OKIS Lecture 4

Management > Organisational Knowledge and Information Systems > Knowledge Management > 4Cs > Types of knowledge >Explicit and tacit knowledge

Explicit and Tacit knowledge

There are two distinguishing types of knowledge, explicit and tacit.

Explicit knowledge is known and formally recorded information, which is accessible to anyone in the business.

Tacit knowledge is in the mind of the person and transportable only by that person. If that person left a firm, the company would lose the information. A lot of work goes into making as much tacit information explicit as possible, to ensure maximum communication and learning throughout the firm.

In a firm, if knowledge of mundane and routine things can be accessed by a less skilled person, or can be automated, then this enables the more skilled workers to spend their time more efficiently, doing more important work for the company.

Key characteristics

These are the characteristics of human knowledge:

• Experience
• Reflection
• Learning from others
• Dissemination
• Utilisation of Content
• Interpretation
• Application of intelligence

This knowledge is achieved by our ability to:

• Acquire
• Analyse
• Store
• Retrieve
• Calculate
• Compare
• Interpret
• Organise
• Develop networks and alliances

Key issues for Knowledge Management

Advantages

The Learning organisation