Finally getting to a book I was supposed to have read in 1990 (assigned in a graduate course), I just completed Akio Morita's Made is Japan.  Morita, a cofounder of SONY, offers his memories perspectives on Japan's post war economic miracle, and the birth of his company as a global electronics pioneer.  The book was published in 1986 and introduces some of the confrontations that characterized Japan / USA relations in the late 80s and 90s.  I'm actually happy to have only read this now, as it resonates more with where i am now, than the callow grad student of 1990.  In particular, the following quote stays with me:

  The most important mission for a Japanese manager is to develop a healthy relationship with his employees, to create a family-like feeling within the corporation, a feeling that employees and managers share the same fate. Those companies that are most successful in Japan are those that have managed to create a shared sense of fate among all employees, what Americans call labor and management, and the shareholders.

 A sense of shared fate and trust is critical in building a knowledge based firm that relies on attracting and retaining the best.  Wisdom from an industry giant.