What Is Tacit Knowledge?

According to whether knowledge can be clearly expressed and effectively transferred, knowledge can be divided into explicit knowledge (Explicit Knowledge) and tacit knowledge (Tacit Knowledge).

According to whether knowledge can be clearly expressed and effectively transferred, knowledge can be divided into explicit knowledge (Explicit Knowledge) and tacit knowledge (Tacit Knowledge).

Chinese name

Tacit knowledge

Foreign name

Tacit Knowledge

proposer

Michael Polanyi

Presentation time

1958

Basic information of tacit knowledge

Tacit knowledge

Tacit Knowledge [Tacit Knowledge]

Tacit knowledge is a concept proposed by Michael Polanyi from the field of philosophy in 1958. In examining what aspects of human knowledge depend on faith, he stumbled upon the fact that the factors of this belief are inherent to the hidden part of knowledge. Polanyi believes that: "There are two kinds of human knowledge. What is usually described as knowledge, that is, expressed in written words, diagrams, and mathematical formulas, is only one type of knowledge. Unexpressed knowledge, like we are doing The knowledge possessed by the action of something is another kind of knowledge. "He referred to the former as explicit knowledge and the latter as tacit knowledge. According to Polanyi's understanding, explicit knowledge can be Knowledge of a certain code system (most typical is language, but also mathematical formulas, various types of charts, Braille, sign language, semaphore and other symbolic forms) to complete the expression. Tacit knowledge is the opposite of explicit knowledge, which refers to the kind of knowledge that we know but cannot tell.

Tacit knowledge

Evidence of tacit knowledge

After the 1960s, psychologists Reber, Weiskrantz, and Warrington carried out experimental research in the areas of implicit learning and implicit memory at the same time, which opened the prelude to empirical research in implicit cognition.

Reber's research constructs a set of artificial grammatical structures, and arranges several consonant letters according to grammatical rules. The meaningless consonant letter strings are used as the study materials for the experimental group. At the same time, another set of consonant alphabet strings was formed in a random arrangement as the learning material for the control group participants. During the learning phase, two groups of participants were required to remember the letter string presented. In the test phase, grammatical and non-grammatical letter strings are mixed together, and subjects are told that some of the letter strings meet certain rules, and they are required to distinguish between the two. It was found that the experimental group of subjects could effectively distinguish the two types of letter strings, while the control group of subjects could not understand the difference between the two. Reber believes that the structure of artificial grammar is extremely complicated, and it is impossible for any participant to "master" the grammar rules in a short time. However, the behavior of the experimental group showed that although they did not know the implicit rules when learning the letter strings , In the end, they ca nt clearly express the content of the rules, but they can use the rules to classify letter strings, including new letter strings that have not been presented. This shows that the experimental group participants unconsciously acquired the grammatical rules behind the letter strings. Reber accordingly proposed two models of human learning: explicit learning and implicit learning. Explicit learning is a process that requires learning through will and strategy, and implicit learning is a process of acquiring complex knowledge in an unconscious environment. This is the first evidence of the existence of implicit learning.

The proof of the implicit memory phenomenon originally benefited from the measurement of the memory ability of patients with amnesia by the indirect measurement method. Weiskrantz and Warrington asked 4 patients with amnesia (3 patients with Korsakoff syndrome, 1 patient with temporal lobe resection) to learn a set of word lists, and then tested in 4 forms: free recall, recognizing, vague word recognition The word handwriting was obscured, requiring the participants to say what the word was based on impressions instead of memories) and stemming (presenting the first 3 letters of a word, asking participants to fill it out based on what they thought instead of memories) Into a meaningful word) and compare the test results with 16 patients with normal memory. It was found that patients with severe amnesia showed significant memory impairment in traditional recognition and recall tasks, and their scores were much worse than those in the control group. But in the other two assignments that do not require recollection, they can recognize and fill out a word with their inner feelings as they want, but they use a lot of previously learned words. It is especially worth noting that the probability and contrast of the learned words appear There are no differences in groups. Subsequently, other researchers' research achieved similar results and found that patients with amnesia still retain the ability to learn and remember, but the traditional direct measurement method cannot measure it, and it is only sensitive to the indirect measurement method. Some researchers believe that direct and indirect methods measure the results of two different internal cognitive processes, called implicit memory and explicit memory, respectively. The former refers to the unconscious extraction of information stored in long-term memory.

