TACIT KNOWLEDGE SHARING AND ORGANIZATIONAL COMPETITIVENESS IN KENYA

Abstract

According to Choi &lee 2003, tacit knowledge is what is rooted in the mind and can be transferred in form of learning by doing and learning by watching. It can be completely tacit, semiconscious, or unconscious knowledge held in people’s heads and bodies (Leonard & Sensiper, 1998) Tacit knowledge can be classified into two dimensions: technical and cognitive (Pathirage et al., 2007). Technical encompasses information and expertise in relation to “knowhow” while cognitive consists of mental models, beliefs, and values. Tacit knowing embodied in physical skills resides in the body’s muscles, nerves, and reflexes and is learned through practice. Tacit knowledge is also embodied in cognitive skills (Leonard & Sensiper, 1998). While explicit knowledge is easily exploitable, tacit knowledge is difficult to be extracted without the consent of the knowledge owner. Tacit knowledge is one of the strengths that an organization has that is more difficult to transfer or copy (Noteboom, 1993). In the resourcebased theory, Hisrich et al. (2008) further highlight that in order for organizations to create unique resources which are rare, valuable, and non-immitigable; it has to exploit their internal knowledge. Many organizations in Kenya make use of intelligent solutions and business analytics to find new insights into their business processes and performance. Such insights are extracted through creativity and innovative methods to generate and gather large amounts of information about their clients, service providers, competitors, processes, procedures practices, and measures to produce substantial value. This has created a need for finding a suitable approach to tacit Knowledge sharing. This paper critically analyzes the deterrents of tacit knowledge sharing on Organization competitiveness. The study will also establish an understanding of how organizations can more easily share knowledge that will increase its performance, driven by an understanding of leveraging tacit knowledge.