Prelims

Half Title Page

The Philosophy of Tacit Knowledge

Title Page

The Philosophy of Tacit Knowledge

The Tacit Side of Knowledge Management in Organizations

by

Jon-Arild Johannessen

Kristiania University College, Norway

United Kingdom – North America – Japan – India – Malaysia – China

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Emerald Publishing Limited

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First edition 2022

Copyright © 2022 Jon-Arild Johannessen. Published under exclusive licence by Emerald Publishing Limited.

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Foreword

When we consider tacit knowledge, i.e. the portion of our knowledge that is difficult to pass on to others in the form of information, e.g. how to cycle, swim, ride, sort fish, grade tea leaves, taste wine and so on, there is no certainty that we must improve our understanding of a phenomenon before we can explain it. Rather, it is the other way around: we must explain a phenomenon more in order to understand it better. This should be understood as the distinction between mastering something and understanding it.

Words are often useful tools for developing, transferring and integrating explicit knowledge. Words are not essential, however, in the case of tacit knowledge. For example, to a large extent we understand what babies are trying to tell us, even before they have learned to use words and understand their meaning. We also understand people who are suffering and turn to us wordlessly. We understand that a person can swim, even if that person cannot explain how he/she does it.

Since tacit knowledge is difficult to codify, and thus difficult to store in external media such as archives, databases and so on, it is completely dependent on individuals. As a result, if the possessors of tacit knowledge disappear from a system, their tacit knowledge can easily disappear with them. Tacit knowledge, which is an aspect of experiential knowledge, has an external influence on social systems, including increased productivity. This was emphasized strongly by Solow (1997, p. 4), including in his reference to Arrow's (1962) article on ‘learning by doing’. Accordingly, studies of tacit knowledge relate directly to wealth creation processes in the commercial sector.

It is not always the case that theories develop in the light of observations. Often it can be the other way around. In other words, we develop a theory, and it is only then that we are able to perceive certain phenomena and/or problems that previously were invisible to us. An important objective of this project is precisely to develop elements of such a theory about tacit knowledge, so that we become able to perceive new perspectives.

In this book, we have developed 52 case letters for the purposes of exemplifying, concretizing, elaborating and anchoring the theoretical discussion in each chapter. ¹ Many of the case letters in this book address different sides of a particular aspect of tacit knowledge, and accordingly appear to resemble each other. This has been done quite deliberately, with the intention of allowing the reader to gain a greater understanding of the topic dealt with in the relevant case letters.