UC Gives a Knowing Nod to Visiting Japanese Professor

Most professors think they’re knowledgeable. Ikujiro Nonaka has the title to back it up.

Nonaka was named Monday as the University of California’s first distinguished professor in knowledge, a position believed to be a first for the nation.

Nonaka, a professor of management at Hitotsubashi University in Japan, modestly declared himself “honored to be the first entrusted with this challenging task.”

Then he got down to the tough question: What is a professor in knowledge?

The answer, he said, deals with more than hard, cold facts.

It also involves studying how to tap employees’ intellectual capital, their “tacit and often highly subjective insights, intuitions and hunches.”

For instance, a manufacturing company with managers tuned in to the shop floor can take the observations of a veteran quality control worker, pass that on to engineers and come up with a better product.

If that sounds like a ‘90s take on the old standby of a suggestion box, that shouldn’t be a surprise, said William Hasler, dean of UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business, where Nonaka will be a visiting professor beginning this fall.

“It’s not that he discovered something new. He sort of found that some companies did this extremely well,” Hasler said.

The Xerox Distinguished Professorship in Knowledge is funded by $1 million given jointly by Xerox Corp. and its Japanese affiliate Fuji Xerox Co.