The SECI model of knowledge creation: some empirical shortcomings

This paper presents a critique of key empirical aspects of Nonaka’s model of knowledge creation. If, as is now widely accepted, it is important to manage knowledge for a variety of reasons, then it is equally important that we have good models to assist this process. Nonaka and his colleagues’ model, in particular the SECI matrix of knowledge conversion, is increasingly being cited by authors in a widening set of disciplines, and has evidently achieved something like a paradigmatic status. However, as I shall argue below, it is not supported by empirical evidence, and some of the conversion modes are not coherent. The paradigmatic status of this theory may thus be unwarranted.