The knowledge-creating theory revisited: knowledge creation as a synthesizing process

This paper is a part of our attempt to build a new knowledge-based theory of the firm and organization to explain the dynamic process of knowledge creation and utilization. For this, we revisit the theory of knowledge creation through the socialisation–externalization–combination–internalization process and ba, and try to advance them further by incorporating the dialectic thinking. In this paper, knowledge creation is conceptualized as a dialectical process, in which various contradictions are synthesized through dynamic interactions among individuals, the organization, and the environment. With the view of a firm as a dialectic being, and strategy and organization should be re-examined as the synthesizing and self-transcending process instead of a logical analysis of structure or action. An organization is not an information-processing machine that is composed of small tasks to carry out a given task, but an organic configuration of ba. Ba, which is conceptualized as a shared context in motion, can transcend time, space, and organization boundaries to create knowledge.