Nonaka and Takeuchi's book The Knowledge Creating Company is one of the most influential in the field of knowledge management. The famous SECI Model, representing the four modes of knowledge creation (socialization, externalization, combination and internalization) seems to have been accepted by the knowledge management community as universally valid in conception and in application. This paper argues that the model must be seen first and foremost as a product of the environment from which it emerged, namely Japan. It is contended that each of the four modes can only be understood with reference to their embeddedness in Japanese social and organizational culture and related value systems. Thus the model should be used with caution. It should be seen as a map rather than a model; or perhaps as a special kind of mirror, which allows us to see ourselves and our knowledge management practices in new ways for directing change.

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We are currently experiencing a seismic shift toward the knowledge-based economy. Both practitioners and theorists seem to agree that knowledge is one of the most important of all intangible resources for firms. In effect, we are in the midst of a knowledge revolution, in which knowledge is the most important intangible resource for securing human progress and well-being. Technological development and globalization have between them so conspired that we are fast-tracking toward a globally integrated network structure in which firms' products and services are the result of international collaborations among many different organizationsand across cultural boundaries of varying complexity and intelligibility.