The Types of Knowledge

EXPLICIT IMPLICIT TACIT DEFINITION

Explicit knowledge is the most basic form of knowledge and is easy to pass along
because it’s Explicit Knowledge written down and accessible. When data is
processed, organized, structured, and interpreted, the result is explicit knowledge. It
is easily articulated, recorded, communicated, and most importantly, stored.

EXAMPLES
knowledge assets such as databases, white papers, and case studies. Mathematical
formulae, laws, scientific papers and texts, operational manuals, and raw data.

Implicit knowledge does not necessarily have this problem. Instead, implicit
information has yet to be Implicit Knowledge can be referred to as “know-how”
knowledge. It is the documented. It tends to exist within processes, and its practical
application of explicit knowledge.

EXAMPLES
asking a team member how to perform a task. This could spark a conversation about
the range of options to perform the task, as well as the potential outcomes, leading
to a thoughtful process to determine the best course of action.

implicit knowledge may be the location of the closest supermarket to your house.
Imagine that a new neighbor moves in and asks where she can go get groceries;
you share implicit knowledge when you tell her about the grocery store two streets
over.

Tacit Knowledge a type of knowledge is typically acquired through experience, and

it is intuitively understood. As a result, it is challenging to articulate and codify,
making it difficult to transfer this information to other individuals.
EXAMPLES
A common example of tacit knowledge is how to tie your shoelaces, ride a bike, play
a musical instrument or chop wood.
Explicit Knowledge: Knowledge that is easy to articulate, write down,
and share.

Implicit Knowledge: The application of explicit knowledge. Skills that

are transferable from one job to another are one example of implicit
knowledge. Tacit Knowledge: Knowledge gained from personal
experience that is more difficult to express.

Locations of Knowledge

INDIVIDUAL: A person’s notebook, loose documents and files, customer queries

and complaints, or an individual’s memory. These are good sources of tacit
knowledge.
GROUP/COMMUNITY: communities of practice, communities of excellence, project
teams, internal teams, trainings groups, mentorship programs. These are good
sources of explicit, implicit, and tacit knowledge.
STRUCTURAL: routines, processes, culture, traditional ways of doing things, IT
systems, supplier. These are sources of implicit knowledge.
ORGANIZATIONAL: all the knowledge resources with an organization that can be
realistically tapped by that organization. It can be contained in guidelines,
regulations, report, market research, records, and data. These are good sources for
a combination of tacit and explicit knowledge.
EXTRA-ORGANIZATIONAL: knowledge resources existing outside the organization
which could be used to enhance the performance of the organization, they include
explicit elements like publications, as well as tacit elements found in communities of
practice that span beyond the organizations borders.

ARTIFACTS
PRACTICES: simply the practices or actions being executed that provides other
information and details that they can absorb, adapt, and apply.
TECHNOLOGIES: Information Technology Communication plays vital roles in
knowledge management which include the following, IT plays a facilitator in
knowledge Management (facilitates documents management, data storage, access
of information, dissemination, exchange and sharing of ideas).
REPOSITORIES: knowledge repositories are most often private database that
manage enterprise and proprietary information, but public repositories also exist to
manage public domain intelligence. It is a central place in which an aggregation of
data is kept and maintained in an organized way, usually in computer storage.
ORGANIZATIONAL ENTITIES
ORGANIZATIONAL UNITS: Organizational units can represent traditional,
hierarchical entities such as a division, department or team.
ORGANIZATIONS: An organization is an entity- such as a company, an institution,
or an association- comprising one or more people and having a particular purpose.
INTER-ORGANIZATIONAL NETWORKS: Are the aggregate of the formal and
informal relationships between the organizations as independent entities and the
formal and informal relations between their members.