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This research identifies the forms of tacit knowledge frequently requested in the job descriptions of knowledge workers in a multinational automotive manufacturer's product development department. It then explores how and why the most requested forms of tacit knowledge are used in practice to achieve organizational goals.

This study follows a sequential mixed-methods approach to quantify the most frequently requested forms of tacit knowledge within internal job descriptions and then explores how and why this tacit knowledge is used. The first stage applies manifest content analysis to internal job descriptions to highlight the epitomes of tacit knowledge to identify the most frequently requested forms of tacit knowledge. The second stage employs semi-structured interviews to explore the use of the most frequently requested forms of tacit knowledge in practice.

The research indicated that the organization most frequently requested tacit knowledge in the form of skills and experience in the job descriptions of knowledge workers in the product development department. When the use and application of tacit knowledge in the form of skills were further explored in practice, it was found that tacit knowledge-based socially-focused skills were used, which was underpinned by the need to bring people together and align them towards a common goal to make things work; by enabling people to work together as a team; by developing and using networks; and acting as a required resource to support the development and integration in product development. Tacit knowledge in the form of experience was applied through the application of personally obtained experience to enhance development work by acting as a pacemaker for increasing efficiency and a sense of upcoming issues.

This work addresses the paucity of studies identifying tacit knowledge in large organizations and meets calls to investigate the processes and activities related to tacit knowledge in specific contexts.

The part played by tacit skills and knowledge in work performance is well recognised but not well understood. These implicit or hidden dimensions of knowledge and skill are key elements of “mastery”, which experienced workers draw upon in everyday activities and continuously expand in tackling new or unexpected situations. This paper, based on the ESRC Teaching and Learning Research Network on Workplace Learning, argues that it is important to understand better how tacit forms of key competences can contribute to sustaining learning outcomes in different types of learning environments.

China has climbed from 22nd in the Global Innovation Index Rankings in 2017 to 11th in the 2022 due to the transition of its manufacturing firms from assemblers to system integrators. This paper examines how firms can enhance their innovation capability through inbound and outbound open innovation.

This paper applies both open innovation and a knowledge-based view and proposes a conceptual framework that encompasses innovation capability and the significance of tacit knowledge acquisition. A questionnaire was designed to collect relevant data from 139 Chinese manufacturing firms in six regions to test this framework.

The authors found that inbound open innovation has a stronger impact than outbound open innovation on synergistic innovation capability. The acquisition of skill-based tacit knowledge has a slightly stronger intermediary role between open innovation (no matter inbound or outbound) and synergistic innovation capability than cognitive tacit knowledge does.

Firms should improve external tacit knowledge acquisition efforts to generate new knowledge, inspire the innovation passion of employees and implement ambidextrous open innovation.

This paper makes a good first step to analyze the effect of ambidextrous open innovation on the synergistic innovation capability of Chinese manufacturing firms. It verifies the role of skill-based and cognitive tacit knowledge acquisition and provides new reflections on open innovation strategy in emerging economies, thus enriching open innovation and knowledge-based theories.

Tacit knowledge is gaining importance in the productive capability of many modern firms, yet the conditions under which the ability to share this form of knowledge between individuals or teams are yet to be resolved. Tacit knowledge is embedded in individuals, but is often most productive when combined with other forms of capital assets into firms. Transaction cost economics has been a useful tool in explaining the boundary of the firm, as well as the formation of teams within firms. The extent to which intra-firm teams compete or co-operate is analyzed by examining the network effects between teams in situations where tacit knowledge exists. We examine the costs and benefits that can be expected from “learning” in a multi-team firm and conduct a simulation to demonstrate the effects. Two scenarios are considered: one when there is almost no specialization between teams, and the second when specialization is extreme. We are able to demonstrate that only in cases of very large differences in tacit knowledge between teams is the transfer of such knowledge profitable. Thus the existence of separate silos within firms (i.e., non-networked teams) should not be condemned out of hand.

The purpose of this paper is to elicit tacit knowledge exhibited in expert information system (IS) professionals in a form that can be shared with others; and to develop categorical framework suggesting key content areas of tacit knowledge in the requirements analysis domain.

Requirements analysis is selected as the main focus of this study due to the importance of this phase to the success of IS development and the nature of requirements analysis tasks requiring extensive amount of tacit knowledge. The authors used the “storytelling” approach, a semi-structured interview technique for knowledge elicitation.

The study resulted in 132 knowledge items using a qualitative method and categorized them into 14 categories using cluster analysis. The study found that experienced, successful analysts see systems analysis in behavioral, managerial, and political terms and focus heavily on interpersonal, project management, and organizational issues.

The limitations in the research sample, or in the recollection capability of the research subjects could compromise the comprehensiveness of the tacit knowledge in the requirements analysis domain; however, the elicited knowledge at least represents important dimensions one might reasonably find in this domain.

