After Thursday's discussion in class, I am somewhat consumed with trying to sketch out what I think is going on with tacit and explicit knowledge. Of course, I was wondering, why is a focus on tacit knowledge even important in our understanding of organizational learning? I came up with a few arguments:
1) Although we all acknowledge that the whole is not made up of the sum of the parts, the collective is made up of individuals and the individual plays a critical role in the assimilation of knowledge and culture within the organization.
2) One person's tacit could be another's explicit, and vice versa. In other words, what I know that we know, you might not know we know, and what you know that we know, I might not know we know. Since a major focus in our study is making the tacit explicit, this is a key to understanding how that process can be carried out (i.e. via member contributions and collaboration).
3) If we are to assume that organizations can have collective memory, then we imply that organizations have tacit collective knowledge, and anything which we learn about individual tacit knowledge might hold true also for collective knowledge. Therefore, finding out what tacit individual knowledge is could help us build a model for studying tacit collective knowledge.
Another reason which I am working on is the fact that tacit "knowledge" might not always be accurate or true, since it is a subjective construct. Therefore, what do we do if tacit meaning structures are found to be erroneous? To what extent do erroneous tacit meaning structures play a role in collective learning (or lack thereof)?
Joy,
ReplyDeleteI never thought about my tacit knowlegde being your explicit knowledge. That thought made me stop reading you blog and think for at least ten minutes about the possiblities. WOW, I feel if you and the other person were on the same page you could explode you knowledge on what ever project ya'll were working on. The rest of the group would just sit back and watch. This leads to your next comment about what is your tacit knowledge is incorrect. If you have someone in the group with explicit knowledge then they can tactfully correct you. If not, then hopefully someone in the group will realize that the knowledge is wrong and do some research in order to show proof of this and then the group can continue, hopefully without hurt feelings.
Test, commenting with my new google account.
ReplyDeleteGreat job Joy. This discussion on "tacit knowledge" reminds me on a similar discussion. "Perception." If tacit knowledge drives an organization like perception does, isn't it automatically more valuable than explicit knowledge. Perception is what drives people to do what they do 80 percent of the time. Does this high percentage constitute "truth?" In Chapter 5, we learn that tacit knowledge, using the far transfer, is really about relationships and the facts. Tacit knowledge is the knowledge that makes an organization competitive, and a driving force, much like perception
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