Tacit knowledge or implicit knowledge—as opposed to formal, codified or
explicit knowledge
Explicit knowledge (also expressive knowledge) is knowledge that can be readily articulated, codified, stored and accessed. It can be expressed in formal and systematical language and shared in the form of data, scientific formulae, specifications ...
—is
knowledge
Knowledge can be defined as Descriptive knowledge, awareness of facts or as Procedural knowledge, practical skills, and may also refer to Knowledge by acquaintance, familiarity with objects or situations. Knowledge of facts, also called pro ...
that is difficult to express or extract, and thus more difficult to transfer to others by means of writing it down or verbalizing it. This can include personal
wisdom
Wisdom, sapience, or sagacity is the ability to contemplate and act using knowledge, experience, understanding, common sense and insight. Wisdom is associated with attributes such as unbiased judgment, compassion, experiential self-knowle ...
,
experience
Experience refers to conscious events in general, more specifically to perceptions, or to the practical knowledge and familiarity that is produced by these conscious processes. Understood as a conscious event in the widest sense, experience involv ...
,
insight
Insight is the understanding of a specific cause and effect within a particular context. The term insight can have several related meanings:
*a piece of information
*the act or result of understanding the inner nature of things or of seeing intui ...
, and
intuition
Intuition is the ability to acquire knowledge without recourse to conscious reasoning. Different fields use the word "intuition" in very different ways, including but not limited to: direct access to unconscious knowledge; unconscious cognition; ...
.
For example, knowing that London is in the United Kingdom is a piece of ''explicit'' knowledge; it can be written down, transmitted, and understood by a recipient. In contrast, the ability to speak a language, ride a bicycle, knead dough, play a musical instrument, or design and use complex equipment requires all sorts of knowledge which is not always known ''explicitly'', even by expert practitioners, and which is difficult or impossible to explicitly transfer to other people.
Overview
Origin
The term tacit knowing is attributed to
Michael Polanyi
Michael Polanyi (; hu, Polányi Mihály; 11 March 1891 – 22 February 1976) was a Hungarian-British polymath, who made important theoretical contributions to physical chemistry, economics, and philosophy. He argued that positivism supplies ...
's ''Personal Knowledge'' (1958).
In his later work, ''The Tacit Dimension'' (1966), Polanyi made the assertion that "we can know more than we can tell." He states not only that there is knowledge that cannot be adequately articulated by
verbal means, but also that all knowledge is rooted in tacit knowledge. While this concept made most of its impact on
philosophy of science
Philosophy of science is a branch of philosophy concerned with the foundations, methods, and implications of science. The central questions of this study concern what qualifies as science, the reliability of scientific theories, and the ult ...
,
education
Education is a purposeful activity directed at achieving certain aims, such as transmitting knowledge or fostering skills and character traits. These aims may include the development of understanding, rationality, kindness, and honesty ...
and
knowledge management
Knowledge management (KM) is the collection of methods relating to creating, sharing, using and managing the knowledge and information of an organization. It refers to a multidisciplinary approach to achieve organisational objectives by making ...
—all fields involving humans—it was also, for Polanyi, a means to show humankind's evolutionary continuity with animals. Polanyi describes that many animals are creative, some even have
mental representation
A mental representation (or cognitive representation), in philosophy of mind, cognitive psychology, neuroscience, and cognitive science, is a hypothetical internal cognitive symbol that represents external reality, or else a mental process that ...
s, but can only possess tacit knowledge. This excludes humans, however, who developed the capability of articulation and therefore can transmit partially explicit knowledge. This relatively modest difference then turns into a big practical advantage, but there is no unexplained evolutionary gap.
Definition
''Tacit knowledge'' can be defined as skills, ideas and experiences that are possessed by people but are not codified and may not necessarily be easily expressed.
With tacit knowledge, people are not often aware of the knowledge they possess or how it can be valuable to others. Effective transfer of tacit knowledge generally requires extensive personal contact, regular interaction,
and trust. This kind of knowledge can only be revealed through practice in a particular context and transmitted through
social network
A social network is a social structure made up of a set of social actors (such as individuals or organizations), sets of dyadic ties, and other social interactions between actors. The social network perspective provides a set of methods for ...
s.
To some extent it is "
captured" when the knowledge holder joins a network or a
community of practice.
Some examples of daily activities and tacit knowledge are: riding a bike, playing the piano, driving a car, hitting a nail with a hammer, putting together pieces of a complex jigsaw puzzle, and interpreting a complex statistical equation.
In the field of
knowledge management
Knowledge management (KM) is the collection of methods relating to creating, sharing, using and managing the knowledge and information of an organization. It refers to a multidisciplinary approach to achieve organisational objectives by making ...
