This research focuses on analysing knowledge processes of the design process, especially the early phases of the design process that can be called concept design. It aims at developing a body of knowledge that builds on the relevant issues toward user‑centred design in a form of a framework. This is intended to apply, organise and synthesise processes, theories and concepts from the separate but linked disciplines of knowledge management and human‑ computer interaction, hence addressing one of the most essential topics and goals of system design, i.e. how to define what is needed in the system and how the system should mediate human activities„for the purposes of this research, in the context of interest‑based communities and mobile technology. The framework is based on the following propositions: (1) The participants of design process include designers and users as actors, both of which are seen to possess knowledge needed toward successful design; (2) this knowledge is proposed to be context‑specific, hence being specific for certain users using certain technology; (3) for the user as well as for the design professional there are some things that are known but have not been articulated; and (4) the knowledge processes transforming tacit knowledge into explicit knowledge by users and designers are linked and need to be combined, finally (5) toward knowledge embedded into concepts, products, or services. Overall, the research highlights how knowledge processes enable user involvement and capturing tacit (and novel) user knowledge toward successful concept designdesign.

Contextual complexities as a result of the nature of knowledge based resources of organisations are increasingly the bases of competitive advantage. n the third generation of KM theories and techniques, intra‑ organisational flows of knowledge resources have become as important as the resources themselves. Management of such flows is an imperative rather than an alternative for most organisations. When attempting to implement effective KM strategies, most organisations assume complete awareness of what knowledge‑based resources they own and which elements of these, need to be shared. However, such an assumption may not always be valid. While many scholars have conducted research into measurement and management of explicit knowledge, limited progress has been made in applying similar processes to tacit knowledge resources. The KM research and practice communities agree on the importance of identifying and measuring tacit knowledge‑based resources, while absence of suitable instruments designed to apply to it continues to be a problem. This paper outlines a method to identify and measure organisational tacit knowledge‑based resources based on the concepts of tacit knowledge stocks, their intra‑organisational flows, and enablers and inhibitors of such flows. The research paper describes the method, and the process of its validation, performed within a research and development organisation.

This paper hopes to persuade readers of current thinking around Knowledge Management that more emphasis should be placed on tacit knowledge in management and its education and how it might be better communicated to students within universities and in organisations in general. It reflects upon what appears to be the predominant attention being paid to explicit knowledge in the curriculum and pedagogy of UK Universities which offer courses entitled Knowledge Management, and that this may be at the expense of more tacit knowledge 'management' approaches.

The purpose of this paper is to present a critical analysis of the well known knowledge dynamics model elaborated by Ikujiro Nonaka and his co‑workers. The essence of this model consists of three layers of the knowledge‑creation process: (a) the process o

Evidence‑based medicine has greatly influenced decisions and actions throughout the health care industry for a couple of decades, particularly in the advanced countries. However, little is known as to how patients with their tacit knowledge have fitted into the evidence‑based medical practice equation especially in the developing world, hence the need for this study. The combined use of the theory of communicative action and the AGIL taxonomy of adaptation, goal attainment, integration, and latent pattern maintenance by Talcott Parsons served as the theoretical framework for the study. The theory of communicative action provided the benchmark in understanding how doctors and patients are motivated to adapt and integrate the explicit and tacit knowledge forms in attaining the goal of quality evidence‑based medical practice in line with the AGIL taxonomy. The qualitative interviews with fifty respondents ‑ twenty doctors and thirty patients ‑ in the central region of Ghana are utilized as the data base for the discussion. The study concludes that at present patients’ tacit knowledge does not matter in the practice of evidence‑based medicine in Ghana. This situation has to be addressed by empowering patients to be actively involved in clinical decision‑making affecting their health. This is critical because effective implementation of evidence‑based medical practice demands a good blend of explicit and tacit knowledge forms possessed by doctors and patients respectively. It is believed that embracing this strategy of managing knowledge in the health care dispensation holds the potential to bring about improved health care outcomes.

The aim of this article is to increase understanding of tacit knowledge as a phenomenon and also, to specify and understand tacit knowledge of an expert in a given context. In the discourse of organizational behavior, the use of the concept of tacit knowledge and empirical scientific research on it has become more popular only in the 1990s. The strong increase in expert work and knowledge‑intensive fields make examining the topic timely and both theoretically and practically interesting. The most significant theoretical contribution of the study is the increase in understanding, as well as, the creation of new knowledge of the contents and the nature of tacit knowledge. Based on our study, it seems that the current division of knowledge to explicit and tacit is not sufficient to describe the phenomenon. It has been proposed that explicit knowledge is visible and “articulated” knowledge that can easily be transferred and codified, e.g., through speech, documents and various information management systems. Implicit knowledge, on the other hand, is “silent”, hidden and non‑verbal knowledge that is difficult or even impossible to transfer and express verbally. We propose that tacit knowledge comprises different components, some of which can be articulated and made explicit. Examples of such are individual’s or organizations accustomed lines of action that are based on explicit instructions. On the other hand, individual‑specific tacit knowledge that includes feelings, emotions and intuition, individual’s intuitive behaviour or personal relationships, can be considered as “the genuine tacit knowledge” in the sense that it cannot be made visible or transferred. These findings suggest that the interconnectedness of explicit and tacit knowledge ought to be examined further.

Knowledge workers represent more than half of all employees in advanced economies. In general knowledge workers are people who, when working, use their brain more than their muscles. Agricultural and industrial worlds depended on the work of manual workers and the life standard of their inhabitants and the success of agricultural and industrial organizations grew due to the increase of manual worker productivity. Existing knowledge economy depends on the work of knowledge workers and the labour productivity they can achieve. Knowledge is a major resource and tool that knowledge workers use to create values. Therefore, the way work with knowledge is organized in an organization influences the productivity of knowledge workers. This article discusses the results of research on knowledge management in organizations in the Czech Republic. This research started at the University of Economics, Prague in 2004 and continues today.

Knowledge management (KM) research and practice embraces a wide range of activities and interests. The KM domain covers, on the one hand, technological interventions that aim to support knowledge dissemination and, on the other hand, to appreciation of social approaches that bring people together to share their experiences. The former represents an earlier bias in the field while the latter is more indicative of the current emphasis. Such a shift in emphasis has called for a shift in the way that the research and practice is undertaken; this paper focuses on research activities and asserts the appropriateness of a particular methodology for todays knowledge management research. This paper will firstly consider the range of research methodologies that have been employed in knowledge management research. It will move on to consider the use of one particular research methodology, ethnography, as a framework for understanding the more personal elements of knowledge. It is contended that use of ethnography, which emphasises observation within a compact cultural setting, offers a potentially ideal method of undertaking research in knowledge management because it concentrates on a community and in the provision of descriptions of how members of the community interact with each other. Utilisation of ethnography as a research method sits comfortably with theories of knowledge, which acknowledge the tacit element of knowledge and its experiential embeddedness; ethnography is therefore put forward as a meaningful methodology for contemporary knowledge management research.