Very little research has attempted to capture this tacit dimension of system analysts’ knowledge. Thus, capturing and transferring the tacit knowledge from experts should help in the evolution of novice to expert system analysts thereby improving both their effectiveness and the quality of the information systems developed.

Drawing on the resource‐based view of the firm and the dynamic capabilities perspective, this paper sets out to argue that salespeople's selling skills and their inter‐ and intra‐unit collaborative skills are valuable, rare, socially complex, and inimitable knowledge‐based resources embedded in the human and social capital of field sales units (FSUs). Salespeople's selling and collaborative skills, both directly and interactively, should help field sales units generate greater economic rents. This paper also aims to explore the effect of salespeople's selling and collaborative skills on the level of total compensation through the mediating role of sales unit performance.

The data were obtained from a sample of managers of FSUs in 102 large Canadian organizations. The proposed model and its hypotheses were tested using hierarchical moderated regression analysis.

Collaborative skills, but not selling skills, are directly related to FSU performance; the effect of selling skills on FSU performance is strengthened by the complementary role of collaborative skills; and selling skills and collaborative skills both individually and interactively result in the payment of higher compensation to salespeople as a result of their enhanced performance.

Salespeople's selling skills and collaborative skills (both directly and interactively) not only enable the FSU to generate higher levels of performance, but they also increase individual salespeople's compensation.

It is necessary for managers to acknowledge the role of knowledge‐based resources in building/developing organizational dynamic capabilities.

This is one of the few studies that explores the strategic role of salespeople in creating a competitive advantage and links the sales management literature to the literature on the RBV of the firm and social capital/human capital theory.

Most knowledge‐related initiatives underlying the much‐vaunted discourse on knowledge management tend to lionise recursive, using activities (i.e. documenting, sharing and measuring knowledge, etc.) at the expense of making and innovative using activities (such as inventing, innovating and designing). An over‐emphasis on recursive use of codified knowledge can stifle entrepreneurial creativity. In discussing the tension between making and using skills, the paper draws on case study material derived from a rapidly expanding firm where the implementation of the intranet is considered as a “creativity killer”, an infrastructure that supports recursive using activities. Employees remained faithful to their informal, social networks, referred to as “community of practice”, as the principal mode of sharing and developing knowledge. One of the main implications of the study is that firms that mainly rely on activities of making – a characteristic of firms that are in their initial and expanding phases – should put premium on a collaborative infrastructure that promotes making activities.

The purpose of this paper is to introduce and develop the argument that e‐learning technologies and techniques can play a pivotal role in encouraging and facilitating organizational learning, by transforming tacit knowledge into explicit knowledge and diffusing it throughout the organization.

By synthesising the evidence in organizational learning, information technology (IT) and e‐learning research domains, this paper challenges the assertion that tacit information cannot be effectively transformed or diffused by technological means. The notion of organizational learning is examined, particularly in relation to the applicability or otherwise of anthropomorphic models. The cyclic nature of individual and organizational learning models is then discussed and a synthesized construct is offered. The importance of tacit knowledge expression and transfer in this cyclic model is examined, and the role of IT and e‐learning techniques is considered as a means of encouraging tacit knowledge transformation and flow.

Topics of reflection, independence, creation of “safe” learning spaces and the importance of collaboration in learning are demonstrated as being some of the most synergistic issues. These are under‐researched topics, though. There is significant potential for effective collaborative research amongst the organizational learning, IT and e‐learning pedagogy research communities, addressing issues such as the effective extraction and communication of tacit knowledge.

This originality and value of this paper lies in the synthesis of evidence from research and practice domains that have traditionally been disparate, demonstrating that the information technology and e‐learning pedagogy fields can offer effective means of enhancing organizational learning.

Although exaptation is recognized as a means of creation capable of generating significant economic implications for organizations, this mechanism has not been explored in depth in the field of management, where it remains restricted to innovation and product research and development. With this limitation in mind, this study aims to explore and discuss exaptation along with other entities that are more greatly concerned with the interests of and direct contact with practitioners and academics in the field of management, such as processes, data, tacit knowledge and skills.

For the purposes of this study, a comprehensive review of the literature on exaptation was conducted, and 46 entrepreneurs from companies of different sizes and segments were interviewed.

The results of the review of the literature and interviews with entrepreneurs helped to identify and describe 13 cases of exaptation associated with nine different kinds of organizational entities. For four of these entities, which are closely associated with management, the restrictions of the business environment regarding the exaptation of these entities are discussed, together with the more favorable organizational structures for their occurrence.

This paper discusses the exaptation to the four types of entity closely linked with management: tacit knowledge, data, process and skill. For each one of these entities the following is discussed: the organizational characteristics that hinder the exaptation of the entity in question and the managerial actions that could alter these characteristics and facilitate the occurrence of the exaptation mechanism with the entity in question.

This process led to the development of an algorithm for analyzing the exaptation mechanism and the adaptation of the attributes associated with the agent-artifact[entity]-context tripartite to describe and analyze exaptation event, including another attribute: the type of entity.