A distinction was made by Ryle (1949) between ‘knowing how’ and ‘knowing that’. Knowing how is the ability of a person to perform tasks, and knowing that is holding pieces of knowledge in one’s mind.
Blackler (1995) notes that ‘Knowledge is multifaceted and complex, being both situated and abstract, implicit and explicit, distributed and individual, physical and mental, developing and static, verbal and encoded. He categorizes forms of knowledge as:
● embedded in technologies, rules and organizational procedures;
● encultured as collective understandings, stories, values and beliefs;
● embodied into the practical activity-based competencies and skills of key members of the organization (ie practical knowledge or ‘know-how’);
● embraced as the conceptual understanding and cognitive skills of key members (ie conceptual knowledge or ‘know-how’).
Blackler (1995) notes that ‘Knowledge is multifaceted and complex, being both situated and abstract, implicit and explicit, distributed and individual, physical and mental, developing and static, verbal and encoded. He categorizes forms of knowledge as:
● embedded in technologies, rules and organizational procedures;
● encultured as collective understandings, stories, values and beliefs;
● embodied into the practical activity-based competencies and skills of key members of the organization (ie practical knowledge or ‘know-how’);
● embraced as the conceptual understanding and cognitive skills of key members (ie conceptual knowledge or ‘know-how’).
Nonaka (1991) suggests that knowledge is held either by individuals or collectively. In Blackler’s terms, embodied or embraced knowledge is individual and embedded, and cultural knowledge is collective.
It can be argued (Scarborough and Carter, 2000) that knowledge emerges from the collective experience of work and is shared between members of a particular group or community.
It is useful to distinguish between data, information and knowledge:
● data consists of the basic facts – the building blocks for information and knowledge;
● information is data that have been processed in a way which is meaningful to individuals, it is available to anyone entitled to gain access to it; as Drucker (1988) wrote, ‘information is data endowed with meaning and purpose’;
● knowledge is information put to productive use; it is personal and often intangible and it can be elusive – the task of tying it down, encoding it and distributing it is tricky.
Explicit and tacit knowledge
Nonaka (1991) and Nonaka and Takeuchi (1995) stated that knowledge is either explicit or tacit. Explicit knowledge can be codified: it is recorded and available, and is held in databases, in corporate intranets and intellectual property portfolios.
Tacit knowledge exists in people’s minds. It is difficult to articulate in writing and is acquired through personal experience. As suggested by Hansen et al (1999), it includes scientific or technological expertise, operational know-how, insights about an industry, and business judgement. The main challenge in knowledge management is how to turn tacit knowledge into explicit knowledge.
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