Tacit knowledge

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

  (Redirected from Tacit knowing)
Jump to: navigation, search
"Tacit" redirects here. For the software company, see Tacit Software.
 This article needs additional citations for verification.
Please help improve this article by adding reliable references. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (October 2007)

Tacit knowledge (as opposed to formal or explicit knowledge) is knowledge that cannot be transferred to another person as a result of it being written down or verbalized. For example, stating to someone that Tooting is in London is a piece of explicit knowledge that can be written down, transmitted, and understood by a recipient. However the ability to use algebra, speak a language, or design and use complex equipment requires all sorts of knowledge that is not always known explicitly, even by expert practitioners, and which cannot be explicitly transferred to users.

While tacit knowledge appears to be simple, it has far reaching consequences and is not widely understood.

Contents

[edit] Definition

With tacit knowledge, people are not often aware of the knowledge they possess or how it can be valuable to others. Effective transfer of tacit knowledge generally requires extensive personal contact and trust.

Tacit knowledge is not easily shared. Tacit knowledge consists often of habits and culture that we do not recognize in ourselves. In the field of knowledge management, the concept of tacit knowledge refers to a knowledge which is only known by an individual and that is difficult to communicate to the rest of an organization. Knowledge that is easy to communicate is called explicit knowledge. The process of transforming tacit knowledge into explicit knowledge is known as codification or articulation.

The tacit aspects of knowledge are those that cannot be codified, but can only be transmitted via training or gained through personal experience. Tacit knowledge has been described as “know-how” -- as opposed to “know-what” (facts), “know-why” (science), or “know-who” (networking). It involves learning and skill but not in a way that can be written down.

[edit] Examples

One example of tacit knowledge is the notion of language itself—it is not possible to learn a language by being taught the rules of grammar—a native speaker picks it up entirely unaware of the formal grammar which he may be taught later. Another example is how to ride a bike; this can only be learned through personal experimentation.

An excellent discussion of tacit knowledge using algebra as an example is given by Collins:[1]

“algebra cannot be reduced to a set of formal rules. All types of knowledge however pure consist in part of tacit rules which may be impossible to formulate in principle. For instance the ability to solve an algebraic equations includes such normally non articulated knowledge as that the symbol ‘X usually means the same whether it is written in ballpoint, chalk or print or spoken irrespective of the day of the week or temperature of the air. But in another sense, ‘X’ stands for anything at all and may only mean the same – exactly (e.g. 2.75 grammes, 2.75 inches etc) on coincidental and unimportant occasions. Again, sometimes a capitalised X or an italicised X may have a distinctive meaning. Capital X in the equation X = 5Y is the same as X in the equation 5Y = X, but is not the same as in X = 5Z, unless Y = Z: but, on the other hand, ‘X’ is being used in the same way in all the equations. This list of tacit rules as it is extended becomes more confusing and comes to resemble a list of all the examples of the uses of X which have ever been made. But such a list cannot serve at all as a guide to the use of X in the future, Learning algebra consists of more than the memorisation of sets of formal rules; it also involves knowing how do things (e.g. use ‘X’; correctly – use logical inferences) which may have been learned long before”

Collins went on to show in some detail how a particular laser (The TEA laser) was designed in America and the idea, with specific assistance from the designers, was gradually propagated to various other Universities world wide. However in the early days, even when specific instructions were sent, other labs failed to replicate the laser, it only being made to work in each case following a visit to or from the originating lab or very close contact and dialogue. It became clear that the originators while they clearly could make the laser work did not know exactly what it was they were doing to make it work and so could not articulate or specify it by means of monologue articles and specifications. But a cooperative process of dialogue enabled the tacit knowledge to be transferred.

Other examples are the Bessemer steel process – Bessemer sold a patent for his advanced steel making process and was sued by the purchasers who couldn't get it to work – in the end Bessemer set up his own steel company because he knew how to do it, even though he could not convey it to his patent users, which became one of the largest in the world and changed the face of steel making.[2]

