Online ISSN 1347-4456 Print ISSN 1347-4464

ABAS: Annals ofBusiness Administrative
ScienceVol. 2, No. 3, July 2003

MATSUMOTO, Wataru

29

The Clarification of the Tacit Knowledge to Assess
Non-Profit Organizations in Japan

http://www.gbrc.jp© 2003 Global Business Research CenterAnnals of Business Administrative ScienceVol. 2, No. 3, July 2003

CHIEF EDITOR

Junjiro Shintaku

University of TokyoEDITORIAL BOARD

Makoto Abe
University of Tokyo
Takahiro Fujimoto University of Tokyo
Makoto Kasuya
University of Tokyo
Hotaka Katahira
University of Tokyo
Nobuo Takahashi University of Tokyo
Technical Editor: Maki Nishida, Global Business Research Center

Annals of Business Administrative Science is published quarterly in January, April,
July, and October, by Global Business Research Center, Marunouchi, Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo,
JAPAN. http://www.gbrc.jp

Annals of Business Administrative Science Vol.2, No.3 (July 2003)

The Clarification of the Tacit Knowledge to Assess
Non-Profit Organizations in Japan
Wataru MATSUMOTO
Graduate School of Frontier Sciences, University of Tokyo
E-mail: kk17646@mail.ecc.u-tokyo.ac.jp

Abstract: A support center for non-profit organizations is a kind of intermediaryfocusing on the information and consultation in non-profit sector in Japan. This
paper examines organizational assessment to Japanese non-profit organizations
with the explicit knowledge transferred from the tacit knowledge in one grant-making
foundation, The Nippon Foundation. In particular, while such evaluations are basedon the more explicit evaluation criteria of (1) the characteristics of the organizationand (2) the characteristics of the leader from evaluation data of 24 support centers
in Japan, the more tacit and critical evaluation criteria of (3) planning ability and (4)organizational capability determine the total evaluations. This paper concludes that
self-business approaches are important for the autonomic growth of non-profit
organizations.
Keyword: non-profit organization, organizational assessment, discriminant analysis

1. Introduction(hereafter refered to as Community Services staffs)

The Nippon Foundation is one of the largest

screened issues on each grant programs organicallygrant-making foundations in the world. Since 1993,

and came up with a rule of thumb on assessment to

Department

non-profit organizations.

ofCommunity

ServicesoftheFoundation has made grant aids to many projects

It’s striking that their criteria to non-profits

applied by non-profit organizations. Throughout thewere expressed by the metaphor jiritsu which could

period, Department of Community Services staffs

be interpreted as both independence and autonomy.
29

Matsumoto
Nonaka and Takeuchi (1995) say that figurative

mere classification or feature extraction of non-profit

language, such as metaphor and analogy, isorganizations rather than organizational assessment

prominent to articulate institutions and insights,(e.g., Inada & Kosaka, 1998; Kojima, 1998a, 1998b).

while ambiguity and redundancy are essential to

There will be much less studies on tacit knowledge

enhance knowledge-creation process. In short,of external assessment to nonprofit organizations.

Community Services staffs have shared some sort of

After all, the purpose of this paper is totacit knowledge throughout the screening process. In

investigate organizational assessment factors of

the course of the discussion, it is proved that they

non-profits through the process transferring theirwished to make a grant aid which would promotetacit knowledge into explicit knowledge and toautonomic growth of non-profits. Consequently, this

discuss the ideal non-profit organizations toward

research on their tacit knowledge will provide someautonomic growth on the basis of Matsumoto andclues to the autonomic growth of non-profits in

Takahashi (2002).

Japan.

Concretely speaking, this research deals with 24

By the way, The Nippon Foundation stillemphasizesorganizational

practical

thoughlevel

assessment

they

have

on

not

support centers for non-profit organizations. A

thesupport center for non-profit organizations is a kind

aided

of intermediary focusing on providing information

non-profits on organizational basis but on projectbasis.

Organizational

assessmenthasand consultation with non-profit sector in Japan.

certainadvantages. For instance, organizational assessment

2.

will avoid katte-shugi (Tao, 1999), which means

Knowledge

arbitrary doctrine; the unique tendency hating

External stimuli are useful for knowledge creationintervention

voluntary

within groups (Sasaki, 2002). Setting up a place in aorganizations, while project assessment faces it.

group is one of the important phases in knowledge

Werther and Berman (2001) stress organizational

creation (Nonaka, 1990). Thus, we conductedassessment as making organizations function better.

researches including some participant observations

However, there are not many studies onshown as in Figure 1. At first, according toorganizational assessment. Cutt and Murray (2000)

Community Services staffs, ideal non-profits were

proposed the application of Balanced Score Card

expressed by the key word jiritsu as have mentioned.