After these early studies were published, they were rapidly expanded to form areas of implicit cognition research including implicit perception, implicit memory, implicit learning, and cognitive processing levels of implicit social cognition. Breakthrough progress. It has been proved that implicit cognitive processing is relatively independent; subthreshold stimulation can facilitate subsequent tasks; implicit cognitive processing ability has no obvious age characteristics, and is less affected by mental retardation, amnesia, and schizophrenia The effects of neural damage, etc .; implicit learning has the characteristics of automatization, generalization, a certain degree of intelligibility, and anti-interference; personal background variables affect individuals' judgments and decisions on social relationship variables; implicit cognitive processing is not psychological Resource constraints; non-strategic, non-analytic unconscious cognitive processing is more efficient at obtaining the structure of highly complex materials than explicit cognitive processing. These research results allow humans to gradually peek into and understand their vast unconscious psychological activities.

Tacit knowledge classification

From the perspective of skills and knowledge, tacit knowledge can be divided into two categories:

Tacit knowledge skills

Including informal, difficult-to-express skills, techniques, experiences and know-how;

Tacit knowledge

Including insight, intuition, perception, values, mental models, tacit understanding of the team, and organizational culture.

From the degree of enterprise tacit knowledge that can be encoded, it can be divided into: tacit knowledge that can be encoded, tacit knowledge that is not easy to encode, and tacit knowledge that cannot be encoded (without a certain period of time).

Because of the tacit nature and complexity of tacit knowledge, generally, tacit knowledge that can be coded or explicit occupies only a small part, and most of them are not easy to code or cannot be coded. Correct classification helps us to adopt different strategies for tacit knowledge identification, flow, transformation, and innovation.

Tacit knowledge

Tacit knowledge

It cannot be clearly expressed through language, words, diagrams, or symbols: Tacit knowledge is generally difficult to make explicit expressions and logical explanations. It is the result of human nonverbal intellectual activities. This is the most essential characteristic of tacit knowledge.

Tacit knowledge individuality

Tacit knowledge exists in the mind of the individual. Its main carrier is the individual. It cannot be transmitted through formal forms (for example, school education, mass media, etc.), because the owners and users of tacit knowledge are both Difficult to express clearly. However, tacit knowledge cannot be transferred, but it is transmitted in a special way, for example, through the "teacher-teacher" method. In addition, a distinction needs to be made between "individuality" and "subjectivity". Polanyi believes that, unlike subjective mental state, which is limited to personal and private feelings, individual knowledge is that the epistemic is exposed to external reality with a high degree of responsibility and universal intent ) Based on the results obtained. It can be seen that the difference between individual and subjective lies in that the former contains a universal and external dimension.

Tacit knowledge irrational

Explicit knowledge is obtained through people's "logical reasoning" process, so it can be reasoned for reflection, while tacit knowledge is obtained through people's physical senses or intuitions and perceptions, so it is not obtained through logical reasoning. Because of the irrational nature of tacit knowledge, one cannot criticize it rationally.

Tacit knowledge contextuality

Tacit knowledge is always closely related to a specific situation. It always depends on the existence of a specific situation, and it is the overall grasp of a specific task and situation. This is also an important feature of tacit knowledge.

Tacit knowledge culture

Tacit knowledge has stronger cultural characteristics than explicit knowledge. It is inseparable from the concepts, symbols, and knowledge systems that people analyze in a certain cultural tradition. Or, people in different cultural traditions often share different tacit knowledge. The "system" of sexual knowledge includes the "system" of tacit natural knowledge and the "system" of tacit social and human knowledge.

Contingency and randomness of tacit knowledge

Tacit knowledge is relatively accidental, casual, and difficult to capture, so it is more difficult to obtain it than explicit knowledge.

Tacit knowledge relativity

The relativity here has two meanings: one is that tacit knowledge can be transformed into explicit knowledge under certain conditions, and the other is tacit knowledge relative to one person, but it may already be obvious to another. Sexual knowledge and vice versa.

