDGE AND THE MIGHTY CLAIMS MADE FOR IT · 249 CREATING KNOWLEDGE ADVANTAGE · 250 THE CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK · 251 CREATING COUPLING: INDIVIDUAL-ORGANISATION · 252 CREATING COUPLING: ORGANISATION-NETWORK · 254 CREATING COUPLING: NETWORK-INDIVIDUAL · 255 THE SPIRALLING PROCESS · 256 FINAL REFLECTIONS · 257 REFERENCES · 258 AfterWord · 259 THE STRANGE DIFFICULTY OF ARTICULATION · 259 APPendix i · 261 THE HOLDEN-GLISBY PROPOSITIONS OF TACIT KNOWLEDGE IN CROSS-CULTURAL INTERACTIONS · 261 index · 2632010-03-30T09:03:51+02:00http://wildside.ipapercms.dk/SLFonden/SLforlagene/CBSPress/Titler/Creatingknowledgeadvantage/?Page=9http://wildside.ipapercms.dk/SLFonden/SLforlagene/CBSPress/Titler/Creatingknowledgeadvantage/?Page=9List of figures, tAbLes And textboxes List of figures 1.1 The tacit and explicit domains of the knowledge spectrum . 42 1.2 The knowledge creation spiral devised by McKenzie and van Winkelen . 46 2.1 Three dimensions of tacit knowledge conversion . 61 2.2 Knowledge management’s golden triangle . 67 3.1 Model of knowledge transfer as translation . 85 3.2 Four modes of knowledge creation . 86 3.3 Knowledge creation and competitive advantage . 88 3.4 Extended model of knowledge transfer as translation incorporating the Nonaka-Takeuchi SECI concepts. 89 4.1 The sub-strategic knowledge level . 104 6.1 Three interrelated aspects of quality . 150 6.2 Swedish cultural baggage according to Takasu . 154 6.3 Japanese and Swedish companies according to Takasu . 155 6.4 Takasu’s representation of the contrasts between DENSO’s organisational form and Swedish industrial organisational forms . 156 6.5 Knowledge creation in DENSO CORPORATION incorporating DENSO Spirit and the DENSO Way . 174 6.6 Knowledge creation in DENSO CORPORATION incorporating DENSO Spirit and the DENSO Way, showing two weak interfaces . 176 7.1 The Facilitator reporting process . 192 7.2 SECI-style cross-cultural knowledge creation and sharing in Novo Nordisk via facilitation events . 201 8.1 The sōkyaku system . 213 8.2 Creating knowledge advantage . 215 9.1 Seven aspectual dimensions of context . 228 9.2 The sub-strategic level . 232 9.3 Interplay of tacit and explicit knowledge under the constraints of ambiguity, cultural interference and lack of equivalence . 236 10.1 Model of network knowledge creation . 252 List of tables 2.1 Indexed references to tacit knowledge in a cross-section of books on2010-03-30T09:03:51+02:00http://wildside.ipapercms.dk/SLFonden/SLforlagene/CBSPress/Titler/Creatingknowledgeadvantage/?Page=10http://wildside.ipapercms.dk/SLFonden/SLforlagene/CBSPress/Titler/Creatingknowledgeadvantage/?Page=10knowledge management . 59 3.1 Four phases of knowledge creation . 87 List of textboxes 1.1 Various definitions of and commentaries on explicit knowledge . 35 1.2 Knowledge management: some contrasting emphases . 37 1.3 Tact knowledge in various languages . 41 1.4 Tacit knowledge and modes of social interaction . 45 3.1 Translate/transfer: etymological soulmates . 73 3.2 A text in a foreign language for testing deductive capacity . 74 4.1 Guanxi: Just a joke . 102 4.2 Summary of informant companies and tacit knowledge focus . 106 5.1 A brief guide to Simply the Group in Shanghai and locations . 117 6.1 DENSO Group’s basic strategy . 147 7.1 The vision of the Novo Nordisk Way of Management . 185 7.2 Profile of a senior Facilitator . 186 7.3 Major internal and external challenges facing Novo Nordisk . 190 7.4 Extract from Facilitator evaluation form . 193 7.5 Translation tasks and Facilitator solutions . 198 8.1 Simplified version of a Japanese wedding company’s checklist . 208 9.1 Tacit knowledge as the critical link between a trusting atmosphere and motivation . 237 9.2 Undercurrent and codes in our informant companies . 2422010-03-30T09:03:51+02:00http://wildside.ipapercms.dk/SLFonden/SLforlagene/CBSPress/Titler/Creatingknowledgeadvantage/?Page=11http://wildside.ipapercms.dk/SLFonden/SLforlagene/CBSPress/Titler/Creatingknowledgeadvantage/?Page=11Introduction introduCtion ‘How important is tacit knowledge to you and the way you handle relationships?’ ‘Oh, very important’, replied the well-travelled manager, surveying Seoul from his office on the twenty-fourth floor of the Kyobo Tower. ‘Can you give some examples?’ we enquired. The well-travelled manager opened his mouth and produced no sound, much less an example. This tiny episode perfectly represents Michael Polanyi’s (1967) famous dictum ‘we know more than we can tell’, whilst highlighting a strange problem: we are unable to spontaneously articulate knowledge that we take for granted. And with this episode we launch this book – yes, yet another book on knowledge management (KM), but one with some important differences, as will become evident. Our nominal focus is tacit knowledge and its role in crosscultural business relationships. tHe booK ConCePt in brief From the very conception of the book we were concerned that tacit knowledge tends to be seen as a somewhat static organisational resource and not as an elusive, mutable resource that resides in practices, which are products of, as well as influence, cross-cultural interactions within arrays of corporate networks. We were aware, too, that there exists a tendency to view tacit knowledge as a conceptual opposite of explicit knowledge and to undervalue and misappreciate it for its very lack of specificity. Yet, for all that, tacit knowledge is variously viewed – indeed glorified – by some as a key to competitive advantage, a mysterious flux that facilitates innovation, and even as management’s Holy Grail. To test these and other contentions, we proposed to gather material from several internationally operating corporations about many kinds of cross-cultural situations in which tacit knowledge exercises, directly or indirectly, consciously or unconsciously, a significant influence. In the interviews we conducted we explored various kinds of knowledge assets, particularly of the experiential variety. The companies are involved in different business sectors and differ in size, degree of internationalisation – both geographically and attitudinally – as well as in the number of cross-cultural knowledge-sharing experiences, which provided our bedrock information. 172010-03-30T09:03:51+02:00http://wildside.ipapercms.dk/SLFonden/SLforlagene/CBSPress/Titler/Creatingknowledgeadvantage/?Page=12http://wildside.ipapercms.dk/SLFonden/SLforlagene/CBSPress/Titler/Creatingknowledgeadvantage/?Page=12Creating Knowledge Advantage The biggest company by all general criteria is the DENSO CORPORATION, Japan’s leading supplier of electrical and electronic automotive components.1 The main theme we explore is the transfer of technical knowledge from Europe to the company headquarters in Europe, but we also highlight the challenge of communicating the essence of the corporate culture, enshrined as DENSO Spirit, from Japan to the outside world. The theme of communicating corporate culture from a cross-cultural knowledge-sharing perspective is explored through four case studies. In another case study we focus on Novo Nordisk, Denmark’s leading healthcare company. We describe the highly sophisticated way in which the Novo Nordisk ‘Way of Management’, as a business philosophy and set of precepts, is diffused throughout the company’s eighty worldwide subsidiaries and affiliates. Ole Lynggaard Copenhagen is Scandinavia’s leading creator and supplier of jewelry. In the Ole Lynggaard Copenhagen case study we describe co-author Martin Glisby’s knowledge-based methodology for entering the Japanese market and securing a permanent foothold there. Our opening case study is about a Shanghai restaurant and retail concern, called Simply the Group. Among other things we explore how the company fuses all manner of knowledge from Asia and Europe to provide customers with a life-enhancing palette of gastronomic, aesthetic, and visual experiences. All of these companies have provided us with hard and soft information as well as impressions of the kind of knowledge assets that they create and deploy to maintain their market positions. When it comes to the more elusive of these assets, which become entangled with factors of culture and language, we are uncertain to what extent we can call them ‘tacit’: an issue we wrestle with throughout the entire book. In any case, we found that almost all the managers we interviewed were – unlike our well-travelled manager in Seoul – unfamiliar with the distinction between tacit and explicit knowledge. Accordingly, we asked our informants to describe their cross-cultural encounters with ‘soft knowledge’, which we described to them as a general container for human factors, experience, intuitions, etc. Soft knowledge, for all its terminological vagueness, did not create problems with our informants. We conducted all of the interviews in the UK, Denmark, China, Korea, and Japan between 2007 and 2009, and by the time we were finished it was clear that we were exploring what