Knowledge-Driven Work Unexpected Lessons from Japanese and United States Work Practices

The daily work experiences of people in almost any part of the world areshaped by workplace innovations. This book provides a closeup of eight Japaneseaffiliated manufacturing facilities operating in the United States, tracing theflow of ideas from Japan to the US and the beginnings of a reverse diffusion ofinnovation back to Japan. Arguing that traditional conceptions of knowledge inthe workplace are incomplete, the author introduces the concept of "virtualknowledge" to reflect the elusive, yet critical understandings that are afunction of particular combinations of people. He reveals how some organizationshave anticipated and channeled the virtual knowledge that is constantly emergingfrom different groups in the organization, a process that is part of a muchlarger process of global diffusion from Japan, the US, and other nations to allparts of the world.