Tacit Knowledge in Military Leadership: Evidence from Officer Interviews

摘要

Eighty-one U.S. Army officers representing three organizational levels (platoon,company, and battalion) and all three branch categories were interviewed to elicit stories and observations revealing tacit knowledge for military leadership: the practical, action-oriented, leadership knowledge they had learned from practical experiences. Analyses of interview materials produced items of tacit knowledge for military leadership that were then cluster analyzed to identify groupings of knowledge. Results of the interviews are described with respect to patterns across leadership levels in the quantity, structure, and content of tacit knowledge for military leadership; implications of the patterns for development through experiential learning; and the functions of tacit knowledge in making concrete or augmenting Army leadership doctrine.