Tacit knowledge stability

Compared with explicit knowledge, tacit knowledge, like concepts and beliefs, is less susceptible to changes by the environment; it is less affected by age and is not easy to fade away and forget; it also means that once an individual has some tacit knowledge, it is difficult It was remodeled. This means that the construction of tacit knowledge needs to be carried out in a subtle way.

Tacit knowledge integrity

Although tacit knowledge often lacks a logical structure, it is the result of the internal cognitive integration of the individual, an organic part of the complete, harmonious and unified subject personality, and plays a major role in determining the individual's behavior in the environment. It itself is unified and indivisible.

Explicit mode of tacit knowledge

The core of enterprise tacit knowledge management is the explicitization of tacit knowledge. The value of tacit knowledge must be realized through the transformation of tacit knowledge. It is through this circular transformation that the knowledge in the enterprise forms a spiral rise. Knowledge innovation process. The conversion of tacit knowledge and explicit knowledge goes through four cycles.

Tacit Knowledge Socialization

The socialization phase refers to the process of disseminating tacit knowledge from one individual to another. This is the oldest and most effective way to spread human knowledge. In the process of knowledge management, we spare no effort to make explicit the tacit knowledge through information technology, but there is always some valuable tacit knowledge that is difficult to realize. The tacit knowledge is passed through the socialization stage of Sharing and innovation, and enhancing the competitiveness of the organization, have become very important links in enterprise knowledge management. In this process, participants can obtain tacit knowledge from others without using language. For example, apprentices can learn craftsmanship only through experience, imitation, and practice.

Tacit knowledge externalization stage

The externalization stage is to convert tacit knowledge into a form that is easy to understand and accept through analogy, metaphor, hypothesis, listening, and in-depth conversation. Converting tacit knowledge into explicit knowledge is a typical process of knowledge innovation. People transform their experience and knowledge into content that can be described by language. It is the process of upgrading from perceptual knowledge to rational knowledge and transforming experience into concept. The purpose of explicit knowledge is to share knowledge. Generally, only specific, operable or conventional knowledge can be transmitted, and deep-level knowledge is not easy to obtain for others. Therefore, the implementation of knowledge management must first collect and process tacit knowledge that can be made explicit.

Tacit knowledge portfolio stage

This stage is the conversion of tacit knowledge to explicit knowledge, and a process of establishing a system of reusing knowledge. It focuses on information collection, organization, management, analysis and dissemination. In this process, information is generating new ideas in the process of continuous aggregation. Private knowledge cannot be shared directly, only the relevant ideas and information in the knowledge can be transmitted. After receiving information, others need to perceive, understand, and internalize it in depth before they can form their new knowledge. The explicit knowledge collected from individual employees is processed and organized to form general explicit knowledge, which is finally concentrated into the core knowledge of the enterprise. Employees can easily absorb and use it to achieve the normal operation of the organization.

Tacit knowledge internalization stage

Internalization means that newly created explicit knowledge is transformed into tacit knowledge of other members of the organization. The purpose of tacit knowledge is to realize the application and innovation of knowledge. The innovation and application of knowledge is the ultimate goal of knowledge management. Whether an organization has an advantage in competition depends on whether the organization can make full use of the organization's knowledge, whether it can continuously create new knowledge, and update knowledge. After the internalization phase, the organization's competitiveness has been improved, and knowledge management has completed a basic cycle. In the above four transformation processes, the conversion of tacit knowledge to explicit knowledge is the core, and it is the most direct and effective way of knowledge production. The tacit knowledge of the employees is the core of the new knowledge production of the enterprise. How to effectively stimulate the individual's tacit knowledge, avoid obstacles in the transformation process, and increase the interaction of the four transformation methods will affect the company's new knowledge generation level.

Explicit obstacles to tacit knowledge

As Polanyi pointed out, if tacit knowledge is a personal opinion that can only be obtained through personal experience, the explicitization of tacit knowledge is obviously difficult. Below we analyze the main obstacles to the explicitization of tacit knowledge from the perspective of the characteristics of different types of tacit knowledge.

