Replying to LO23869 --
Fred Nickols wrote:
> >Nonaka's article clearly demonstrates that he doesn't consider that all
> >tacit knowledge can be made explicit. On page 99, he states "To convert
> >tacit knowledge into explicit knowledge means finding a way to express the
> >inexpressible."
>
> I'm having trouble with the statement above. How does Nonaka's statement
> quoted above demonstrate that he doesn't consider that all tacit knowledge
> can be made explicit. It seems to me he's saying just the opposite of
> what you assert he's saying. Could you say some more about this?
My apologies for quoting that statement out of context of the rest of his
paper. Admittedly, taken at face value, since one cannot "express the
inexpressible", then one would interpret the statement to mean tacit
knowledge CANNOT be converted into explicit knowledge. However, other
statements in his paper indicate that he means that SOME kinds of tacit
knowledge can be converted to explicit knowledge, as follows:
p99: 3. From Tacit to Explicit. When Ikuko Tanaka is able to articulate
the foundations of her tacit knowledge of bread making, she converts it
into explicit knowledge, thus allowing it to be shared with her project-
development team.
p101: Understanding knowledge creation as a process of making tacit
knowledge explicit ....
> >My research suggests that Polanyi defines tacit knowledge as knowledge
> >that a person holds in his/her mind and body. Nonaka quotes Polanyi on
> >page 98, "We can know more than we can tell." While much of tacit
> >knowledge cannot be articulated, some tacit knowledge CAN be made
> >explicit. Therefore it would be incorrect to say that tacit knowledge
> >can't be made explicit.
>
> Let's use two common examples of tacit knowledge: recognizing a face and
> riding a bicycle. I'll agree that we can articulate or describe certain
> features of someone's face and we can describe what it's like to ride a
> bicycle. However, that knowledge is typically inadequate in terms of
> transferring our capability to someone else. What we've captured in our
> descriptions is that which can be articulated. That which can't be
> articulated is, by definition, tacit knowledge. So, I don't agree with
> you when you say "it would be incorrect to say that tacit knowledge can't
> be made explicit." Why? Because of the very statement by Polanyi that
> Nonaka quoted.
The Canadian Dictionary and the American Heritage Dictionary define
"tacit" as "unspoken" and "not spoken", respectively. It comes from the
Latin verb "tacere", which means "be silent". Therefore, "tacit
knowledge" is knowledge that is in unarticulated form, not necessarily
knowledge which CANNOT be articulated. Knowledge in unarticulated form
can only exist in people's minds/bodies.
> >[Host's Note: So... do we need another category for knowledge which has
> >not yet been articulated, but could be? ..Rick]
>
> There is such a category. It's called "implicit." John Woods, co-editor
> of the Butterworth-Heinemann Knowledge Management Yearbook, asked me to
> write a paper explicating the distinctions. You can find a draft of it on
> my articles web site under the Knowledge Management heading. It's titled
> "The Knowledge in Knowledge Management." To get at it, click on the link
> in my e-mail signature and, once there, click on the link to the articles
> page.
I think "unarticulated knowledge" would suffice here. The problem with
"implicit" is that it is used in the KM literature (see below)
synonymously with "tacit". Knowledge is usually divided into a
dichotomy of explicit and tacit/implicit. In his paper, Fred proposes a
trichotomy of
1. explicit (articulatable knowledge that HAS been articulated);
2. implicit (articulatable knowledge that HAS NOT been articulated);
and
3. tacit (knowledge that cannot be articulated)
The paper does a very good job of explaining the "Knowledge in Knowledge
Management". My complaint here is that the definition of "tacit
knowledge" is not consistent with what I believe to be understood in the
KM universe of discourse. "Implicit knowledge" I am less concerned about,
because usage of this phrase is less consistent. However, "tacit
knowledge" is widely used to mean "knowledge in people's heads".
My statement above begs the question, "what is the KM universe of
discourse?" The closest approximation that I am able to access is
represented as explicit knowledge on the Internet, and only that portion
that is indexed by Altavista. By that I mean that I executed an advanced
search on Altavista, using the query <"tacit knowledge" and "implicit
knowledge" and "explicit knowledge">. The results were sorted in order of
relevance as specified by the terms <tacit knowledge implicit explicit
Polanyi>.
The search returned 67 results (the same search 24 hours earlier produced
56 results, so the results change over time). I selected those documents
that actually seemed relevant, and reviewed their contents. I have
produced excerpts that illustrate the points that SOME tacit knowledge can
be articulated, and implicit/tacit are used synonymously. The numbers in
the titles correspond to the order in which the reference was returned in
the search.
