In the late 1980s, knowledge management emerged as a field of inquiry concerned with the documentation of organizational knowledge, frequently thought of as a form of intellectual capital. The vendors of information-management technology quickly dominated this inquiry and shaped the ensuing dialogue. Though commentary by business leaders tried to focus the dialogue on the human aspects of knowledge—its discernment, development, and deployment for value creation—their voices were consistently drowned out by discussions of networks, connectivity, and so on.

Concerns that have been expressed about how to encourage the sharing of information, how to convert tacit knowledge into explicit forms for sharing, and how to employ available knowledge usefully and profitably were generally deferred because these human issues are not well understood by information processing specialists. For instance, information specialists are most perplexed by the challenge to get people to share their knowledge for the good of the enterprise and are convinced that incentives or rewards will be required.

To professionals educated in the social sciences, however, the real need for concern regarding this challenge is somewhat different. Psychologists, sociologists, and other professionals recognize that the greater challenges regarding organization members are the well-established facts that people don’t know (explicitly) what they know and don’t know, and that while people are generally eager to share what they know (if someone were only interested), people are not generally eager to take advantage of new knowledge. Because this reality has not been fully factored into the knowledge management equation, initiatives to harvest, create, and apply knowledge generally fail to reach their potential.

What would it mean to you if in your business’ tacit knowledge was easily converted into explicit knowledge that was eagerly utilized by organization members? We can make it happen.

Contact pepitoneworldwide today at information@pepitone.com and tell us how we can support your work.

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