, the concept of tacit knowledge refers to knowledge that cannot be fully codified. An individual can acquire tacit knowledge without language.
Apprentices
Apprenticeship is a system for training a new generation of practitioners of a trade or profession with on-the-job training and often some accompanying study (classroom work and reading). Apprenticeships can also enable practitioners to gain a ...
, for example, work with their
mentors
Mentorship is the influence, guidance, or direction given by a mentor. A mentor is someone who teaches or gives help and advice to a less experienced and often younger person. In an organizational setting, a mentor influences the personal and p ...
and learn craftsmanship not only through language but also by observation, imitation, and practice.
The key to acquiring tacit knowledge is
experience
Experience refers to conscious events in general, more specifically to perceptions, or to the practical knowledge and familiarity that is produced by these conscious processes. Understood as a conscious event in the widest sense, experience involv ...
. Without some form of shared experience, it is extremely difficult for people to share each other's thinking processes.
Terrain
(This needs work.)
Tacit knowledge can be divided according to the terrain. Terrains affect the process of changing tacit knowledge into explicit knowledge. Terrains are of three kinds:
* ''Relational tacit knowledge:'' Relational tacit knowledge could be made explicit, but not made explicit for reasons that touch on deep principles that have to do with either the nature or location of knowledge of the way humans are made.
* ''Somatic tacit knowledge:'' Somatic tacit knowledge has to do with properties of individuals bodies and brains as physical things. In principle it is possible for it to be explicated as the outcome of research done by human scientists.
* ''Collective tacit knowledge:'' Collective tacit knowledge is a kind of knowledge that we do not know how to make explicit and that we cannot envisage how to explicate. It is the domain of knowledge that is located in society - it has to do with the way society is constituted.
Embodied knowledge
Tacit knowledge has been described as “
know-how
Know-how (or knowhow, or procedural knowledge) is a term for practical knowledge on how to accomplish something, as opposed to "know-what" (facts), "know-why" (science), or "know-who" (communication). It is also often referred to as street smar ...
” as opposed to “know-what” (
facts).
This distinction between “know-how” and “know-what” is considered to date back to a 1945 paper by
Gilbert Ryle
Gilbert Ryle (19 August 1900 – 6 October 1976) was a British philosopher, principally known for his critique of Cartesian dualism, for which he coined the phrase "ghost in the machine." He was a representative of the generation of British ord ...
given to the
Aristotelian Society in London.
In his paper, Ryle argues against the (
intellectualist) position that all knowledge is knowledge of
Proposition
In logic and linguistics, a proposition is the meaning of a declarative sentence. In philosophy, " meaning" is understood to be a non-linguistic entity which is shared by all sentences with the same meaning. Equivalently, a proposition is the no ...
s (“know-what”), and therefore the view that some knowledge can only be defined as “know-how”. Ryle's argument has, in some contexts, come to be called "
anti-intellectualist". There are further distinctions such as "know-why" (science) or "know-who" (networking).
Tacit knowledge involves learning and skill but not in a way that can be written down. On this account, knowing-how or “embodied knowledge” is characteristic of the expert, who acts, makes judgments, and so forth without explicitly reflecting on the principles or rules involved. The expert works without having a theory of his or her work; he or she just performs skillfully without deliberation or focused attention.
Embodied knowledge represents a learned capability of a human body's
nervous and
endocrine system
The endocrine system is a messenger system comprising feedback loops of the hormones released by internal glands of an organism directly into the circulatory system, regulating distant target organs. In vertebrates, the hypothalamus is the neu ...
s.
Differences from explicit knowledge
Although it is possible to distinguish conceptually between
explicit
Explicit refers to something that is specific, clear, or detailed. It can also mean:
* Explicit knowledge, knowledge that can be readily articulated, codified and transmitted to others
* Explicit (text) The explicit (from Latin ''explicitus est'', ...
and tacit knowledge, they are not separate and discrete in practice.
The interaction between these two modes of knowing is vital for the creation of
new knowledge.
Tacit knowledge can be distinguished from explicit knowledge in three major areas:
[ Polanyi, Michael. 1958. ''Personal Knowledge: Towards a Post-Critical Philosophy''. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. .]
* ''Codifiability and mechanism of transferring knowledge'': Explicit knowledge can be codified (for example, 'can you write it down' or 'put it into words' or 'draw a picture'), and easily transferred without the knowing subject. In contrast, tacit knowledge is
intuitive
Intuition is the ability to acquire knowledge without recourse to conscious reasoning. Different fields use the word "intuition" in very different ways, including but not limited to: direct access to unconscious knowledge; unconscious cognition; ...
and unarticulated knowledge that cannot be communicated, understood or used without the 'knowing subject'. Unlike the transfer of explicit knowledge, the transfer of tacit knowledge requires close interaction and the buildup of shared understanding and trust among them.
