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This study aims to discuss how organizational researchers use the concept of tacit knowledge. The concept has become a “buzzword” in the last decade and has given rise to an extensive literature. The current study views tacit knowledge as a crucial concept that may help link individual understanding and skills and organizational routines and capabilities, a rare topic of discussion in extant literature.

The paper also addresses some of the misunderstandings in the theoretical and empirical organizational literature on tacit knowledge. Organizational researchers usually refer to Michael Polanyi's conception of the term as tacit knowledge, though they mean Gilbert Ryle's concept of “knowing‐how” instead.

Accordingly, the primordial nature of tacit knowing is lost in the transition and what is left is a linear dichotomy of tacit and explicit knowledge.

This misunderstanding creates an obstacle in the way toward establishing the link between individual skills and organizational routines and capabilities. The paper ends with suggestions offered toward bringing the individual and the organization under the same theoretical explanation of human action.

The paper sets out to integrate what is known about the concept of tacit knowledge and proposes a pattern recognition and synthesis (PRS) framework as an explanation of how tacit knowledge is created.

In this conceptual piece it is argued that knowledge is monistic and that the dichotic distinction between tacit and explicit is an artifact of analytic treatment. The PRS framework models the development of personal knowledge via the process of tacit knowing within the individual, who is within an organizational setting.

The PRS model complements extant models of organizational learning by providing possible mechanisms for tacit knowing that have not yet been elucidated. Specifically, as a perception‐based model its main conclusion is that all tacit knowledge must be built up within individuals, which has major implications for the time and energy invested in knowledge creation activities.

Future research can test the propositions given.

The conclusions of the paper suggest that tacit knowledge creation depends on practice by the knower. Ironically, this also suggests a method for how tacit knowledge can be developed even in virtual projects that involve information and communications technologies (ICTs) without face‐to‐face interaction.

The paper argues for a focus in knowledge management on the individual and leads to new insights about how best to manage tacit knowledge creation. Researchers looking at the concept of tacit knowledge and managers who want to understand the limitations and constraints on tacit knowledge development will find the paper's conclusions helpful.

The purpose of this paper is to critically examine the definition and conception of tacit knowledge in existing peer reviewed literature and to suggest how research agendas can be established to clarify understanding for praxis.

The methodology involved an in‐depth literature review of tacit knowledge as part of the knowledge management discourse.

There is considerable disagreement in the literature over the definition and role of tacit knowledge in management studies and organizations. These polemics are reflected in a lack of systematic research agendas being established. Conversely the more meta level concept of knowledge management has been the subject of an increasing amount of research. However, it is suggested that an improved understanding of tacit knowledge is needed to underpin and further develop the knowledge management discourse. From the literature the concept of tacit knowing is advanced as a means for establishing research agendas and improving understanding in praxis, within the tacit knowledge domain. This approach enables definitional differences to be further probed along with the role and purpose of tacit knowledge within organizations.

The paper suggests a number of ways in which tacit knowledge can be developed in organizations at organizational, group and individual levels.

The paper shows how the concept of tacit knowing can help in understanding the dichotomies within the tacit knowledge literature and in advancing understanding of the subject.

The focus of this study is on the knowledge retention process, including knowledge capture, knowledge codification and the internalising of knowledge in organisations – a key aspect of age management. The purpose of this paper is to contribute to an understanding of the difficulties in this process to discuss implications for organizational measures to retain knowledge.

This study is based on field research on a Swedish multinational company from the perspective of senior employees.

The findings indicate that knowledge retention is a complex phenomenon, partly because valued knowledge is tacit and knowing is highly subjective and transferred through learning in collaboration with others in the process of undertaking assignments and acting together in work situations.

Knowledge retention is considered only from the perspective of senior, white-collar employees in this study; it would be of interest to consider other employees’ perspectives as well. A second limitation is that the data were collected at a single site. It could be argued, however, that a single case study research format provides an opportunity to gain deep knowledge and allows for explanations about observed phenomena, thereby contributing towards transferable scientific knowledge.