(BSC), and Mie Community Institute for Evaluation

This word in Japanese, however, has two meanings,(a non-profit organization existing in Mie Prefecture,that is, independence and autonomy. In fact,

http://www.hyouka.org/) developed organizational

Community Services staffs seemed not to define

self-assessment tools. Other studies are generally

themselves fully what this word meant. It, however,ofathird-party

in30

Clarification

of

the

Tacit

Tacit Knowledge to Assess Non-Profit Organizations in Japan
Figure 1. Flow Chart of Researchhas emerged that they hoped for non-profits to beknowledge and create common explicit knowledge,

independent toward autonomic growth after the longand internalization is to embody explicit knowledge

participant observation and discussion with them.

into tacit knowledge. This operational processThus, we asked Community Services staffs tocorresponds to externalization which is to transfer

note any features after they have researched 24

tacit knowledge of organizational evaluation into

organizations to set up a new grant program. Nonaka

explicit knowledge.

and Takeuchi (1995) say that there are four different

As the result of the operational process, 16

modes of knowledge conversion; (1) socialization,items could be extracted from discussions with

(2) externalization, (3) combination, and (4)Community Services staffs basing on the notes. Theyinternalization. According to Nonaka and Takeuchi

were relatively conscious of eight items (Table 1).

(1995), socialization is to share experiences andThese eight items are classified into two axes; (1)create tacit knowledge of a group, externalization is“characteristics

to transfer tacit knowledge into explicit knowledge,“characteristics of leaders.” The staffs shared explicit

combination is to combine individual explicit

knowledge because they have experienced numbers
31

oforganizations,”

and

(2)

Matsumoto
Table 1. Conscious Items

Table 2. Unconscious Items① Characteristics of Organizations
D1.

Not

more

than

4

years

③ Planning Ability
since

the

A1. Experience of public fiduciary businessestablishment (1=Yes, 0=No)(1=Yes, 0=No)

D2. Establishment without proposal by public

A2. Experience of joint hosting with public

administration (1=Yes, 0=No)

administrations (1=Yes, 0=No)

D3. Annual fiscal scale is not less than 30 million

A3. Activity in the information service (1=Yes,

yen (1=Yes, 0=No)

0=No)

D4. Annual self-sponsored funds less than 50

A4. Activity in the advocacy (1=Yes, 0=No)

million yen (1=Yes, 0=No)④ Organizational Capability② Characteristics of Leaders
L1.

O1. Not less than 3 members of full time staff

Planning Skill (1=Yes, 0=No)(1=Yes, 0=No)

L2. Personal Magnetism (1=Yes, 0=No)
L3.

Communication Skill (1=Yes, 0=No)

L4.

Office Skill (1=Yes, 0=No)

O2. Less than 55 years-old leader (1=Yes, 0=No)
O3. Full-time leader (1=Yes, 0=No)
O4. Apparent less than 40 years-old full-time

Note: Community Services staffs have been
conscious of the two axes of the eight items.

sub-leader or successor (1=Yes, 0=No)
Note: Community Services staffs have been
unconscious of the two axes of the eight items.

of discussions among them, and the eight items

investigated and checked in each of 24 observations.

correspond to it. In other words, they made theFor example, when an organization is three years old,progress on their own to externalization andD1=1 (Yes ) is noted.
While 16 detailed items are checked, we also

combination as in Nonaka and Takeuchi (1995).
On the other hand, as the interaction between

gained the total organizational evaluation. The

tacit and explicit knowledge works on the realevaluation consists of three measures, such as good,organizational knowledge creation, they must makebad and neither to say. There were two patterns of

the progress to socialization and internalization

organizational evaluations. One was an individual(Nonaka & Takeuchi, 1995). As a result they areevaluation combining the results determined by four

relatively unconscious of the other eight items (Table

staffs.

2). These eight items are classified into two axes; (3)determined after consulting four staffs from the“planning ability,” and (4) “organizational cpability.”

viewpoint

This tacit knowledge has been formed throughorganization.

Another

of

was

the

a

collective

adequacyofevaluation

thegrantedFirst, we applied discriminant analysis oncommon experiences.

individual evaluation with 16 components (Table 3).

In addition to the extraction, all 16 items are
32

Tacit Knowledge to Assess Non-Profit Organizations in Japan
Table 4. Discriminant Analysis 2

Table 3. Discriminant Analysis 1
Classified as

ActualstatusGood

Others

Bad

Good

13

1

0

Others

1

6

bad

0

Total

14

Classified as

Actual

Total

Total

statusGood

Others

Bad

14

Good

4

0

0

4

0

7

Others

0

18

0

18

0

3

3

bad

0

0

2

2

7

3

24

Total

4

18

2

24

Note: misclassification probabilities are 8 %.

Note: misclassification probabilities are 0 %.

Table 6. Discriminant Analysis 3

Table 5. Misclassified Probabilities

Classified as

ActualTargets of Discriminant
Type ofstatusGood

OthersBad

Total

Discriminant

Conscious

Unconscious

Good

11

2

1

14

Abalysis

Axes

Axes

Others2

507

Individual

25.0 %

16.7 %

bad

1

0

2

3

Collective

16.7 %

25.0 %

Total

14

7

3

24

Note: misclassification probabilities are 25 %.

