Re-Theorizing the Tacit Dimension: Towards a New Treatment of Tacit Organizational Knowledge

摘要

We seek to establish a better understanding of the tacit side of organizational knowledge by arguing for a non-dualistic conception of knowledge. It is argued that knowledge is simultaneously tacit and explicit. We will first suggest a taxonomy that illustrates tacitness and explicitness as combinations of articulated-unarticulated, procedural-declarative and rational-intuitive knowledge located on a continuum. This model provides six static configurations that will then be situated in a complex self-adapting system of knowledge diffusion and creation. Further, we show that in such a system knowledge is an emergent property arising out of the interactions between knowers and three contexts: interpretative, relational and situational.