Transferring Expert Knowledge: Interpersonal Knowledge Exchange between Extreme Knowledge Workers

Abstract

This paper reports on a qualitative case study that investigated how consultants source, exchange and deliver specific knowledge within a medium-sized Australian consulting firm to solve client problems in context. This detailed examination of consultants as extreme knowledge workers resulted in the proposal of an eight-stage model of interpersonal knowledge exchange. Utilising the concept of "payload knowledge" (a concept that emerged from the research data as comprising that, specific distillation of knowledge, both tacit and explicit, required to resolve an applied problem in context), respondents described how the interpersonal knowledge exchange process allows them to decontextualise their knowledge and pass it to a requesting consultant, who is able to skilfully recontextualise the content close to its original full meaning. This negotiation process relies on the community's shared language, mental models, social etiquette and cultural norms to compress and funnel the meaning of the payload knowledge to a form that can be transferred meaningfully to a requesting consultant for application to meet the specific need of the client. The process is shown to be predicable in terms of passing through eight identifiable stages, yet unpredictable in terms of knowing how each community interaction will develop into payload knowledge. Within this process, the sourcing, handover, distillation and implementation of payload knowledge are seen as an artistic endeavour, characterised by social community based exchanges that 'hop' the consultants toward their specific contextual need.