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To manage intangible assets such as knowledge is perceived as an important capability for competition. One of the main matters for managing knowledge resources is diffusion of knowledge within organizations. Knowledge management needs different forms according to the possibility to code knowledge. Internal individual processes like experience and talent obtain tacit knowledge that is difficult to code. Therefore it cannot be managed and shared as explicit knowledge. To rely on personal tacit knowledge is risky. Conversion of tacit knowledge to explicit or at least ability to share it offers greater value to an organization. But what are the difficulties related to sharing tacit knowledge? Different difficulties are to be found related to perception, language, time, value and distance.

The organizational behavior and knowledge management literature has devoted a lot attention on how structural knowledge processes enhance learning. There has been little emphasis on the informal knowledge processes and the construct remains undefined. The purpose of this paper is to highlight the importance of informal knowledge processes, propose a definition for these processes and link them to the socialization and internalization processes suggested by Nonaka and Takeuchi in the SECI model. The paper offers a fresh perspective on how informal knowledge processes in organizations help to enhance the organization’s learning capability. It will enable scholars and managers to have a better understanding of how informal knowledge processes promote tacit knowledge.

This study aims to examine the underlying process through which emotional intelligence impacts employees’ innovative work behaviour by testing the mediating role played by tacit knowledge sharing in organizations. The direct and indirect effects of emotional intelligence on innovative work behaviour of employees were explored.

A structured survey questionnaire was used to collect data from 171 full-time employees of five high-tech knowledge-intensive organizations located in India. The hypotheses were tested using partial least squares structural equation modelling.

The results revealed that emotional intelligence had a direct positive impact on tacit knowledge sharing and innovative work behaviour of employees. Similarly, tacit knowledge sharing positively influenced innovative work behaviour. The study further showed that the relationship between emotional intelligence and innovative work behaviour was partially mediated by tacit knowledge sharing.

To enhance innovative behaviour at work, organizations should concentrate on building the emotional competencies of its employees to increase their emotional intelligence level through suitable training programs. Besides, organizations should also focus on shaping a knowledge-sharing culture by building systems and processes through which free exchange of tacit knowledge among employees can be promoted to enhance their innovative work behaviour.

This study contributes to the existing pool of knowledge by demonstrating the unexplored effect of emotional intelligence on innovative work behaviour via the mediating role of tacit knowledge sharing. It also advances current literature on emotional intelligence, tacit knowledge sharing and innovative work behaviour by discussing useful theoretical implications of the findings.

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 aim of this paper is to explore the dichotomous role of knowledge through an examination of tacit and explicit knowledge in organizational change contexts.

The study's aim is achieved by an analytical review of the seminal and contemporary knowledge management literature.

The paper contributes to the current body of knowledge management literature by analyzing a wide range of key literature and presenting a contemporary overview that compares the role of tacit and explicit knowledge within organizational change contexts.

The findings contribute toward theoretical development in the knowledge management field by providing researchers with future research directions to build upon previous theoretical understandings and advance our collective knowledge of the research domain.

The paper offers practical and pragmatic insights that will help firm managers to use tacit and/or explicit knowledge to manage organizational change.

This article presents an original comparative table that summarizes and compares the key understandings and insights from across the literature sources on a range of important aspects, and then presents implications for the two knowledge typologies. The paper also presents an original research framework containing a structured database of related calls for research by the latest academic publications. Furthermore, it provides specific and informed managerial recommendations for best practice in the integration of these knowledge typologies into organizational change management.

Purpose –– The purpose of this chapter is to test the managerial decision-making knowledge of Mexican administrators managing maquiladora plants, or ‘twin plants’, in the effort to devise a practical skill set assessment.

Design/methodology/approach –– A sample of Mexican maquiladora managers was studied along dimensions of gender, experience, proximity to parent firm and upward mobility in order to assess the managers' level of ‘managerial intelligence’, where the constructs of tacit knowledge and intuition were used as proxies for managerial intelligence.

Findings –– While managerial decision-making may be classified as special forms of knowledge, assessment of this knowledge as forms of tacit ‘knowing’ did not prove successful.

Research limitations/implications –– Due to limitations of time and money in conjunction with the characteristically low response rate on surveys in Mexico, the sample was rather limited given the number and size of ‘twin plants’ and not wholly random. Thus, future research will need to address these shortcomings.

Originality/value –– This chapter is an effort to fill a gap in the literature regarding measures of tacit knowledge and the effort to elucidate the operation and management of plants in Mexico's maquiladora industry.

By fusing knowledge-based theory, organizational learning theory and dynamics capability theory, this study aims to explore, on the one hand, the linkage between exploration, sensing and tacit knowledge, and on the other hand, exploitation, seizing and explicit knowledge. Thereby, it argues that not only tacit knowledge but also explicit knowledge contributes to competitive advantage for firms. This study also investigates how knowledge transforms into profitability.

The conceptual model is tested with a study sample of 153 industrial organizations using structural equation modelling.

Results confirm the importance of both tacit and explicit knowledge for achieving sustainable competitive advantages. Furthermore, both tacit and explicit knowledge transform into profitability, both directly and through product innovation and customer centricity which play partial mediating roles.