can best be described as cross-cultural relational knowledge. When it came to writing-up our research, we were all too aware that the very act of describing the tacit was to formalise it and therefore render it into something explicit, or at least more explicit. With every step something was being lost in translation! In the way that the book has developed we have tried to be ingenious about preserving some of the essence of the tacit. However well or badly we have succeeded, our book contributes to the literature on knowledge-based 182010-03-30T09:03:51+02:00http://wildside.ipapercms.dk/SLFonden/SLforlagene/CBSPress/Titler/Creatingknowledgeadvantage/?Page=13http://wildside.ipapercms.dk/SLFonden/SLforlagene/CBSPress/Titler/Creatingknowledgeadvantage/?Page=13Introduction theories of the firm, and we share the conviction that this particular theory ‘differs from all previous theories in that it must grasp the un-understood’ (Spender and Grant, 1996). Our book will explore many things that we believe belong to the great realm of the unexplained in management practice as well as management education. Examples will be underpinned with fertile facts: which is to say, facts that allow one to see the wider picture from unexpected vantage points. The reference to management education is meant with great seriousness. Your two authors are a professor of management (Holden) and a company director (Glisby). Both of us are conscious of the unreality that permeates so much teaching and discussion about international management in business schools worldwide. Entire countries become abstractions, the inhabitants stereotypes. Entire foreign behaviours and ways of thinking are described in conformity with ethnocentric intellectual frameworks. What does not fit is simply ignored. Yet what is ignored may be something really important: the precious fertile fact among the accumulated thousands of sterile ones that throws things into wholly unexpected relief, vouchsafing insight. Out of such convictions, rather than out of a desire to prove that it is an intangible source of almost magical potency, we were curious to discover in what ways tacit knowledge can be instrumental in creating advantage in diverse ways in cross-cultural contexts: from organisational development to market entry, from cross-cultural knowledge sharing to societal education, which in this instance happens to be China. The fact that our book is called Creating knowledge advantage suggests we believe our title to be justified. Our case studies make absolutely clear that competitive advantage does arise from exploiting tacit knowledge, but it is equally the case that tacit knowledge is a major resource created and used by people in organisations to enhance cooperation and organisational learning. It is for this reason that our subtitle refers to competition and cooperation. But problematically for some people, our insights are not readily presentable in bullet-point form, because they are connected to situations and contexts from which they cannot be inferred. This state of affairs is of course directly due to the nature and effects of tacit knowledge. We are after all dealing with ‘a myriad of knowledge sharing activities continuously but in disparate contexts’ (Harorima, 2010). The number of potentially valuable factors that we might examine is virtually limitless and they do not lend themselves easily to compression and generalisation if we are to extract meaning from contexts. There may, incidentally, be some people who say that a mere four case studies, no matter how diverse, cannot highlight an adequate range of experiences out of which to describe a phenomenon as polymorphic, elusive, and yet universal, as tacit knowledge. This is a valid reservation, but we believe that we still have important things to say about this strangely neglected intangible resource. business education 192010-03-30T09:03:51+02:00http://wildside.ipapercms.dk/SLFonden/SLforlagene/CBSPress/Titler/Creatingknowledgeadvantage/?Page=14http://wildside.ipapercms.dk/SLFonden/SLforlagene/CBSPress/Titler/Creatingknowledgeadvantage/?Page=14Creating Knowledge Advantage Our consolation is that more than thirty years ago a famous paper on the internationalisation of the firm was published, using data gathered from four Swedish companies (Johanson and Wiedersheim-Paul, 1975). This influential paper is still being cited in scholarly studies today. History has shown this to be a timely piece of writing. Perhaps our book will enjoy