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Volume 5 Issue 4
Barcelona 2007
Tacit Knowledge Elicitation and Measurement in Research Organisations: a Methodological Approach
Alexeis Garcia-Perez and Amit Mitra
Department of Information Systems, Cranfield University, UK
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Knowledge based resources are increasingly the basis of competitive advantage for all types of organisations. Simultaneously, in the third generation of KM theories and techniques, intra-organisational flows of knowledge-based resources have become as important as the resources themselves. Management of such flows is therefore 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 need to be shared by organisational participants. However, such an assumption may not always be valid. While many scholars have conducted research into discovery, 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 continues to be a problem.
This paper outlines an interview-based method to identify and measure organisational tacit knowledge-based resources. This method is 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 as well as its validation, performed within a research and development organisation.
Among the lessons learned from this research the paper highlights the following: (1) an organisational knowledge base comprises individual competencies often unknown to many of its beneficiaries; (2) it is important to elicit such competencies so that the organisation can act towards its sharing and use; (3) our method for elicitation and measurement of tacit competencies is valid in the context of a research and development organisation, and (4) action research is a successful research paradigm to develop methodological frameworks for elicitation of tacit knowledge based resources and measurement of their relevance towards organisational goals.
Keywords:
organisational tacit knowledge, knowledge discovery, tacit knowledge stocks, tacit knowledge flows, knowledge enablers, knowledge inhibitors
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