Tacit vs Explicit Knowledge

DB - Tacit vs Explicit Knowledge

Whether you think tacit knowledge is generally more valuable to an organization than explicit knowledge.

Knowledge Definition -

“A justified belief that increases an entity's capacity for effective action” - Nonaka and Takeuchi (1995)

Meaningful set of information such as relevant experience, feelings, behavior etc is known as Knowledge. For organizations knowledge is technical, operational, financial, engineering know how, also market information, customer information, research information, individual and collective experience is a part of organizational knowledge. Organizational knowledge can be categorized as Tacit Knowledge and Explicit Knowledge

Explicit knowledge -

For organization explicit knowledge is knowledge which can be stored in form of written documents or database soft copies e. g. operating instruction manuals, various databases, policies, product designs & specifications, market information, client or customer information, presentations, etc.

Tacit Knowledge -

For organization tacit knowledge is knowledge which its employees, partners or stakeholders possess on account of their education, training, work experience, personal expertise, organizational culture. Tacit knowledge cannot be stored in written documents or into software databases. It is difficult to access and identify tacit knowledge possessed by individual or organization and can only be shared between two humans.

What is more important for organization Tacit or Explicit knowledge, knowledge is important for organization be it tacit or explicit.

Toyota relies on tacit knowledge of employee's for transferring knowledge of its “Toyota Manufacturing system”. When Toyota sets up new manufacturing facility it sends a lot couple of hundred local employee's batch (from new manufacturing site) for training and learning at existing units / manufacturing facilities. Those trainee employee work on assembly line and other manufacturing...