Knowledge retention is hindered by focusing solely on senior workers and on an explicit and commodified view of knowledge.

Knowledge retention should be an on-going way of working throughout the organization in which tacit knowledge and knowing are important.

This study shows the importance of considering knowledge and knowing retention as a matter of continual interaction between actors. Retention of tacit knowledge and knowing is not merely a matter of capturing and codifying knowledge. This study contributes to an understanding of the internalisation of tacit knowledge and knowing in continual interaction and cannot be preceded by a step-wise process.

Knowledge is critical for organisational effectiveness and competitive advantage. Knowing that you know, knowing what you know, and knowing that you do not know, are critical aspects of knowledge management. Increasing emphasis is placed on the need to identify and use tacit knowledge, as well as explicit knowledge. This discussion examines the unique role of narrative (in the form of storytelling) in eliciting tacit knowledge (including tacit meta‐knowledge) in the sensemaking of organisations.

Tacit knowledge is often difficult to define, given its inexpressible characteristics. Literature review highlights the impact of tacit knowledge on certain knowledge management topics and these include organizational learning, intellectual capital, knowledge management strategy and so forth, but some research gaps remain. The paper aims to propose directions for future research in this domain of discourse.

A review of existing studies highlights some gaps in the literature on the role of tacit knowledge, which is followed by questions for future research.

Given the richness of tacit knowledge discourse, the authors believe that the proposed questions offer avenues for scholars to explore and develop greater understanding of the role of tacit know‐how in certain knowledge management topics.

The authors acknowledge that there are certain limitations to this paper, namely, focusing on the review of tacit knowledge and not on other forms of knowledge. The review presents the role of tacit knowledge and its use in the context of knowledge management related topics. Finally this study proposes only future research directions that are far from being exhaustive, rather than presenting field study results.

This paper reviews the existing literature on how tacit knowledge is perceived and used in certain knowledge management areas. Reviewing the current literature uncovers a number of gaps regarding the role of tacit knowledge.

The paper introduces the concept of not‐yet‐embodied or self‐transcending knowledge. The concept of self‐transcending knowledge proposes a distinction between two types of tacit knowledge: tacit‐embodied knowledge on the one hand and not‐yet‐embodied knowledge on the other hand. The distinction is relevant because each of the three forms of knowledge – explicit, tacit‐embodied, and self‐transcending – is based on different epistemological assumptions and requires a different type of knowledge environment and learning infrastructure. Moreover, the differentiation among markets with decreasing, steady, and increasing returns suggests that, in order to successfully compete for increasing return markets, leaders need a new type of knowledge that allows them to sense, tune into and actualize emerging business opportunities – that is, to tap into the sources of not‐yet‐embodied knowledge.

This paper presents a system‐based approach to action‐directed knowledge management. This approach, known as system‐based knowledge management (SBKM), allows one to respond to the observations made by previous writers that knowledge management should be cognisant of the complexity of knowledge in organisations and of the limitations of codification of that knowledge. Starts with a taxonomic analysis of the nature of organisational knowledge, dividing this critical resource into four: knowing what, knowing how, knowing why, and knowing who. Each of these requires recognition of the system in which it is created and used.

SBKM is an accessible systems analysis tool based on the techniques of qualitative system dynamics. Its fundamental representational technique (the influence diagram) is that of causal mapping and its novel element is the explicit representation of the use of knowledge by human actors in fulfilling their specific system roles.

The method has been used successfully in practice; the study reports on its use in a professional services firm.

With SBKM one can now map the usage and, indeed, the utility of knowledge on to an operating context. This has profound implications for practice, leading potentially into more diagnostic applications of resources for knowledge development and into improved understanding of how knowledge is used within an organisation.

The ability to examine that usage and utility of knowledge on a declared system basis constitutes an additional research instrument for examining how knowledge is used within organisations.