As apprentices learn the craft of their masters through observation, imitation, and practice, so do employees of a firm learn new skills through on-the-job training. When Matsushita started developing its automatic home bread-making machine in 1985, an early problem was how to mechanize the dough-kneading process, a process that takes a master baker years of practice to perfect. To learn this tacit knowledge, a member of the software development team, Ikuko Tanaka, decided to volunteer herself as an apprentice to the head baker of the Osaka International Hotel, who was reputed to produce the area’s best bread. After a period of imitation and practice, one day she observed that the baker was not only stretching but also twisting the dough in a particular fashion (“twisting stretch”), which turned out to be the secret for making tasty bread. The Matsushita home bakery team drew together eleven members from completely different specializations and cultures: product planning, mechanical engineering, control systems, and software development. The “twisting stretch” motion was finally materialized in a prototype after a year of iterative experimentation by the engineers and team members working closely together, combining their explicit knowledge. For example, the engineers added ribs to the inside of the dough case in order to hold the dough better as it is being churned. Another team member suggested a method (later patented) to add yeast at a later stage in the process, thereby preventing the yeast from over-fermenting in high temperatures.[3]

[edit] Knowledge management

According to Parsaye, there are three major approaches to the capture of tacit knowledge from groups and individuals. They are:

  • Interviewing experts.
  • Learning by being told.
  • Learning by observation.

Interviewing experts can be done in the form of structured interviewing or by recording organizational stories. Structured interviewing of experts in a particular subject is the most commonly used technique to capture pertinent, tacit knowledge. An example of a structured interview would be an exit interview. Learning by being told can be done by interviewing or by task analysis. Either way, an expert teaches the novice the processes of a task. Task analysis is the process of determining the actual task or policy by breaking it down and analyzing what needs to be done to complete the task. Learning by observation can be done by presenting the expert with a sample problem, scenario, or case study and then observing the process used to solve the problem.

Some other techniques for capturing tacit knowledge are:

  • Ad hoc sessions
  • E-learning
  • Action learning
  • Learning history
  • Road maps

All of these approaches should be recorded in order to transfer the tacit knowledge into reusable explicit knowledge.

[edit] See also

[edit] References

  1. ^ H.M. Collins, The Tea Set: Tacit Knowledge and Scientific Networks, School of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Bath, reprinted in B. Barnes and D. Edge (eds.)Science in Context: Readings in the Sociology of Science, Open University Press, 1982. see http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0036-8539(197404)4%3A2%3C165%3ATTSTKA%3E2.0.CO%3B2-I
  2. ^ "The new science of strong materials" - Penguin books)
  3. ^ Nonaka and Takeuchi, 1995: "The Knowledge-Creating Company"

[edit] Further reading

  • Bao, Y.; Zhao, S. (2004), "MICRO Contracting for Tacit Knowledge - A Study of Contractual Arrangements in International Technology Transfer", in Problems and Perspectives of Management, 2, 279- 303.
  • Brohm, R. Bringing Polanyi onto the theatre stage: a study on Polanyi applied to Knowledge Management, in: Proceedings of the ISMICK Conference, Erasmus University, Rotterdam, The Netherlands, 1999, pp. 57–69.
  • Brohm, R. "Polycentric Order in Organizations", published dissertation by ERIM, Erasmus University Rotterdam: Rotterdam, 2005. http://hdl.handle.net/1765/6911
  • Collins, H.M. "Tacit Knowledge, Trust and the Q of Sapphire" Social Studies of Science' p. 71-85 31(1) 2001
  • Dalkir, Kimiz (2005) "Knowledge Management in Theory and Practice" pp. 82–90
  • Nonaka, I and Takeuchi, H. The Knowledge Creating Company Oxford University Press, 1995
  • Patriotta, G. (2004). Studying organizational knowledge. Knowledge Management Research and Practice, 2(1).
  • Ploszajski, P.; Saquet, A.; Segalla, M. Le savoir tacite dans un contexte culturel (z: ), Les Echos, Le Quotidien de L’Economie, 18 Novembre 2004, Paris 2004
  • Polanyi, Michael. "The Tacit Dimension". First published Doubleday & Co, 1966. Reprinted Peter Smith, Gloucester, Mass, 1983. Chapter 1: "Tacit Knowing".
  • Sanders, A. F. (1988). Michael Polanyi's post critical epistemology, a reconstruction of some aspects of 'tacit knowing'. Amsterdam: Rodopi.
  • Tsoukas, H. (2003) ‘Do we really understand tacit knowledge?’ in The Blackwell handbook of organizational learning and knowledge management. Easterby-Smith and Lyles (eds), 411-427. Cambridge, MA: Blackwell Publishing .

[edit] External links

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tacit_knowledge"
Personal tools