Tacit knowledge

Body-based tacit knowledge The so-called body-based tacit knowledge refers to the tacit knowledge produced and applied by the subject in the process of cognition. This type of tacit knowledge is often rooted in the use of human body functions or the use of tools. Such as artists playing and painting, doctors performing surgery on patients. There are many hidden elements in these operating skills and artistic skills. This type of tacit knowledge is monopolistic, and tacit knowledge is restricted from entering the public domain or shared. The typical manifestation is to make the knowledge proprietary and control the tacit knowledge with commercial value, so as to avoid the explicit manifestation of knowledge and lose its competitive advantage. The explicitization of such tacit knowledge requires the establishment of a trust mechanism, which can be obtained through internal thinking and external communication. In addition, it often requires repeated hands-on practice and experience.

Tacit knowledge

Tacit knowledge based on speech means that when the external world recognized by the subject is another subject, the interaction between the two subjects must necessarily be carried out through speech (including body language). The tacitness generated and used in this process Knowledge is tacit knowledge based on speech. The unconscious feature of tacit knowledge is that people do not realize the scope of their own knowledge. Explicit knowledge is easy to identify, but tacit knowledge such as internal thinking and inspiration and experience is difficult to describe. The depth of experience and knowledge leads to the deepening of tacit knowledge, which increases the difficulty of expressing knowledge. The differences in expressions between different languages also increase the difficulty of understanding. The explicitization of speech-based tacit knowledge often requires that the subjects have a common knowledge background related to the topic of communication. In addition, storytelling, through metaphors, symbols, and case studies, can help construct a common context among the subjects. Therefore, this approach has an important role in acquiring tacit knowledge.

Tacit knowledge based on individual metacognition

Taking into account factors such as internal thinking, emotions, mental models, and intuition of cognitive individuals, the differences of these factors will affect individuals in extracting object information, giving intelligent behavior and all aspects of the information transmission process, thus forming an individual's unique "information cognition" And regeneration "way. And these are the tacit knowledge based on the inner mind and thinking of the cognitive individual, or the tacit knowledge based on the individual's "metacognition". This type of tacit knowledge is reflected in individual mental models, problem solving methods, intuition, and emotion. Acquiring generally requires construction on a worldview and methodological level through the apprenticeship method.

Tacit knowledge is based on social culture

Relative to the individual's metacognition, the social environment formed by race, history, social ideology, and the organizational environment of the individual will have a significant and profound impact on the individual's "information cognition and regeneration" model. Level, forming tacit knowledge based on social culture. This type of tacit knowledge will affect the individual's metacognition, the interaction between the individual and other individuals, and the individual's process of understanding natural objects. For different cultural backgrounds, the degree of difficulty of knowledge sharing is different. The flow of knowledge sharing requires participants to adopt an open attitude. The explicitness of this type of tacit knowledge needs to be realized by individuals' long-term experience in their environment. ^[1]

Tacit knowledge is at risk

Tacit knowledge risk introduction

Tacit knowledge has become a source of corporate competitive advantage because it is difficult to express in language, difficult to measure its value, and difficult to be understood by others. In contrast, explicit knowledge is easy to express and transfer, and it is easy to be imitated and learned by competitors. It cannot form a sustainable competitive advantage for the enterprise. Therefore, within a certain level of knowledge, more and more explicit tacit knowledge is available. If certain confidentiality measures cannot be taken within the organization in a timely manner, competitors will try to obtain this applied or coded explicit knowledge and will use it to form their own competitive advantage. Therefore, certain measures should be taken within the organization to ensure the explicitness of tacit knowledge on the one hand, and to strengthen the confidentiality of explicit knowledge on the other hand to prevent the duplication of competitors.

Strengthen the confidentiality of explicit knowledge and prevent copying by competitors

The gain from explicit knowledge of tacit knowledge cannot make up for its excessively high explicit cost. With the improvement of the level of explicitness, the transfer of knowledge has changed from a connected learning mode to a language modulation mode. Organizations need to create the necessary environmental and technical conditions, which will inevitably cost more. the cost of. At the same time, the benefits created by explicitization are difficult to measure in a short period of time, and the cost of explicitization will change as the degree of explicitness of knowledge increases. Therefore, within the organization, the measurement of explicit costs and benefits is also an urgent issue.

