KNOWLEDGE CREATION AND DIALECTICS

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to understand tacit knowledge the moment we permit ourselves to understand our explicit knowledge. The exercise of one form of knowledge requires the presence atad utilization of the other form. Second, they are also interpenetrating. There is some explicit knowledge in every tacit knowledge, and some tacit knowledge in every explicit knowledge. They are continuous but separable. Some of the most useful sources of knowledge in an organization are those that articulate the judgmental or the conjectural, and that reveal the hidden or the unobvious. 11 Third, tacit knowledge is a reality that is viewed from a certain angle or context. Likewise, explicit knowledge is a reality that is viewed from a different angle or context. If we take them to the very ultimate extreme and make them absolute, they may turn into each other. Dialectical thinking appreciates paradox, as exemplified by accepting what a layman would most likely see as contradictory concepts - namely, the “interdependence” of opposites, the “interpenetration” of opposites, and the “unity” of opposites. In other words, dialectics accepts what appear to be at opposite ends - for example, male and female, life and death, good and bad, young and old - to be interdependent, interpenetrating, and “unified.” As with dialectical thinking, knowledge creation accepts what appear to be opposites - for example, tacit knowledge and explicit knowledge - and tries to synthesize them by transforming and uniting them to transcend the existing reality. New reality is created through synthesis, which is a continuous and dynamic process that reconciles and 11 Chun Wei Choo and Nick Bontis, “Knowledge, Intellectual Capital, and Strategy,” in Chun Wei Choo and Nick Bontis (eds.), The Strategic Management of Intellectual Capital and Organizational Knowledge (New York: Oxford University Press, 2002), p. 12. HIROTAKA TAKEUCHI AND IKUJIRO NONAKA: KNOWLEDGE CREATION AND DIALECTICS (0507; p. 10 )
transcends opposites. In other words, the process involves taking a thesis (A) and an antithesis (B) and creating a new reality (C). C is separate and independent of A and B, not something “in-between” or “in the middle of” A and B. What makes knowledge creation complex is the fact that synthesis has to take place on a continuous basis (as indicated by the zigzag and spiraling pattern of Figure 1.1) and across a multitude of opposites. At the very end of our book The Knowledge-Creating Company, we stated that “the essence of knowledge creation is deeply rooted in the process of building and managing syntheses” (p. 237) and identified the following opposites that require a synthesis before new knowledge can be created organizationally in a spiraling manner: . tacit/explicit; . body/mind; . individual/organization; . top-down/bottom-up; . hierarchy/task force; and . East/West. As we will see below, at the heart of knowledge-creating companies is their ability to embrace these opposites, cultivate them, and use them as an invitation to find a better way. HIROTAKA TAKEUCHI AND IKUJIRO NONAKA: KNOWLEDGE CREATION AND DIALECTICS (0507; p. 11 )
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KNOWLEDGE CREATION AND DIALECTICS

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