1. IMPLICIT KNOWLEDGE (TACIT KNOWING), CONNOISSEURSHIP, AND ACTION
SOCIOLOGY: RELEVANCES OF MICHAEL POLANYI FOR SOCIOLOGY AND LAW*
by
Louis H. Swartz
Paper To Be Presented At
The 1997 Annual Meeting of the Polanyi Society,
San Francisco, California, November 22, 1997
URL: http://www.mwsc.edu/~polanyi/swartz.htm
QUOTE: In the 1954 paper he [Polanyi] referred to what we here call
explicit or explicated knowledge as "specifiable knowledge" or
"articulate knowledge," with "measurable grading" used for certain kinds
of quantified highly explicated technical knowledge, which has been
successfully translated from an earlier form of implicit knowledge.
COMMENT: This author uses implicit knowledge and tacit knowledge
synonymously, and speaks of articulating implicit [tacit] knowledge.
============
7. Information Technology Support for the Creation and Transfer of
Tacit Knowledge in Organizations
Arjan Raven
University of Southern California
Sabine G. Prasser
University of California, Los Angeles
URL: http://hsb.baylor.edu/ramsower/ais.ac.96/papers/RAVEN.htm
QUOTE: Over the past five years tacit knowledge -also known as implicit
knowledge or knowledge that is difficult to articulate^Å..
COMMENT: Implies that tacit knowledge CAN be articulated , although
it's difficult to do.
============================
19. Can Knowledge Management Be Reduced to Document Management?
J.P. A. BARTHèS
Department of Computer Science
University of Technology of Compiègne
and
Institut International pour l'Intelligence Artificielle
60206 Compiègne, FRANCE
URL:
http://www.hds.utc.fr/~iiia/IIIA-public/IIIA-publications/IIIA-art98-jpb/
COMMENT: In a diagram, the author describes SKILLS as "tacit knowledge
acquired with practice, adaptable, explicable or non-explicable."
Explicable implies "can be articulated".
============
47. Building of a Corporate Memory for Traffic Accident Analysis.
Rose Dieng*, Alain Giboin*, Christelle Amergé*, Olivier Corby*,
Sylvie Després+, Laurence Alpay*, Sofiane Labidi*, Stéphane Lapalut*
*INRIA Sophia-Antipolis, Projet ACACIA, 2004 route de Lucioles,BP 93,
06902 SOPHIA-ANTIPOLIS CEDEX, FRANCE
URL: http://www-sop.inria.fr/acacia/Publications/1996/dieng-kaw96.html
QUOTE: We enabled a process of articulation (i.e. making tacit
knowledge explicit) and a process of internalization (i.e. extending
one's tacit knowledge by explicit one).
============
50. The Knowledge Creating Company
Jacqueline Jones
Spcom 199
[Department of Speech Communication
University of Illinois]
July 3, 1997
URL:
http://www.spcomm.uiuc.edu/projects/e-quad/spcom495/assignments/jones/paper4.htm
QUOTE: The Japanese approach to knowledge defines two specific areas:
tacit knowledge and explicit knowledge. Tacit knowledge is expressed as
something not easily visible and expressible. It is very personal and
hard to formalize and communicate with others. It can be characterized
as insight, intuition, ideas, hunches and is based upon personal
experience. Explicit knowledge is that which is shared, and that which
can be processed. The importance of tacit knowledge is how we explicate
it to those around us and those whom we work with.
============
52. Are We in the Knowledge Management Business?
Sheila Corral
University Librarian
Reading University Library
Whiteknights, PO Box 223, Reading, RG6 6AE, UK
URL: http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue18/knowledge-mgt/
QUOTE: "Tacit knowledge is highly personal. It is hard to formalise and
therefore difficult, if not impossible, to communicate" [Nonaka]. Tacit
or implicit knowledge (also referred to as 'experimental' knowledge) is
thus both unrecorded and unarticulated.
============
59. Knowledge Management: Oxymoron or Dynamic Duo?
Dr. David J. Skyrme
URL: http://www.skyrme.com/pubs/kmoxy1.htm
QUOTE: Tacit knowledge is communicable through mechanisms like
observations, conversation, on-the-job learning and so on.
============
This may all seem to be mere semantics. However, I think it's very
important, if our intention is to learn, that we mean the same thing when
we use a word or phrase, especially "knowledge". I think this is the
issue that the "On Definitions" discussion thread raises.
Regards,
--Patrick Sue <p.sue@home.com>
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