CULTURE AND INFORMATION-SOCIETY - THE JAPANESE WAY

In this article we analyse the cultural prerequisites of the exchange of knowledge: cultural, ontological, and epistemological principles on which knowledge is organized in Japanese culture. A model is developed that distinguishes epistemological determinants and constituents of knowledge. Cognition, communication, memory, and information function are recognized as basic constituents of thinking. Thinking is a primary process and creator of knowledge, knowledge structured by functions that take part in that process, either on social or individual levels. Culture and technology are recognized as two basic determinants structuring knowledge and informatization process. According to this model, a dominant form of knowledge in Japanese culture is corporate knowledge, determined by interfunctional connections of: cognition as field and group dependent knowledge, communication as image oriented knowledge, information as organic relevance, and memory as time-bound knowledge. © 1991.