It is striking that total organizational evaluations are

more critical to the total evaluation? Discriminant

determined even by four individual staffs. It implies

analysis applied to the total evaluation only by eachcertain common tacit knowledge among them

two axes in the same way. The misclassified

because the total evaluation was based on individual

probabilities in the research come down in Table 5.
The comparison of misclassified probabilities

judgments.
Second, we applied discriminant analysis on

seems to suggest no difference between conscious

collective evaluation with 16 components (Table 4).

axes and unconscious axes. In fact, conscious axes

The collective organizational evaluation is fully

take both ‘good’ for ‘bad’ ( ) and ‘bad’ for ‘good’discriminated by 16 items. This fact proved the( ) in individual evaluation in spite of the absence

possibility of mechanical reconstruction of theof such radically incorrect prediction in other casesorganizational assessment using 16 items.

(Table 6), and Chi-square value of this cross table isOn the other hand, there are two conscious axes

16.829: the least value in all the cases. Therefore, it

and two unconscious axes in 16 items. Which is

implies that unconscious axes are a little more
33

Matsumoto
Table 8. Two types of non-profit organizations

Table 7. Principal Component Analysis
4 axes of
16 items
D1
D2
D3
D4
L1
L2
L3
L4
O1
O2
O3
O4
A1
A2
A3
A4
Eigen
Value
Note:
than 3.

Type

Component
120.028743
0.183075
0.300470
0.014409
0.301401
0.263086
0.165168
0.3692070.400202
0.315576
0.039924
0.018691-0.102192
0.198065-0.018358
0.489708-0.068249-0.422375
0.231611
0.257792-0.294187
0.157531-0.036690-0.008357
0.128237-0.172386
0.447862-0.151912
0.323239
0.418861
0.185075
0.007878

3.01901

2.07702

Movement

Actional
content

Business

Social appeal
Offer ofSocial change social service

Main source ofrevenueFee ordonation

Business
incomeRelationship toneeds

Regardlessof needs

Needs areessential

In addition, the first component can be named“organizational

advocacy,”

and

the

secondcomponent can be named “business adhered towhen absolute numbers are greateradministration.” What do the two components
imply? We need to think of some facts as follows toclear the question.
At first, in Japan, many people may have felt

critical than conscious axes so as to predict the total

the change of the third sector’s movement. It was theevaluation.

transition from “citizen’s movement” to “civil
activities.” In origin, citizen’s movement was

3. Toward the Autonomic Growth

associated with a negative expression, which

According to the above-mentioned research, it was

refrained from, opposed and fought against someproved that four axes of 16 items could reconstructtarget. Today there are non-profit organizations to

the total organizational evaluation. It, however, is not

solve the problem in the society and bear usefulenough to understand the feature of ideal non-profit

public goods. Also frequency of usage of the wordorganizations. It is required to clarify theirknowledgeoftheorganizational

civil activities in the media has apparently increased

assessmentin the 1990s (Nakamura, 1999).

including the tacit knowledge such as unconscious

Secondly,axes.

Yamaoka(2000)

pointedoutcorrespondingly that non-profit organizations haveThus principal component analysis was applied

two types of movements and businesses (Table 8).

to the data which consist of four axes of 16 items.

Yamaoka also says, “non-profit organizations will be

The result of the analysis is shown in Table 7.
34

Tacit Knowledge to Assess Non-Profit Organizations in Japan
Figure 2. Plots of the Principal Component Scores

4←Business Adhered to Administration

2

0
-4

-2

0

2

4

-2

-4
Organizational Advocacy→
High-Evaluated Organizations

Low-Evaluated Organizations

Othersmore and more business-oriented along the time

movement-oriented

even if they are set up as movement-oriented. A

business-oriented one. In fact, Figure 2 is designed

movement-oriented non-profit organization willon the basis of the scores of the two principal

become business-oriented in the long run.” In thecomponents, so the top four ranking organizations

United States, many similar cases are reported suchshow higher score in the first principal component

asorganizations,“organizational advocacy,” nevertheless, not associally-oriented businesses and development ofhigher in the second principal component “business

community businesses (Tanimoto, 2000).

adhered to administration.”commercialized

non-profit

organization

shift

to

a

Above-mentioned matters impress us that the

In short, they hope for non-profit organizations

result of the principal component analysis implies

not to become business-oriented organizations

two types of movements and businesses. The Nippon

adhered to administration, but to develop into

Foundation, however, may not simply hope that aself-businesses.
35

Thus

it

is

desirablethatMatsumoto“organizational

advocacy”

types

both. I am also grateful to all support centers for

non-profit

non-profit organizations who allowed my presence

organizations develop into self-businesses.

with The Nippon Foundation staffs to listen to them

4. Conclusion

together.

The clearer the tacit knowledge of assessment in
non-profits, the clearer the image of ideal non-profits

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