Organizational knowledge creation theory: A first comprehensive test

Confirmatory factor analyses were conducted to test Nonaka's ((1994) Organization Science, Vol. 5, No. 1, pp. 14–37) a priori model of organizational knowledge creation with data collected from 105 Japanese middle managers. The results provide strong support for viewing organizational knowledge creation as a higher-order construct comprised of four knowledge conversion processes: socialization, externalization, combination, and internalization.