Ikujiro Nonaka, Ryoko Toyama, and Noboru Konno. SECI, Ba and Leadership: a Unified Model of Dynamic Knowledge Creation. Long Range Planning, 33(1):5–34, February 2000. doi:10.1016/S0024-6301(99)00115-6.
@article{nonaka_seci_2000,
abstract = {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.},
author = {Nonaka, Ikujiro and Toyama, Ryoko and Konno, Noboru},
doi = {10.1016/S0024-6301(99)00115-6},
issn = {0024-6301},
journal = {Long Range Planning},
month = {February},
number = {1},
pages = {5-34},
shorttitle = {{{SECI}}, {{Ba}} and {{Leadership}}},
title = {{{SECI}}, {{Ba}} and {{Leadership}}: A {{Unified Model}} of {{Dynamic Knowledge Creation}}},
volume = {33},
year = {2000}
}