similar good fortune. tHe struCture of tHe booK Four chapters follow this introduction and precede the presentation of the four cases. In chapter 1, we review the propositions of KM as a philosophy and practice, and summarise the current thinking about tacit knowledge. On the way, we study the etymology of the word ‘tacit’ and discuss how the term ‘tacit knowledge’ is rendered in various European and non-European languages. The Japanese variation is not only fascinating semantically, but will also serve as one of our frameworks for elucidating tacit knowledge. Chapter 2 discusses the role of language and languages in knowledge creation and sharing in cross-cultural contexts. In chapter 3, we draw an analogy between knowledge transfer and interlingual translation. We believe the parallel to be illuminating. In chapter 4, we introduce our methodology and the four informant companies. Following this, a chapter is devoted to each of the four case studies. In chapter 9 we comment directly on our case study findings and advance various thoughts on topics that have emerged from our analysis of the case studies. Chapter 10 reviews the contribution of this book to KM as an academic discipline and management practice, and then discusses the nature of knowledge advantage. In chapters 1-4, we introduce some propositions about tacit knowledge. In most cases they are triggered by a comment or idea in the current writing on tacit knowledge, but some are better seen as products of a eureka moment. In any event, our propositions, while not to be regarded as hypotheses, as such, have influenced our analysis and discussion of the case data. Japanese language business education Meeting An unusuAL CHALLenge froM ibM In June 2008, the annual conference of the European Foundation for Management Development (EFMD) – Europe’s premier forum for aligning management education with the latest corporate practice and thinking – took place in Oslo. One of the keynote speakers was Dan McGrath, VP Corporate Strategy at IBM. Dan observed that management education and business practice were ‘worlds apart’. In passing he pondered why so few management books have been jointly written by professors and practitioners. It is an interesting point. Every year hundreds of new books on business and management are published in English, but very few indeed are the joint work of professors and practitioners. Dan plainly saw this kind of co-authorship as a way of reducing the gulf between the misaligned worlds of management education and business practice. 202010-03-30T09:03:51+02:00http://wildside.ipapercms.dk/SLFonden/SLforlagene/CBSPress/Titler/Creatingknowledgeadvantage/?Page=15http://wildside.ipapercms.dk/SLFonden/SLforlagene/CBSPress/Titler/Creatingknowledgeadvantage/?Page=15Introduction In our case, we did not just sit down to write, but conducted every interview jointly. This involved multiple joint trips to two European countries (five to the UK and six to Denmark) and three Asian countries (one to Korea, three to Japan, and two to China). Both of us adapted our schedules to make these visits; those in Asia were built around Martin’s planned business trips. In our situation, we bring both contrasting and overlapping fields of knowledge and experience to this project, including differing professional perspectives as well as a shared interest in coming to grips with what is ‘un-understood’ about the subliminal dimensions of cross-cultural relationship building. As we note later, a debate has been raging for some years among international economists and management scholars as to the precise relevance of international business as an area of academic study. Scholars are largely locked into conducting theory extension research with over-reliance on quantitative analysis methods, while the practitioners find that the business schools are, as a rule, not adept at imparting cross-cultural insights in ways that are relevant to them. Our book is more than an attempt to pick up the gauntlet flung down by IBM: it also aims to suggest a sort of middle path between these two misaligned worlds. If our attempt fails, then let our detractors find a co-author from the other camp, then devise and write a book together. If the reaction is more favourable, then we hope that we can be seen to be initiators of a new, surely overdue, genre of management writing. business education LAnguAge Anyone who has already taken a glance at the index of this book may have been struck by the high number of references