Ikujiro Nonaka is one of the world's premier modern epistemologists. Although his theories are framed by a keen understanding of organizational structure and business, Nonaka can easily be classified as a philosopher and to not do so would significantly undermine the scholar's work. In fact, Nonaka sits on the forefront of a global paradigm shift: his theories reflect overarching global trends. For example, knowledge creation in the modern world cannot be distinguished from capitalist enterprise. Therefore, knowledge creation and knowledge management are necessarily functions of group dynamics and organizational politics to an extent they never have been in the past. Furthermore, Nonaka's epistemology has a solid practical application and foundation, the likes of which did not exist for philosophers like Kant or Plato, who also concerned themselves with knowledge creation and learning.

             In his and co-author Hirotaka Takeuchi's groundbreaking work The Knowledge Creating Company delineates the many practical applications of Nonaka's theories. In the book, the philosopher outlines the process by which knowledge is created, especially in organizations. According to Nonaka there are two fundamental types of knowledge: tacit knowledge and implicit knowledge. Tacit knowledge is that which is internalized and can therefore be difficult to communicate and share with others. Moreover, tacit knowledge is context-specific and may not be easily generalized. Explicit knowledge, on the other hand, is that which is common and shared, and that which can be relatively easily transmitted through language and other formal means of communication.

             The process by which groups innovate and create new concepts and ideas can be framed as a function of these two types of knowledge. The goal is to establish clear lines of translation between tacit and explicit knowledge. Nonaka postulates four different modes of knowledge conversion when this translation occurs: socialization, externalization, combination, and internalization.