First Blog Post: Passing on Tacit Knowledge

The very first thing that we discussed this class was the beginning of The Tacit Dimension by Michael Polanyi.  We specifically discussed chapter one, where Polanyi introduced readers to the concept of tacit information, and its four aspects.  I will be the first to admit that I was quite confused as to what exactly the author was saying in this chapter, and had to look up the information for myself online (sources below).  Once I understood the definitions of the terms he was trying to explain, things began to make a lot more sense to me.

After I was finished with the book chapter, I went through our articles to find anything that caught my eye.  After my initial troubles with picking some of the articles given to us, I went with three that I thought sounded interesting.

The first was an article called Knowledge Transfer: A Basis for Competitive Advantage in Firms by Argote and Ingram.  The article examined knowledge transfer in organizations, and sought to find what affected knowledge transfer successes and failures.  They defined knowledge transfer in organizations as “the process through which one unit (e.g., group, department, or division) is affected by the experience of another.”  It was found that, in order to have a successful transfer of knowledge in organizations, that people were more important than previously thought in the process.  Basically, moving knowledge and technology was made a lot more smoothly when the people who knew and worked with this knowledge and technology were transferred as well.

The second article was called The TEA Set: Tacit Knowledge and Scientific Networks by Collins, which examined several laboratories in the process of creating TEA lasers at the time, and the social interactions between competing laboratories and their scientists.  The purpose behind this was to see how customer knowledge transfer worked between these different laboratories and scientists, and whether or not these social networks aided in the successful creation and usage of the TEA lasers being developed.  The authors examined the methods taken to successfully build and operate a TEA laser, with a heavy focus on the social aspects of the scientists’ interactions with other laboratories during the process.  It was found that the laboratories that were successful in building their TEA lasers were the ones who gained the necessary information to complete them from from laboratories who already completed and used their TEA lasers, and gained their information directly from acquaintances, personal experience, or generous colleagues who didn’t bother with the normal secrecy between competing laboratories.  It was concluded that there are more complexities and uncertainties involved in transferring scientific knowledge that has not been thoroughly examined, including interactions between individuals involved, such as the scientists in this case.

The third and final article was called An Integrated Customer Knowledge Management Framework for Academic Libraries by Daneshgar and Parirokh, which examined the case study organization labeled LIBRARY, as well as customer knowledge management.  The authors defined customer knowledge by dividing it into 3 categories: (1) Knowledge about Customers (KAC), which dealt with customer motivations and addressing them by personalized methods for each customer; (2) Knowledge from Customers (KRC) which dealt with clients’ knowledge; and (3) Knowledge for Customers (KFC) which combines the previous two, and is given for customer and developer use.  The results of the experiment showed that librarians possessed a large amount of tacit knowledge regarding their duties and their customers, of which much was catalogued and made accessible to others.

All in all, the articles showed me that there is a lot more knowledge that we have yet to access or take advantage of in various fields.  With all the first article, we saw that transferring knowledge wasn’t as successful without transferring people involved as well.  This is due to tacit knowledge that was mentioned multiple times throughout this post.  This is the knowledge indescribable through words.  I think of it more as knowledge based on experience rather than something that can be gained from hitting the books.  The best example is something I came up with from reading the second article, and that is the job of a librarian.  A librarian’s main jobs may be the same as others in the field, with other duties differing their position from others, but how they accomplish their tasks, the skills they have, and the unique ways that they do things are all their own.  Some things can easily be taught, but the thought set, the order in which they accomplish things, the little things they do differently than others in their duties, all of these things have something inherent in them that cannot easily be passed on.  In this case, one of the ways that such information can be passed is through example.  By showing others how they complete their duties just by doing them, it can help others to understand what you are trying to convey that cannot be said.

Then you have those who are reluctant to share ANY information with others, such as the case with the third article with the TEA lasers.  The scientists who successfully completed and use their lasers were vary reluctant to share the secrets of their success with their colleagues in other laboratories, due to their competitive nature, and fear of loss of funds and prestige with others’ success.  The only ones who were successful in gaining the information they needed were ones who held unique ties with successful scientists, who in turn were more willing to share in their success.  It is a sad fact that this is not just common, but an accepted thing to see in various fields of study.

Sources:

Argote, L, & Ingram, P. (2000).  Knowledge transfer: A basis for competitive advantage in firms.  Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 82(1), 150-169.  doi:10.1006/obhd.2000.2893

Collins, H. M. (1974).  The TEA set: Tacit knowledge and scientific networks.  Science Studies, 4, 165-185.  URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/284473

Daneshgar, F., & Parirokh, M. (2012).  An integrated customer knowledge management framework for academic libraries.  The Library Quarterly, 82(1), 7-28. URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/662943