to language, in general, and the Japanese language, in particular. The literature on tacit knowledge is replete with references to dialogue, conversation, socialisation, coaching, and so forth. And no wonder: the sharing and transmitting tacit knowledge is closely bound up with language behaviour; and in cross-cultural interactions, which bring various languages and associated thought worlds into interplay, language must be discussed. Readers will not need a background in linguistics or even knowledge of any foreign language to follow what we write, but an appreciation of the extraordinary role of language in the pursuit of organisational goals would be helpful. We make absolutely no apologies for the many references to the Japanese language. Given the influence of Nonaka and Takeuchi’s book The knowledgecreating company, published in 1995, and the universal acceptance of their famous model of knowledge creation, which is constructed around Japanese language behaviour, we have all the justification we need. In this sense, there is even a case for elevating the Japanese language to the most important language of KM! Why, in any case, should it be assumed that the English language is always the supreme repository of management wisdom? 212010-03-30T09:03:51+02:00http://wildside.ipapercms.dk/SLFonden/SLforlagene/CBSPress/Titler/Creatingknowledgeadvantage/?Page=16http://wildside.ipapercms.dk/SLFonden/SLforlagene/CBSPress/Titler/Creatingknowledgeadvantage/?Page=16Creating Knowledge Advantage Whilst on matters to do with language, it should be mentioned that Martin has been responsible for translations from Japanese into English and Nigel for occasional translations from other foreign languages. A booK WitH MbA students in Mind But for whom exactly are we writing? From the outset we saw our main, but not necessarily sole, target audience as MBA students in various countries, for whom we could write about international business in a way that might coincide with their future careers, either as knowledge workers in international networks or as professionals engaged in a wide variety of cross-cultural interfaces where communication performance invariably requires intelligence, tact and the mind in fast-forward. We are not talking about normal teachable skills and attitudes, the very ones that have been heavily criticised for ensuring that MBA graduates leave their business schools with uniform outlooks and techniques for solving problems that they may never encounter except as an examination question. The most celebrated and certainly most robust opponent of MBA education is Henry Mintzberg (2004), who believes that conventional MBA education places too much emphasis on management as a science, thus ‘ignoring its art and denigrating its craft’. Advocating ‘a hard look’ at the soft side of management, he would like to see MBA programmes wherein practicing managers learn from their own experience. This presents a huge challenge to MBA programme designers, but the lack of groundswell for a change in approach from would-be participants – namely the hundreds of young people with or without experience who sign on for MBAs each year and their potential employers across the globe – ensures that MBA education will remain, for the foreseeable future, ‘scientific’. Graduates will, according to Mintzberg, erroneously think that they have been trained to be managers. They may (in the words of a novelist) even see themselves ‘almost instinctively as members of the officer class of global business’ (Hamid, 2007). Despite this, there is growing recognition that traditional teaching methods are on the way out. In the words of Nigel Banister of Manchester Business School, this change is occurring because ‘the workspace, living space and learning space will all be linked together… There will be personalised learning spaces’ (cited in Bradshaw, 2008). This book then has been written for such learners, who seek what we might call relevant variety in the ways management knowledge is imparted to them. This is not a focused text, striving to inculcate a narrow way of thinking; our aim is to broaden horizons, not shrink them. Be that as it may, we nevertheless share Mintzberg’s concerns, fearing that the intensively Westernised nature and orientation of MBA programmes – even in Asian countries! – poorly prepares many MBA graduates for cross-cultural encounters, which the textbooks do not anticipate and their professors cannot business education 