When objects are talking: How tacit knowing becomes explicit knowledge

Authors

  • Sarah Philipson University of Gävle, Kungsbäcksvägen 47, Gävle, Sweden, sarah.philipson@hig.se and Linnaeus University,, Universitetsplatsen 1, 352 52 Växjö, Sweden
  • Elisabeth Kjellström Lund University, Tycho Brahes väg 1, Lund, Sweden

Abstract

The objective of this paper is to build a model of how tacit knowing is externalised and becomes reflected external knowledge. Knowledge Management (Nonaka, 1991, 1994; Nonaka, Toyama, & Konno, 2000) is an important field in Business Administration. Based on the model provided by Nonaka and his colleagues (Nonaka, 1994; Nonaka & Takeuchi, 1995; Nonaka et al., 2000) researchers and practitioners have fallen into the pipe dream that employees’ tacit knowing can be coded and canned in computers (structural capital), eventually leading to the enterprise without humans. Earlier critics (Gourlay, 2002, 2006; Gourlay & Nurse, 2005, Grant, 2007; Philipson, 2016, 2019) of the knowledge management paradigm have shown that it does not understand Polanyi’s concept tacit knowing and that it is much more complicated to “externalize” such knowing than presumed by KM. The understanding in extant management literature of this process has been very problematic. Building on concepts in philosophy, psychology, pedagogics, organizational science, and engineering, a model is built and exemplified. This paper develops a theoretical framework for how tacit knowing can be externalized, what is required for such an externalization, and discusses the problems in such externalization, limiting it.

Downloads

Published

2020-02-24

Issue

Vol. 30 No. 1 (2020)

Section

Articles

License

The Journal of Small Business Strategy (the “Publisher”) and the Author(s) agree as follows:
 
1.Author(s) hereby grant to Publisher all right, title, and interest in and to the Work, including copyright to all means of expression by any method now known or hereafter developed, including electronic format. If Publisher does not publish the Work within two (2) years of the Effective Date, copyright shall revert back to the Author. Publisher agrees to always credit Author(s) as the author(s) of the Work.
 
2.Publisher hereby grants Author a royalty-free, limited license for the following purposes, provided the Work is always identified as having first been published by Publisher.
    •The right to make and distribute copies of all or part of the Work for use in teaching;
    •The right to use all or part of the material contained in the Work in a book by the Author(s), or in a collection of the Author(s)’s work;
    •The right to use and distribute the Work internally at the Author(s)’s place of employment, and for promotion and any other non-commercial purposes;
    •The right to use figures and tables from the Work for any purpose;
    •The right to make presentations of material from the Work;
    •The right to use and distribute the Work on the Author(s)’s Web site and on the Author(s)’s university’s institute repository;
Such license shall be effective when the Work is first published in the Journal of Small Business Strategy.
 
3.The Author(s) represents and warrants that the Work: (a) is the Author(s)’s original work and that Author(s) has full power to enter into this agreement; (b) does not infringe the copyright or property right of another; (c) contains no materials which is obscene, libelous, defamatory or violates another’s civil right, right of privacy, or is otherwise unlawful; and (d) has not been previously published, in whole or in part. Author(s) shall indemnify and hold Publisher harmless against loss or expenses arising from breach of any such warranties.

How to Cite

When objects are talking: How tacit knowing becomes explicit knowledge. (2020). Journal of Small Business Strategy (archive Only), 30(1), 68-82. https://libjournals.mtsu.edu/index.php/jsbs/article/view/1666