* ''Main methods for the acquisition and accumulation'': Explicit knowledge can be generated through
logical deduction
Deductive reasoning is the mental process of drawing deductive inferences. An inference is deductively valid if its conclusion follows logically from its premises, i.e. if it is impossible for the premises to be true and the conclusion to be false ...
and acquired through practical experience in the relevant context. In contrast, tacit knowledge can only be acquired through practical experience in the relevant context.
* ''Potential of aggregation and modes of appropriation'': Explicit knowledge can be aggregated at a single location, stored in objective forms, and
appropriated without the participation of the knowing subject. Tacit knowledge, in contrast, is personal and contextual; it is distributed across knowing subjects, and cannot easily be aggregated. The realization of its full potential requires the close involvement and cooperation of the knowing subject.
The process of transforming tacit knowledge into explicit or specifiable knowledge is known as codification, articulation, or specification. The tacit aspects of knowledge are those that cannot be codified, but can only be transmitted via training or gained through personal experience. There is a view against the distinction, where it is believed that all
propositional knowledge
In epistemology, descriptive knowledge (also known as propositional knowledge, knowing-that, declarative knowledge, or constative knowledge) is knowledge that can be expressed in a declarative sentence or an indicative proposition. "Knowing-that" c ...
(knowledge that) is ultimately reducible to
practical knowledge
Procedural knowledge (also known as knowing-how, and sometimes referred to as practical knowledge, imperative knowledge, or performative knowledge) is the knowledge exercised in the performance of some task. Unlike descriptive knowledge (also kno ...
(knowledge how).
Nonaka–Takeuchi model
Ikujiro Nonaka proposed a model of
knowledge creation
The knowledge economy (or the knowledge-based economy) is an economic system in which the production of goods and services is based principally on knowledge-intensive activities that contribute to advancement in technical and scientific inn ...
that explains how tacit knowledge can be converted to explicit knowledge, both of which can be converted into organisational knowledge.
[ Nonaka, Ikujiro, and ]Hirotaka Takeuchi
is a professor of management practice in the Strategy Unit at Harvard Business School. He co-authored ''The New New Product Development Game'' which influenced the development of the Scrum framework.
Biography
Takeuchi was born in 1946 and g ...
. 1995.
The Knowledge-creating Company: How Japanese Companies Create the Dynamics of Innovation
'. New York: Oxford University Press. . . While introduced by Nonaka in 1990, the model was further developed by
Hirotaka Takeuchi
is a professor of management practice in the Strategy Unit at Harvard Business School. He co-authored ''The New New Product Development Game'' which influenced the development of the Scrum framework.
Biography
Takeuchi was born in 1946 and g ...
and is thus known as the Nonaka–Takeuchi model.
In this model, tacit knowledge is presented variously as uncodifiable ("tacit aspects of knowledge are those that cannot be codified") and codifiable ("transforming tacit knowledge into explicit knowledge is known as codification"). This ambiguity is common in the
knowledge management
Knowledge management (KM) is the collection of methods relating to creating, sharing, using and managing the knowledge and information of an organization. It refers to a multidisciplinary approach to achieve organisational objectives by making ...
literature.
Assuming that knowledge is created through the interaction between tacit and explicit knowledge, the Nonaka–Takeuchi model postulates four different modes of knowledge conversion:
# from tacit knowledge to tacit knowledge, or ''
socialization
In sociology, socialization or socialisation (see spelling differences) is the process of internalizing the norms and ideologies of society. Socialization encompasses both learning and teaching and is thus "the means by which social and cul ...
'';
# from tacit knowledge to explicit knowledge, or ''externalization'';
# from explicit knowledge to explicit knowledge, or ''
combination
In mathematics, a combination is a selection of items from a set that has distinct members, such that the order of selection does not matter (unlike permutations). For example, given three fruits, say an apple, an orange and a pear, there are th ...
''; and
# from explicit knowledge to tacit knowledge, or ''
internalization
Internalization ( or internalisation) is the process of making something internal, with more specific meanings in various fields. It is the opposite of externalization.
Psychology and sociology
In psychology, internalization is the outcome of ...
''.