Failure to explicitize the tacit knowledge within the organization in a timely or correct manner will also bring great risks to the enterprise. If the organization does not externalize the tacit knowledge of the knowledge subject in time and make full use of it, it may cause the organization to lose various opportunities. But at the same time, it should be recognized that not all tacit knowledge can or can be correctly externalized into explicit knowledge. If the organization disregards the technical level and other restrictions, it will simply manifest the non-explicit knowledge, so Lead to the misinterpretation of core knowledge, so that the misuse of knowledge will bring immeasurable losses to the enterprise. This requires the organization to grasp a degree, that is, to know which knowledge can be manifested correctly degree. And the solution of this problem also depends on the experience and knowledge of managers.

For knowledge subjects, although the sharing of their own tacit knowledge will improve the overall knowledge level of the organization, it is not necessarily beneficial to the individual. The innovation and research of personal knowledge takes a lot of energy and hard work to achieve. Therefore, the subject of knowledge will unconsciously make a risk prediction of his own input cost, opportunity cost, transaction cost, and reputation cost. The fairness and rationality of sexual knowledge sharing and whether it meets their own expectations. Often these costs cannot be compensated by compensation. When the knowledge subject cannot be compensated through the internal mechanism, it will limit the transmission and sharing of knowledge, and it will be difficult to achieve the purpose of making the tacit knowledge of the individual reasonable.

Tacit knowledge risk aversion

(1) In order to overcome the loss of tacit knowledge caused by brain drain, in addition to making explicit the tacit knowledge of individuals, it is also possible to fully tap the knowledge subject's mind by forming an organizational learning mechanism that promotes tacit knowledge sharing. The tacit knowledge of the subject is transmitted and shared through various channels within the organization to become the tacit knowledge of the organization. Relying on the tacit knowledge level communication between employees in this process, this requires the knowledge subject in the organization to have a comprehensive understanding of how to coordinate the work of the organization, and the organization should create a way to encourage the knowledge subject to play a cooperative spirit Environment to achieve tacit understanding and coordination among members, to achieve the induction and summary of personal tacit knowledge, and to complete the conversion to organizational tacit knowledge.

At the same time, it is necessary to continuously increase the core knowledge of the enterprise, especially the quantity and quality of tacit knowledge. By constantly creating new tacit knowledge to maintain the long-term competitiveness of the organization, since technical tacit knowledge is based on a single subject in the final analysis, it should be driven by the internal culture of the organization from a human perspective. Generate, motivate employees to actively seek, share, and create knowledge, and form a bottom-up knowledge-driven flow mechanism within the organization.

(2) Improve the technical level required for the explicitization of tacit knowledge and the professional knowledge required for the explicitization of the knowledge subject knowledge to improve the accuracy of the explicitization of tacit knowledge. Within the organization, the subject of knowledge must establish and maintain the necessary knowledge transformation and technology use capabilities, as well as the ability to understand and digest tacit knowledge. At the same time, as the subject of knowledge has a strong sense of responsibility and self-management ability, it can appropriately grant the right to handle and use organizational knowledge to improve the level of individual knowledge. At the same time, the knowledge transformation technology must be restructured and adaptively changed with the continuous progress of business technology.

(3) The form of information technology and information system outsourcing is used to reduce the explicit cost of knowledge. Professional information technology outsourcers can provide high-level, low-cost technology products and professional technical advice. At the same time, in the process of mutual cooperation and exchange with information technology outsourcers, relevant technical knowledge can be increased. At this time, the knowledge flow and sharing of both parties need to be established and a close cooperative relationship should be established between them. On the one hand, people within the organization must actively participate in cooperation and provide information on the organization's work processes and the intricate relationships between the departments, so that the technology products of knowledge conversion are closer to the requirements of actual work; at the same time, by further participating in the Design and work to understand the concept and requirements of the product, and propose deficiencies to promote practical technical improvement solutions; on the other hand, technology vendors should also pay attention to absorbing internal knowledge of the organization and assist the members of the organization The understanding of this type of product is from the perspective of the customer, and the product can be provided to the customer with as efficient and low-cost knowledge as possible.

