2.1.2 Explicit and tacit knowledge
Badaracco’s structure of knowledge into two categories is a helpful counterpoint to an examination of two other categories commonly used to delineate knowledge; the tacit or explicit dimensions.
As early as the 1940s Michael Polanyi (1948; 1966) advanced significant arguments for broadening of focus on the constitution of knowledge. Polanyi raised intricate arguments for separating what an individual knew, the knowledge they were conscious of holding, and the knowledge they could transfer. Basically knowledge could be tacit or explicit. Respectively this referred to knowledge that by its structure and creation could be highly personal and context-specific or it could be codified in a manner that made it transferable between individuals (Nonaka and Takeuchi, 1995:59).
This approach to the structure of knowledge has become widely adopted due to the success of Nonaka and Takeuchi’s work, The Knowledge Creating Company (1995). It explores the link between tacit and explicit knowledge and focusses on how management of both aspects of knowledge and their sources could advance a company’s competitive advantage.
Our dynamic model of knowledge creation is anchored to a critical assumption that human knowledge is created and expanded through social interaction between tacit knowledge and explicit knowledge. We call this interaction “knowledge conversions”. It should be noted that this conversion is a “social” process between individuals and not confined within an individual (1995:61).
Nonaka and Takeuchi extend the social process of knowledge conversion to include not only individual, group or the organisational levels, but also inter-organisational or levels beyond the organisation. Movement of knowledge and its transferral from tacit to explicit was argued to be central to how Japanese organisation’s successfully generated new knowledge, and encouraged greater creativity and innovation. The speed with which knowledge was transferred and converted also was critical to an organisation’s competitive advantage (Nonaka and Takeuchi, 1995:5-7).
Tacit knowledge may include subjective knowledge such as experience, simultaneous knowledge use in a specific context, and analogue knowledge relating to practice or application (Nonaka & Takeuchi, 1995:61-65).
Explicit knowledge may include objective knowledge such as rationality (mind), sequential knowledge (procedures and rules), and digital knowledge (theory) (Nonaka & Takeuchi, 1995:61-65).
Nonaka and Takeuchi then argue for four types of knowledge conversion represented in the diagram below.
Figure 1 Dimensions to Nonaka and Takeuchi’s Knowledge Conversion
(See Nonaka and Takeuchi 1995:62-70)
Reading 1
Zack, MH (Summer, 1999 ) ‘ Managing Codified Knowledge’, Sloan Management Review, Vol. 40[4], pp. 45-58. Sourced March 2003, at http://web.cba.neu.edu/~mzack/articles/kmarch/kmarch.htm.
Activity 2
Read and analyse the above reading from Zack. Now complete the following questions.
- What ‘range’ may knowledge span? Reflect on examples you may hold of the two main dimensions in the range offered by Zack.
- Can effective performance be attributed to what knowledge a person holds? Reflect on how you would defend your position on this question.
- Why is structure and content the two main aspects of a knowledge repository? Today many knowledge and content management repository solutions provided by vendors are failing because they cannot develop a consistent taxonomy or means to classify content. Do you think this reinforces the points raised by Zack?
- List the classifications provided for knowledge management applications.
- What are knowledge architectures? Are knowledge architectures like a house of cards; remove context and the relevance to the organisation also collapses?
Let’s use another set of descriptors that further refine our understanding of the structure of tacit knowledge.
Harry Collins produced some useful ideas that help to further explain the structure of knowledge in relationship to individuals (1997:146-148). Collins differentiates transferable knowledge – what we have discussed above as explicit knowledge able to be transferred through interaction between humans or between a human and a machine – and three other sub-types of knowledge. Transferable knowledge could be embodied in symbolic or forms of communicated knowledge that can be generalised without loss of meaning or understanding between brains/ computers. Collins stressed that this type of knowledge was tacit and can be said to reside in symbols. However some knowledge could not be transferred without risk of loss because knowledge embedded in symbols did not necessarily equate with knowledge embedded within each individual. Three types of knowledge embedded in individuals and societies included (Collins, 1997:146-147):
Embodied knowledge - includes the "knowledge/ability/skills that cannot be transferred simply by passing signals from one brain/computer to another" (Collins, 1997:146). This may be due to physical or hardware differences but reinforces how this type of knowledge will relate to the individual holder of that knowledge more than others, E.g. It is five steps to the door; this relies upon the individual’s length of stride. This knowledge can be said to reside in the individual.
Embrained knowledge - this is knowledge that relates specifically to the physical brain functioning of the individual. For example when explaining a theory to others they may understand the general principles being espoused but the physical linkages for recalling specific information will be different in everyone's brain. Language provides a common frame of reference but the significance of one or another variable may relate to how each individual makes memory linkages. This knowledge can be said to reside in the physical.
Encultured knowledge - knowledge acquisition certainly must use the linguistic and social framework that the individual has inculcated into them. Symbolic interactionists express this form of knowledge well in the identification of individuals in terms of the reference groups they participate in. Members of these groups (such as gangs or social classes) will have their own language and frame of reference. For participants in workplaces this may mean we use a language common to our group in the work or non-work environment and this can influence interaction within the workplace. This knowledge can be said to reside in the cultural or social context (Collins, 1997:147).
Activity 3
- What are the implications for knowledge development within individuals?
- Is Collins describing tacit knowledge (the knowledge not able to be codified or generalised)?
Reading 2
Conklin, EJ (1996), ‘Designing Organisational Memory: Preserving Intellectual Assets in a Knowledge Economy’, Group Decision Support Systems White Paper, Touchstone Consulting, Sourced February 2005, at http://www.touchstone.com/tr/wp/DOM.html .
Activity 4
- Using your own words describe:
Explicit knowledge -
Tacit knowledge -
- Now give two examples of both explicit knowledge and tacit knowledge that you can identify in your own workplace or a workplace you are familiar with (Eg. A university)
- How does explicit and tacit knowledge relate to organisational memory? Why is it hard for organisation to remember what they know?
Write a 150 word description of how you can identify different forms of explicit knowledge and tacit knowledge as detailed in the previous reading by Nonaka and Takeuchi . Then list how those forms of knowledge may relate (if at all) to embedded knowledge and migratory knowledge as detailed in the reading by Badaracco.
Fundamental to how a manager accesses individual knowledge is the fact that it is:
- Tacit;
- Owned by the individual; and
- Shaped through interaction with others.
Whether knowledge is explicit or tacit; migratory or embedded; or subject to individual attributes (embodied, embrained or encultured), managers of knowledge need to appreciate its structure before they can better influence how it is captured, transferred, assimilated and created.
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