Abstract of PhD Dissertation A Method and a System for Supporting the Process of Knowledge Creation Shigeki Amitani Department of Advanced University’ Interdisciplinary Studies of Tokyo Email: amitani@ai.reast.u-tokyo.ac.jp April 13, 2004 11:39am. ‘The aim of my dissertation research is to de- velop a method and a. system to apply the theo ries for knowledge creation to Inman practices, A number of theoretical and practical stud- jes on knowledge creation have been conducted both by researchers and by business practitioners, On the one hand, though several theories for knowledge creation have heen developed, man agers in the companies have had difficulty in applying theories to their practices. Practical methods to apply theories to practiceshave been required. On the other hand, while a number of sys ‘tems to support processes of knowledge manage ment / creation have been developed and mast of them provides their users with interface for information-intensive activities, they have hardly mentioned what and how information should be collected as source information for knowledge cre= ation. Tn sum, practical methods for knowledge er ation are required. In this dissertation research, T tackle the problem of cormecting the theoret- ical frameworks with the real world knowledge creation. Based on the past studies on knowledge cre ation, I have taken the content-dependency of Anowledge and design perspective of knowledge management into consideration, and the process of knowledge creation is defined as follows: Acquiring information picoes with the con texts of human practices ¢ Observing and analyzing the acquired in various viewpoints for reflective thinking ¢ Restructuring the dationships among the obtained information pieces in accordance with a certain context © Producing new information artifacts for prac- tices Tn omer to support the process, a method named “knowledge liquidization and erystalliza- tion”, and a system named “Knowledge Nebula Caystallizer (KNC)” have been proposed and de- veloped in order to support the process of know! edge creation in human practices, ‘T have applied the method and system to the actual exhibition design processes of “Tokyo ‘Motor Show 2001” and “World PC Expo 2001” as an exemplar of knowledge creation, in coop- eration with a Japanese advertising company. Exhibition design is one of the fields that. re- quire methods for knowledge ereation as it in cludes conceptual works dependent on implicit and tacit knowledge of an experienced designer. ‘That is why it is difficult for designers to com duct knowledge management for their design ac- tivities, ‘The effoctiveness of the method and system has been examined through the user studies and the discussion with the professional designers, T found that the proposed method and system work for supporting the process of knowledge creation, formation pieces and their relationships from. 1