Knowledge: page 7

7. Explicit Knowledge: there is no such thing.

Subsequent chapters:

1. From Philosophy to IT
2. Objectivism vs. Constructivism: two opposite knowledge traditions
3. Data, Information, and Knowledge: definitions and relationships
4. Information: Messages intended to changes the receiver's perception
5. Epistemology: a pluralist view or all tacit...?
6. Tacit Knowledge: the fundament for knowing
7. Explicit Knowledge: there is no such thing
8. Organisational Actions: Knowledge made visible
9. Conclusions

Is there any explicit knowledge? If so, what is the difference between explicit knowledge and information? These seem to be important questions and fundamental to our understanding of knowledge management from an IS/IT perspective.

It is therefore surprising to see that they remain unanswered. Returning to literature, we learn that Nonaka and Takeuchi (1995) define explicit knowledge or codified knowledge as knowledge that can be articulated and in formal language including grammatical statements, mathematical expressions, specifications, and manuals. Such explicit knowledge, they conclude, can be transmitted easily and formally across individuals. Choo (1998) suggests that explicit knowledge is knowledge that is made manifest through language, symbols, objects, and artefacts. Explicit knowledge can further be object based, i.e., found as patents, software code, databases, technical drawings and blueprints, chemical and mathematical formulas, business plans, and statistical reports, or rule based, i.e., expressed as rules, routines, and procedures. Organisations tend to depend primarily on this sort of explicit and articulated knowledge, written down in memos and illustrated with graphs and used in decision-making processes, or institutionalised as operating procedures, Choo observes.

Blackler (1995), elaborating on the categories defined by Collins (1993) describes various forms of explicit knowledge. One is referred to as embedded knowledge, i.e. knowledge that resides in systemic routines such as organisational procedures, rules, and regulations. Another form is encoded knowledge, which contains anything that uses signs and symbols to convey meaning.

All the examples of explicit knowledge given above are such that they easily can be disseminated within and across organisational borders. However, Choo admits that it does not follow that the receiving party immediately can comprehend and correctly value the knowledge due to different language, different level of maturity, or lack of required capabilities (Choo et al., 2000). How, then, can it be knowledge? My conclusion is that is not knowledge but information. Although we may not be able to fully describe the face of someone with whom we are familiar, and also unable able to give more than a mediocre description of what really happens when we ride a bike from a scientific perspective, the information provided may still be helpful. Words are thus often needed, even if they cannot fully transfer knowledge. The narrative in itself is not enough for the other part to gain a complete understanding, but there are always various means to describe and express feelings and actions. In support of this view, Tsoukas argues that a practitioner's ability to follow rules is grounded on such unarticulated background knowledge, which results in that the rules postulated by an observer differs from the rules actually operating (1996, p.17).

In general, people from the same tradition and culture have more tacit knowledge in common than have people from different traditions. Likewise, groups within the same profession or company have more tacit knowledge in common than have mixed groups. Tuomi, building on the work of Fleck, refers to communities of thought to describe the required shared understanding and pragmatic nature of professional knowledge (1999b). Only individuals who have a requisite level of shared background can therefore truly exchange knowledge (Alavi and Leidner, 2001). Tradition, profession, and organisational belonging all carry their own assumptions, and the more overlapping these tacit assumptions and experiences - i.e. the personal knowledge - are, the better from a knowledge sharing perspective. If all three realms overlap, the likelihood that two persons (e.g., two North American software developers working for Microsoft) will be able to understand each other increases, and the discrepancy between the information provider's intended meaning and the recipient's interpretation will be small.

In contrast, a Scandinavian microwave expert working for Ericsson might not understand the text, since she, being from another culture, having a different profession, and working for another company, would not have the required common knowledge base (Alavi and Leidner, 2001). In her case, additional information would have to be provided or she would have to spend time with software developers and Microsoft employees to acquire the relevant knowledge through socialisation (Nonaka, 1994).

Information therefore requires knowledge both to be created and to be understood. Although information and knowledge are related, the information per se contains no knowledge. Alavi and Leidner posit that "information is converted to knowledge once it is processed in the mind of individuals and knowledge becomes information once it is articulated" (2001, p. 109). The fact that routines, procedures, rules, manuals, books, blueprints, and all the other examples given above are useful does not make it knowledge. They all need knowledge to be decoded and are therefore not knowledge but information, albeit interwoven with the knowledge required to create it. Knowledge, which remains tacit, is also needed to interpret the information. Although some argue that "knowledge" may be embedded in a text (e.g., a balance sheet where columns and totals have predefined meanings), the reader cannot appreciate it without bringing the required personal knowledge. Figure 2 illustrates the separation between knowledge and information, between the tacit and the articulated. Knowledge is understood as the tacit part of our traditions and experiences while information is the small part we are able to articulate.

Figure 2. All knowledge is tacit and based on tradition and experiences.

Go to chapter 8

If you'd like to refer to this text in a scientific article, you may want to know that most of it has been published as:
Stenmark, D. (2002). "Information vs. Knowledge: The Role of intranets in Knowledge Management". In Proceedings of HICSS-35, IEEE Press, Hawaii, January 7-10, 2002. (pdf)

References

Last updated: February 18, 2002