Nonaka's view may be contrasted with Polanyi's original view of "tacit knowing". Polanyi believed that while
declarative knowledge
In epistemology, descriptive knowledge (also known as propositional knowledge, knowing-that, declarative knowledge, or constative knowledge) is knowledge that can be expressed in a declarative sentence or an indicative proposition. "Knowing-that" c ...
may be needed for acquiring skills, it is unnecessary for using those skills once the novice becomes an expert. Indeed, it does seem to be the case that, as Polanyi argued, when people acquire a skill, they acquire a corresponding understanding that defies articulation.
Examples
* One of the most convincing examples of tacit knowledge is
facial recognition: one knows a person's face, and can recognize it among a thousand, indeed a million. Yet, people usually cannot tell how they recognize that face, so most of this cannot be put into words. When one sees a face, they are not conscious about their knowledge of the individual features (eye, nose, mouth), but rather see and recognize the face as a whole.
* Another example of tacit knowledge is the notion of
language
Language is a structured system of communication. The structure of a language is its grammar and the free components are its vocabulary. Languages are the primary means by which humans communicate, and may be conveyed through a variety of ...
itself: it is not possible to
learn a language just by being taught the rules of
grammar
In linguistics, the grammar of a natural language is its set of structural constraints on speakers' or writers' composition of clauses, phrases, and words. The term can also refer to the study of such constraints, a field that includes domain ...
—a
native-speaker picks it up at a young age, almost entirely unaware of the
formal grammar
In formal language theory, a grammar (when the context is not given, often called a formal grammar for clarity) describes how to form strings from a language's alphabet that are valid according to the language's syntax. A grammar does not describe ...
which they may be taught later.
*Other examples are how to ride a bike, how tight to make a bandage, or knowing whether a senior surgeon feels an intern may be ready to learn the intricacies of surgery; this can only be learned through personal experimentation.
*
Harry M. Collins
Harry Collins, (born 13 June 1943), is a British sociologist of science at the School of Social Sciences, Cardiff University, Wales. In 2012 he was elected a Fellow of the British Academy.
Career
While at the University of Bath Professor C ...
showed that Western laboratories long had difficulties in successfully replicating an experiment that a team led by
Vladimir Braginsky at
Moscow State University
M. V. Lomonosov Moscow State University (MSU; russian: Московский государственный университет имени М. В. Ломоносова) is a public research university in Moscow, Russia and the most prestigious ...
had been conducting for 20 years (the experiment was measuring the quality, ''
Q'', factors of
sapphire
Sapphire is a precious gemstone, a variety of the mineral corundum, consisting of aluminium oxide () with trace amounts of elements such as iron, titanium, chromium, vanadium, or magnesium. The name sapphire is derived via the Latin "sa ...
). Western scientists became suspicious of the Russian results and it was only when Russian and Western scientists conducted the measurements collaboratively that the trust was reestablished. Collins argues that laboratory visits enhance the possibility for the transfer of tacit knowledge.
* The
Bessemer steel process is another example:
Henry Bessemer
Sir Henry Bessemer (19 January 1813 – 15 March 1898) was an English inventor, whose steel-making process would become the most important technique for making steel in the nineteenth century for almost one hundred years from 1856 to 1950. H ...
sold a patent for his advanced
steelmaking
Steelmaking is the process of producing steel from iron ore and carbon/or scrap. In steelmaking, impurities such as nitrogen, silicon, phosphorus, sulfur and excess carbon (the most important impurity) are removed from the sourced iron, and alloy ...
process and was subsequently sued by the purchasers after they could not get it to work. In the end, Bessemer set up his own steel company because he knew how to do it, even though he could not convey it to his patent users.
[Gordon, J.E. ''The new science of strong materials''. Penguin books.]
* When
Matsushita (now Panasonic) started developing its automatic home
bread-making machine in 1985, an early problem was how to mechanize the dough-
kneading
In cooking (and more specifically baking), kneading is a process in the making of bread or dough, used to mix the ingredients and add strength to the final product. Its importance lies in the mixing of flour with water; when these two ingred ...
process, a process that takes a master baker years of practice to perfect. To learn this tacit knowledge, a member of the software development team, Ikuko Tanaka, decided to volunteer herself as an apprentice to the head baker of the Osaka International Hotel, who was reputed to produce the area's best bread. After a period of imitation and practice, one day she observed that the baker was not only stretching, but also twisting the dough in a particular fashion ("twisting stretch"), which turned out to be important in the success of his method. The Matsushita home bakery team drew together eleven members from completely different specializations and cultures: product planning, mechanical engineering, control systems, and software development. The "twisting stretch" motion was finally achieved by a prototype machine after a year of iterative experimentation by the engineers and team members working closely together, combining their explicit knowledge. For example, the engineers added ribs to the inside of the dough case in order to hold the dough better as it is being churned. Another team member suggested a method (later patented) to add yeast at a later stage in the process, thereby preventing the yeast from over-fermenting in high temperatures.