222010-03-30T09:03:51+02:00http://wildside.ipapercms.dk/SLFonden/SLforlagene/CBSPress/Titler/Creatingknowledgeadvantage/?Page=17http://wildside.ipapercms.dk/SLFonden/SLforlagene/CBSPress/Titler/Creatingknowledgeadvantage/?Page=17Introduction imagine. We do not expect our book to replace any primary course texts on international business used in MBA programmes, but we hope that it will be recommended by course directors as a fitting complementary text. A recent supplement in The Times of London on MBA programmes noted that ‘a book represents a substantial piece of work that [management students] can enjoy reading and that they will remember long after scholarly articles are forgotten’ (Crainer, 2008). We should be delighted if our book could be seen to belong to this category. It is impossible not to be acutely aware that the preparation of this book has taken place against the backdrop of the global financial crisis. Already there is a talk of a new capitalism, one that is less ruthlessly competitive, more considerate of people – especially employees – one that is much less prone to the glorification of risk, and less prodigal in its rewards for frankly conspicuously mediocre contributions. Among other things, this new capitalism must serve not only society at the national level, but at the international level as well, where problems such as global warming, depletion of the key natural resources, and terrorism are met. This new capitalism will call for what Bartholomew and Adler (1996) designate ‘cross-cultural collaborative learning’ and greater efficiencies in crosscultural knowledge sharing. Those with expertise in KM will know that tacit knowledge has been identified as one of any organisations’ most precious and yet most elusive intangible resources. In the new capitalism it will become even more urgent to develop ‘organisational tools that continuously nourish and nurture tacit knowledge’ (Edvinsson, 2004). Our book has been consciously written to meet that challenge. business education referenCes Bartholomew, S. and Adler, N. (1996), ‘Building networks and crossing borders: the dynamics of knowledge generation in a transnational world’, in P. Joynt and M. Warner (eds), Managing across cultures: Issues and perspectives (pp. 7–32), London: International Thomson. Bradhaw, D. (2008), Markets cloud outlook for MBAs, Financial Times Business Edition: Global MBA Rankings, 28 January, p. 2. Crainer, S. (2008), ‘Academics queue to publish and be hailed’, The Times Focus Report, MBA, 23 January, p. 10. Edvinsson, L. (2004), ‘The mindful organization’, Foreword to McKenzie, J. and van Winkelen, C. (2004), Understanding the knowledgeable organization: Nurturing knowledge competence, London: Thomson. Hamid, M. (2007), The reluctant fundamentalist, London: Penguin Books. Harorima, D. (ed.) (2010), Cultural implications of knowledge sharing, management and transfer: Identifying competitive advantage, Hershey, NY: Information Science Reference. 232010-03-30T09:03:51+02:00http://wildside.ipapercms.dk/SLFonden/SLforlagene/CBSPress/Titler/Creatingknowledgeadvantage/?Page=18http://wildside.ipapercms.dk/SLFonden/SLforlagene/CBSPress/Titler/Creatingknowledgeadvantage/?Page=18Creating Knowledge Advantage Johanson, J. and Wiedersheim-Paul, F. (1975), ‘The internationalization of the firm – Four Swedish case studies’, Journal of Management Studies, Vol. 12, October, pp. 305-322. McGrath, D. (2008), ‘Research with relevance’, EFMD Annual Conference, Oslo. Mintzberg, H. (2004), Managers not MBAs: a hard look at the soft practice of managing and management development, Harlow: Prentice-Hall/Financial Times. Nonaka, I. and Takeuchi, H. (1995), The knowledge-creating company, New York: Oxford University Press. Polanyi, M. (1967), The tacit dimension, New York: Anchor Books. Spender, J. C. and Grant, R. M. (1996), ‘Knowledge and the firm: Overview’, Strategic Management Journal, Vol. 17 (Winter Special Issue), pp. 5-9, cited in Kohlbacher, F. (2007), International marketing in the network economy: A knowledge-based approach, New York: Palgrave Macmillan. ACKnoWLedgeMents We have benefited from the advice and assistance of many people, which we would like to acknowledge. A special word of gratitude is in order to certain people who made it possible to conduct interviews with their companies. We would like to commend here Kim Bundegaard and Jean Fabian Jeldorf of Novo Nordisk in Copenhagen and Peter Feldinger in Seoul; Choon Queck, Aaron Jun Bo Luo, Richard Lim of Simply the Group in