(4) The organization must provide loose incentive measures for the knowledge subject. On the one hand, it must absolutely compensate the knowledge subject for the new knowledge, and give rewards based on the contribution of the knowledge provided to the organization, so that the expected value of the knowledge subject is obtained. Satisfaction makes the return of individual knowledge contribution greater than the return of hoarding knowledge. Establish a good external system to promote the accumulation of knowledge and increase the pressure and motivation of knowledge subjects to provide tacit knowledge.

Tacit knowledge management implications

Modern enterprises have begun to realize the value of tacit knowledge, and investment in human resources has gradually increased. However, the research on how to combine human resource management and tacit knowledge management as a new competitiveness of enterprises is still insufficient.

Tacit knowledge establishes the incentive mechanism of the organization

Establish an organizational incentive mechanism to ensure the transfer and sharing of knowledge

Knowledge innovation has high cost, high risk, and uncertainty of income and distribution, so that after the innovation is successful, the owner of the knowledge will intentionally monopolize the knowledge it owns in order to recover it. The operation of the traditional incentive mechanism can only aggravate this monopoly of individuals. Therefore, organizations need to establish appropriate incentive mechanisms to reasonably meet the interests of tacit knowledge owners and stimulate their desire to share knowledge. On the one hand, the originality and exclusivity of employees' tacit knowledge should be recognized, and appropriate evaluation indicators and evaluation systems based on the knowledge contribution rate should be established to enable members of the organization to benefit from knowledge sharing. Employees provide growth opportunities, guide employees to communicate and share tacit knowledge, and promote employees to continue to innovate and develop, which is very important to promote the exchange and sharing of tacit knowledge.

Tacit knowledge building human resources knowledge base

Establish a human resources knowledge base and form an organization knowledge map

Integrating organizational resources and reflecting the competitiveness of human resources is an important issue in current human resource management. Through the construction of enterprise knowledge base, the effective management of employee knowledge can promote the orderly circulation of knowledge within the organization and improve the utilization rate of knowledge. At the same time, the organization's human resources are registered and a skills list database is established, which can not only find the manpower required by the organization according to the figure, but also formulate a continuous human resources plan to promote the employees' long-term development plan.

Tacit knowledge builds a learning organization

Establish a learning organization and increase the value of tacit knowledge

A learning organization is an organic, highly flexible, flat, individual, and sustainable development organization established by cultivating an organizational learning atmosphere and giving full play to the creative thinking capabilities of employees. Tacit knowledge always runs through the entire process of knowledge accumulation. Without relevant tacit knowledge, whether it is an individual or an enterprise, other knowledge cannot be obtained and absorbed. Therefore, the organization should carry out regular and irregular training, enhance the learning atmosphere within the organization, carry out knowledge exchange and sharing meetings between employees, and achieve continuous innovation of knowledge within the organization.

Tacit Knowledge Reorganization Organization Structure Model

Reorganize the organizational structure model and construct a dynamic team

Since tacit knowledge is difficult to express, observe and describe, its mutual transformation cannot continue the usual thinking. In addition to external incentives such as compensation and rewards, companies should establish a brand new organizational structure model. The structure of a dynamic team will facilitate the conversion of tacit knowledge. The learning of tacit knowledge can often be achieved from the subtle influence of person to person contact. Therefore, in order to realize a certain project, the organization should gather employees with different skills in different work areas into a specific team in a timely manner. In the process of completing the project, effectively realize the transmission, integration, sharing and innovation of knowledge.

In the theory and practice of knowledge management research, the research of tacit knowledge has been paid more and more attention, which is inseparable from the key role of tacit knowledge in knowledge management. Similarly, attaching importance to and developing the role of tacit knowledge in corporate human resource management is also of great significance for improving corporate management efficiency and enhancing core competitiveness.

Tacit knowledge transformation

Overview of Tacit Knowledge

Exploring tacit knowledge from a management perspective involves both organizational and individual levels.

For a long time, knowledge, especially tacit knowledge, has become more and more important to organizations. It is the source of corporate innovation and can continue to bring competitive benefits to enterprises. Some organizational theory researchers have further expanded the connotation of tacit knowledge. Winter, Nelson, Spender, etc., in the study of corporate capabilities, believe that there is implicit organizational knowledge within the enterprise. Enterprise tacit knowledge refers to individual employees and organizations at all levels (teams, departments, enterprise levels, etc.) that are difficult to standardize, difficult to explain and imitate, difficult to communicate and share, difficult to be copied or stolen, not yet coded and displayed. Various types of tacit knowledge, including tacit knowledge that is effectively acquired from outside the enterprise through flow and sharing.

