Adequate Tacit Knowledge Management for Railways: A Conceptual Framework

Abstract

Tacit Knowledge (TK) management has been in the limelight for the last few decades with strategic importance for some organizations. Conversion of tacit to explicit knowledge offers a great value to organizations such as Railways in terms of better decision making and minimization of unintended consequences. The challenge, however, comes from the very nature of TK as it cannot be formally communicated and easily converted to explicit knowledge. The paper highlights the significance of TK for Railways specifically in the context of systems integration. As a research methodology, a brief literature review and interviews at the Netherlands Railways were conducted to identify key features that play a role in TK sharing and its transfer to explicit knowledge. Consequently, a conceptual framework was developed that stresses focusing on four key features for adequate TK management these include context, TK focus, TK constructs, and TK embedding. Moreover, the paper states that the presented approach assists in managing the level of uncertainty related to TK in systems integration context. The underlying value of this paper is that it presents a testable framework for TK transfer, as it was developed by incorporating the findings from the interviews and literature. Future research stemming from this work is the testing of the framework in a case study and realization of the extent to which it supports a smooth systems integration.