How did Japan become a significant economic power and a world leader in the automotive and electronics industries? What is the secret of their success? The general consensus has been that the Japanese are not particularly innovative but are exceptionally good at imitating and improving existing products. However, two leading Japanese business experts, Ikujiro Nonaka and Hiro Takeuchi, challenge this conventional wisdom: they argue that Japanese companies are successful precisely because they are innovative, create new knowledge, and use it to develop successful products and technologies. Through case studies of companies like Honda, Canon, Matsushita, NEC, 3M, and GE, this book illustrates how Japanese companies convert implicit knowledge into explicit knowledge and leverage it to develop new processes, products, and services.