Shanghai; Yasuhito Takasu and Kenji Kobayashi of DENSO CORPORATION; and Søren Lynggaard of Ole Lynggaard in Copenhagen. In addition, we would like to acknowledge the assistance of Marehiko Yamada of Ole Lynggaard Japan Co., Ltd. and notably Mr Freddy Svane, former Danish ambassador in Japan, for his considerable support. Our warm thanks are due to Dr Christine van Winkelen of the Knowledge Management Forum of Henley Business School, who accepted our invitation to write the foreword. For immensely helpful comments on draft chapters we warmly thank Romana Benisch of UNIDO in Vienna, Dr Florian Kolbacher of the German Research Institute in Tokyo, and Professor Carole Tansley of Nottingham Business School, and Natalie Holden. For help with clarifying Japanese terminology we thank Mrs Natsuko Holden. We are of course especially indebted to our many informants, who not only allowed in every case ample time for interviews and follow-ups by telephone and e-mail, but also commented on the draft case studies. We would also like to thank Ole Wiberg, formerly managing director of Copenhagen Business School Press, for commissioning this book. Ole has in the meantime become Head of Secretariat of the Asia House in Copenhagen. In 242010-03-30T09:03:51+02:00http://wildside.ipapercms.dk/SLFonden/SLforlagene/CBSPress/Titler/Creatingknowledgeadvantage/?Page=19http://wildside.ipapercms.dk/SLFonden/SLforlagene/CBSPress/Titler/Creatingknowledgeadvantage/?Page=19Introduction this new capacity he, with director Poul Schultz, invited us to make preliminary presentations of our case studies in 2008. Finally we would like to thank Jens Aaris Thisted, Birgit Vrå and Hanne Thorninger Ipsen of Copenhagen Business School Press for their very keen interest in this book through all stages of its creation. It goes without saying that an international research project involving travel to several countries required a good deal of financial support. In this respect we would especially like to thank our main sponsor The EAC Foundation. For generous financial support we are also indebted to The Scandinavia-Japan Sasakawa Foundation, Generalkonsulinde Anna Hedorf og Generalkonsul Frode Hedorfs Fond, Karl Petersen og Hustrus Industrifond in Denmark and Lancashire Business School in the UK for ensuring that we never ran out of funding. EndnotE 1 At the request of the company we reproduce its name in capital letters throughout this book. 252010-03-30T09:03:51+02:00http://wildside.ipapercms.dk/SLFonden/SLforlagene/CBSPress/Titler/Creatingknowledgeadvantage/?Page=20http://wildside.ipapercms.dk/SLFonden/SLforlagene/CBSPress/Titler/Creatingknowledgeadvantage/?Page=20This book, written by a professor and a practitioner, not only adds significantly to academic knowledge, but also provides the business community with innovative concepts, models and ideas about tacit knowledge in everyday business interactions. Of relevance to decision-makers across the entire range of international business operations, the book shows how the great reservoir of tacit knowledge that is created in every cross-cultural interaction is often misunderstood, undervalued or neglected, and especially by corporate headquarters. Professor Ikujiro Nonaka, Professor Emeritus, Hitotsubashi University Graduate School of International Corporate Strategy, Tokyo, and First Distinguished Drucker Scholar, Claremont Graduate University, California, USA Tacit knowledge is one of any firm’s most important, yet least understood resources. Variously regarded as a source of wisdom, a store of creative power and facilitator of competitive advantage, tacit knowledge has long been viewed as an organizational resource. In Creating Knowledge Advantage Holden and Glisby go beyond this to argue that tacit knowledge is also a significant factor which shapes and reshapes cross-cultural cooperation and competition. They illustrate this conviction with four case studies which take the reader into a wide variety of cultural contexts and demonstrate very contrasting experiences in untapping tacit knowledge in international business operations. Although written with MBA students in mind who are destined to become cross-cultural knowledge workers (though they may not have seen themselves in this way before), this pioneering book will appeal to all students and practitioners of international business for its cross-cultural insights about tacit knowledge in everyday business activities. I S B N 978-87-630-0230-1 9 788763 0023012010-03-30T09:03:51+02:00