Tacit knowledge at the enterprise level is formed on the basis of effective transformation, integration, and long-term practice of individual employees, groups, and various types of knowledge acquired from outside the enterprise. It emerges knowledge characteristics that a single individual or group cannot possess. The main feature is that it manifests itself as a corporate culture, value system, and corporate practices that are only available at the enterprise level. These are knowledge that is difficult to explain clearly, but plays an important role. It also includes know-how, experience, and collaboration capabilities that can be mastered at the enterprise level.

From the "individual" perspective, there are two representatives, one is Peter F. Drucker, an American professor of management, and the other is Ikujiro Nonaka, a professor of management in Japan. They know from the individual attributes of tacit knowledge.

Peter Drucker believes that tacit knowledge cannot be explained by language. It can only be demonstrated by demonstration that it exists, mainly from experience and skills. The only way to learn is to understand and practice.

Ikujiro Nonaka believes that tacit knowledge is highly personalized knowledge that is difficult to standardize and not easy to pass to others. It is mainly hidden in personal experience, and also involves personal beliefs, world views, and value systems. Tacit knowledge is subjective experience or experience, and it is not easy to use structural concepts to describe or express knowledge. Explicit knowledge is knowledge that can be captured or presented objectively using concepts. He also emphasized the importance of tacit knowledge and knowledge environment for the creation and sharing of corporate knowledge. In addition, he also proposed the transformation relationship between tacit knowledge and explicit knowledge based on the OECD knowledge classification.

Tacit knowledge conversion process

Japanese knowledge management expert Ikujiro Nonaka proposed the SECI process of mutual conversion of explicit and tacit knowledge:

1. The process of mutual conversion of explicit knowledge and tacit knowledge

The process of mutual conversion of explicit knowledge and tacit knowledge

Socialization is the process of generating new conscious knowledge by sharing experience

Externalization is the process of expressing tacit knowledge into explicit knowledge

Integration is the process of combining explicit knowledge to form a more complex and systematic explicit knowledge system

Internalization is the process of transforming explicit knowledge into tacit knowledge and becoming the actual capabilities of individuals and groups

The Transformational Relationship between Tacit Knowledge and Explicit Knowledge

1. Conversion of tacit knowledge to tacit knowledge.

This is the process of sharing tacit knowledge among individuals and the socialization of knowledge. Tacit knowledge is transmitted mainly through observation, imitation, and personal practice. Teacher-to-knowledge is a typical form of tacit knowledge sharing among individuals. The establishment of a virtual knowledge community with the help of information technology has created the conditions for the transformation from tacit knowledge to tacit knowledge in a wider range.

2. The conversion of tacit knowledge to explicit knowledge.

This is an explicit description of tacit knowledge, transforming it into a form that is easy for others to understand. The methods used for this transformation include analogies, metaphors and assumptions, listening and in-depth talks. Some current intelligent technologies, such as knowledge mining systems, business intelligence, expert systems, etc., provide a means for achieving explicit knowledge of tacit knowledge.

3. Transformation of explicit knowledge to explicit knowledge.

This is a process of knowledge diffusion, usually systematically and complicate the fragmented explicit knowledge. By integrating these piecemeal knowledge and expressing it in professional language, personal knowledge rises to organizational knowledge, which can more easily share and create organizational value for more people. Distributed document management, content management, data warehouse, etc. are effective tools to realize explicit knowledge combination.

4. The transformation of explicit knowledge to tacit knowledge.

This means that the explicit knowledge of the enterprise is transformed into the tacit knowledge of the members in the enterprise. In other words, knowledge is transmitted among employees in the enterprise. After receiving this new knowledge, employees can use it to work and create new tacit knowledge. Group work, middle school and work-based training are effective methods to achieve explicit knowledge tacitness. In this regard, there are also some collaboration tools, such as e-communities, E-learning systems, and so on. ^[2]