Möbius Strip Model for Augmenting Organizational Knowledge Creation Dynamics by Integrating Human and Artificial Knowledge: A New Driving Force for Business Sustainability

The emergence of artificial knowledge created by the generative artificial intelligence applications challenges the theory developed by Ikujiro Nonaka and Hirotaka Takeuchi concerning the organizational knowledge creation dynamics by showing its limits. It is necessary to reimagine this theory within a hybrid framework that integrates both human knowledge and artificial knowledge, being aware of their specific features. Several researchers have already suggested how the SECI (socialization–externalization–combination–internalization) cycle developed by Ikujiro Nonaka and Hirotaka Takeuchi can be augmented by introducing artificial knowledge next to human knowledge in each stage of that cycle. However, tacit knowledge is embodied, and it cannot be processed directly by generative artificial intelligence. Therefore, their suggestions ignore the nature and specific features of tacit and explicit knowledge, leading to non-coherent models. The purpose of this paper is to propose a new model based on the Möbius strip metaphor that contains an open SECI cycle coupled with an open artificial knowledge cycle. Knowledge is flowing continuously along the strip, converging in time toward a strange attractor. The value of the new model is given by its novelty of introducing an artificial knowledge cycle and augmenting with it the SECI model centred on human knowledge. The resulting model is more complex and allows a continuous flow of knowledge. Therefore, the organizational knowledge creation dynamics is not represented by a time-evolving spiral, but by the phase space of a strange attractor. The proposed model can be conceived as a new driving force of business sustainability.