Characteristics Of Tacit And Explicit Knowledge

Title: Tacit and Explicit Knowledge Course: Knowledge Management Assignment 4 Efosa Alohan 2018-03-18 1 Introduction

Knowledge plays a vital role in organization success or failure. Organizations are faced with several challenges in such as how to identify the right information which can be transformed into meaningful and useful knowledge. Tacit knowledge based on common sense, and explicit knowledge based on academic accomplishment are both underutilized

It is very difficult to capture, one key characteristics of tacit knowledge is that it entails personal knowledge. Tacit knowledge draws from personal experiences and gives an individual foresight and the awareness to make “Gut-level” decisions (Becerra-Fernandez et al., 2004). Tacit knowledge is based on who the messenger is i.e. the individual that is passing the knowledge. The knowledge is individual and bound to the person and context, thus making it difficult to transfer (Nonaka and Takeuchi, 1995). Tacit knowledge is normally acquired on the job or in a specific situation and is often said to be a competitive advantage within companies often because it presents a challenge when trying to be imitated and copied, thus making it even more difficult to store and transfer (Ambrosini and Bowman, 2008). Tacit knowledge is not easily quantified or conveyed and causes information to be difficult to transmit between individuals (Becerra-Fernandez et al.,

(2006) present another perspective of tacit knowledge-it is not simply what a person knows, but who they know. A potential and strong partnership is often developed among workers in an organization. This is due to the nature of collective responsibility that is familiar within the organization. For instance, when an employee resigns or get sacked in an organization, it will definitely take some time before the new employee can be entrusted. This might create a problem within the organization because employees tend to rely on each to solve critical task to the success of organization. It is this combination of explicit and tacit knowledge that seasoned workers possess which has become the most “strategically significant resource of organizations” As employees in organizations progress, they acquire a set of knowledge that is customized to the firms’ operations, structure and culture. More importantly, it is the unique insights and understood idiosyncrasies about the company that is developed over time which make the learning difficult to replicate or replace (Lesser,