See also
References
Further reading
*
Angioni, Giulio. 2004. "Doing, Thinking, Saying." Pp. 249–61 in ''Nature Knowledge'', edited by Sanga & Ortalli. New York: Berghahm Books.
*Bao, Y., and S. Zhao. 2004.
MICRO Contracting for Tacit Knowledge: A study of contractual arrangements in international technology transfer" ''Problems and Perspectives in Management'' (2):279–303.
* Brohm, R. 1999. "Bringing Polanyi onto the theatre stage: a study on Polanyi applied to Knowledge Management." Pp. 57–69 in ''Proceedings of the ISMICK Conference''. The Netherlands:
Erasmus University Rotterdam
Erasmus University Rotterdam (abbreviated as ''EUR'', nl, Erasmus Universiteit Rotterdam ) is a public research university located in Rotterdam, Netherlands. The university is named after Desiderius Erasmus Roterodamus, a 15th-century humani ...
.
*—— 2005. "Polycentric Order in Organizations" (dissertation).
Erasmus Research Institute of Management
The Erasmus Research Institute of Management (ERIM) is the joint research institute of the Rotterdam School of Management and the Erasmus School of Economics, both at Erasmus University Rotterdam. It aims to bring together top researchers in busi ...
, Erasmus University Rotterdam. ; ISBN 9789058920959.
*Castillo, Jose. 2002. "A Note on the Concept of Tacit Knowledge." ''Journal of Management Inquiry'' 11(1):46–57. ; .
*
Collins, Harry M. 2001.
Tacit Knowledge, Trust and the Q of Sapphire" ''Social Studies of Science'' 31(1):71–85. . .
* —— 2010. ''Tacit and Explicit Knowledge''. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. ISBN 9780226113807.
*
Gladwell, Malcolm 2005. ''
Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking''. New York:
Little, Brown and Compant.
* Gourlay, Stephen. 2007. ''Rethinking knowledge management''. Springer, ISBN 978-3-540-71010-3.
*Hodgkin, R. 1991 September 27. "Michael Polanyi – Prophet of life, the universe and everything." ''Times Higher Educational Supplement''. p. 15.
*
Nonaka, Ikujiro. 1990. ''Management of Knowledge Creation''. Tokyo: Nihon Keizai Shinbun-sha.
*Nonaka, Ikujiro, and
Hirotaka Takeuchi
is a professor of management practice in the Strategy Unit at Harvard Business School. He co-authored ''The New New Product Development Game'' which influenced the development of the Scrum framework.
Biography
Takeuchi was born in 1946 and g ...
. 1995.
The Knowledge-creating Company: How Japanese Companies Create the Dynamics of Innovation'. New York: Oxford University Press. . .
*
*
Polanyi, Michael. 1958. ''Personal Knowledge: Towards a Post Critical Philosophy''. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. .
*—— 1966. ''The Tacit Dimension''. Doubleday & Co.
**"Tacit Knowing," chapter 1 in ''The Tacit Dimension'' (1983 reprint). Gloucester, MA: Peter Smith.
*—— 1997. ''Science, Economics and Philosophy: Selected Papers of Michael Polanyi'', edited with an introduction by R.T. Allen. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers.
*
Reber, Arthur S. 1993. ''Implicit learning and tacit knowledge: an essay on the cognitive unconscious''. Oxford University Press.
* Sanders, A. F. 1988. ''Michael Polanyi's Post-critical Epistemology: A Reconstruction of Some Aspects of 'Tacit Knowing. Amsterdam: Rodopi.
* Smith, Mark K.
003 003, O03, 0O3, OO3 may refer to:
*003, fictional British 00 Agent
*003, former emergency telephone number for the Norwegian ambulance service (until 1986)
*1990 OO3, the asteroid 6131 Towen
* OO3 gauge model railway
*''O03 (O2)'' and other related ...
2014.
Michael Polanyi and tacit knowledge" ''The Encyclopedia of Pedagogy and Informal Education''.
* Tsoukas, H. 2003. "Do we really understand tacit knowledge?" Pp. 411–27 in ''The Blackwell handbook of organizational learning and knowledge management'', edited by Easterby-Smith and Lyles. Cambridge, MA: Blackwell Publishing.
* Wenger, E. 1998. ''Communities of practice: learning, meaning and identity''. New York: Cambridge University Press.
*
Wilson, Timothy D. 2002. ''Strangers to ourselves: discovering the adaptive unconscious''. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. .
{{DEFAULTSORT:Tacit Knowledge
Knowledge management
Cognitive psychology
Psychology of learning