Explicit knowledge strategies can be easier to manage, implement and institutionalize than tacit knowledge strategies, which require human component and intervention to succeed. Managers should hence first implement explicit knowledge strategies to gain expeditious results. Further, with the advent of digital technologies and algorithms that can extract deep customer insights and organizational experiences which are highly tacit in nature and codifying the same into explicit knowledge, the importance of explicit knowledge is further enlarged.

By fusing three adjacent theories to establish a robust model specification, this study is able to demonstrate the contribution of explicit knowledge in the firm’s competitive advantages.

Knowledge sharing has become an integral part of organizations’ business strategies, along with aiding organizations to grow and innovate in the market, and gain competitive advantage. This paper aims to concentrate on the role of tacit knowledge sharing in fostering innovation capability of an organization. Specifically, the study considers social capital (relational, cognitive and structural) as an important precursors to tacit knowledge sharing, which in turn, influences innovation capability of an organization. The study further discusses the role that knowledge reciprocation plays in successful tacit knowledge sharing. The relation between knowledge quality and innovation capability is also discussed in the paper.

The investigation started with a review of extant literature in the field of knowledge sharing and innovation to derive a set of constructs. A set of hypotheses was developed based on the identified constructs, which was subsequently validated through a primary survey based on a structured questionnaire on a sample size of 190 respondents from the Indian industrial domain. The survey responses were subsequently analysed using the statistical technique of structural equation modeling and conclusions were drawn from the findings. Additionally, careful attention was paid in eliminating the common method bias, which is often associated with a primary survey.

A set of six hypotheses were derived based on the identified constructs and were subsequently validated. While validating the hypotheses, it was observed that while knowledge reciprocity, relational social capital and cognitive social capital was positive associated with tacit knowledge sharing, structural social capital did not have a significant effect on the same. Additionally, it was also observed that both tacit knowledge sharing and the quality of knowledge were positively associated with innovation capability.

The present day business marked by intense competition requires firms to be more aware of their innovative capabilities. Effective sharing of knowledge or information can be deemed as a vital component in achieving this objective. Organizations that practice and nurture innovation activities can use the findings of the current study as a part of their knowledge management strategy. In addition to using the explicit knowledge, which are structured in nature, organizations can also start using tacit knowledge to harness their innovation potential – and the findings from the current study can act as a motivational tool for them to do so.

Although there is a growing body of literature concerning the role of knowledge management in innovation, there still a dearth in discussing the role of tacit knowledge sharing in exploiting the innovation capability of an organization. The main discussion of this paper brings together a set of important constructs that exhibits the significant role that tacit knowledge sharing plays in determining the innovation capability of an organization. Furthermore, it tries to marry the concepts of social capital and tacit knowledge sharing with innovation capability, therefore adding significantly to the body of literature in knowledge management as well as innovation.

The purpose of this paper is to develop and propose an integrated model of marketing knowledge from a tacit knowledge management perspective. This paper further aims at developing a linkage between explicit knowledge perspective (internal and external marketing) and tacit knowledge orientation of an organization, leading to improved business success.

This paper develops a conceptual model showing the integration of the internal, tacit and explicit knowledge perspectives that results in improved business success. The proposed model and associated propositions are drawn from the synthesis of relevant knowledge and marketing literature.

Five major associated propositions are offered in the paper, which inform both scholars and practitioners about what constitutes a holistic market orientation and how organizations can achieve business success by adopting both an internal and external orientation to tacit and explicit knowledge management.

The model makes an original contribution to theoretical and organizational marketing management knowledge. It does this by extending the conceptual and operational boundaries of existing models of internal and external marketing, aimed at helping organizations achieve competitive advantage and business success.

This paper aims to identify the expressions and flows of tacit knowledge in the unstructured decision process. In this type of process, decision-makers use not only the explicit knowledge but also aspects such as intuition, experience and other forms of tacit knowledge. The research developed a qualitative approach, through a study of multiple cases, and applied semi-structured interviews to ten executives. The analysis of data was carried out according to Flores (1994) interpretative analysis of text technique. Results indicated that there was the insertion of tacit knowledge in all unstructured decision-making routines. It was also detected the need to explicitly add the routine of evaluation to the Mintzberg et al.’s (1976) model as elements of tacit knowledge were also identified at this stage of the decision-making process.

The research has taken a qualitative approach, through a study of multiple cases, applying semi-structured interviews to ten executives. The analysis of data was carried out according to technique for interpretative analysis of the text.

Results indicated that there was tacit knowledge in all unstructured decision-making routines. Also detected was the need to explicitly add the routine of evaluation to the model.

It was unable to perform psychological studies to investigate the deepest cognitive and emotional aspects of managers, and it does not address, in depth, some issues that are related to tacit knowledge in decisions and that would be considered relevant.

Although this research was unable to dissect the composition of tacit knowledge in unstructured decision process, a better understanding of the aspects that make up the knowledge in question has been developed, providing some decision-making guidelines to managers.

The language between communications actors can share decision-making rules to assist in the production and process of arguments necessary for the debate, evaluation and attribution of institutionally recurrent decisions.

The original contribution is present in a detailed description of the expressions of flows of tacit knowledge in unstructured decision-making processes, based on the model of Mintzberg et al. (1976). From the influence of tacit knowledge, it was found that the model in question needs to consider the relevance of the evaluation phase, as a stage equivalent to the other described by Mintzberg et al. (1976). These aspects have been better explained in the introduction and conclusion. Participant observation was not possible because the decision had already been taken by the informant at the moment of the interviews.