How to utilize tacit knowledge in health organizations: An Iranian perspective

Abstract

Background: Studies show that 90% of an organization’s knowledge is embedded and synthesized in its employees’ minds. Thus, when employees leave the organization or their positions change, their valuable knowledge, skills, and experiences are lost, however, if used properly, tacit knowledge can be a source of innovation and competitive advantage in an organization. This study aimed at exploring the methods for sharing and utilizing tacit knowledge in health organizations. Methods: In this study, qualitative approach was adopted to explore ways of utilizing tacit knowledge in health organizations. Tacit knowledge experts, who had published at least one relevant article, conducted 17 individual and 2 group interviews. Purposeful sampling was used to select the participants. Methods for sharing and utilizing tacit knowledge were explored by holding in-depth semi-structured interviews. Data were analyzed using thematic analysis. Results: The results were summarized into 5 categories and 18 themes. The categories included ‘identification of different dimensions of organizational knowledge’, ‘prerequisites of tacit knowledge utilization’, ‘defining the process of tacit knowledge utilization’, ‘converting tacit to explicit knowledge’, and ‘converting tacit to tacit knowledge’. Participants believed that the process of converting tacit to explicit knowledge was a cyclical process that included the understanding the existing situation and detecting knowledge entry points, identifying knowledge items and harvesting them, assessment, codification, and standardization, entry into knowledge repository, and updating. Conclusion: Our results revealed that health organizations need the prerequisites of tacit knowledge sharing to acquire the capacity to utilize this kind of knowledge. Because the themes extracted in this study are rarely used in health organizations, the results will be helpful in guiding the development of knowledge utilization strategies and planning in these organizations.

Hiệu Quả Của Trực Quan Hóa Dữ Liệu Từ Thiết Bị Đeo Cảm Biến: Góc Nhìn Từ Nhân Viên Y Tế Qua Nghiên Cứu Định Tính

“…Các nghiên cứu đã chứng minh rằng bảng thông tin có thể cải thiện trực quan hóa dữ liệu và kết quả chữa bệnh về mặt thời gian [6]. Mặc dù các nghiên cứu trước đó cho thấy khi áp dụng và sử dụng bảng thông tin, các chuyên gia y tế cũng gặp không ít khó khăn [7], [8], nhưng nghiên cứu của chúng tôi cho thấy nhân viên y tế tham gia nghiên cứu không gặp phải các khó khăn tương tự. Điều này có thể do thiết kế của Insight Hub trực quan và thân thiện với người dùng.…”

Factors influencing the impact of knowledge sharing behavior in organizations across Sultanate of Oman

“…There must be an on-going efforts and support from top management. The authors (Jamshidi et al, 2018;Kanaan, Hamdi Gharibeh & (Moh'd Taisir) Masa'deh, 2013; de Almeida, Lesca & Canton, 2016) have emphasized that in order to aid knowledge sharing there must be support from top management.There has been a positive link found between support from management and knowledge sharing (Hejase, 2014). The encouragements from top management was found to be a very helpful factor for knowledge sharing of ERP users also their encouragements for culture of social interaction was found to be more effective extrinsic motivation (Bany Baker & M. Yusof, 2017).…”

Professional Relationship Between Physicians and Journalists in Bangladesh: Web-Based Cross-Sectional Study

“…It is well established that media can play an influential role in promoting health behavior [10][11][12][13][14], the use of health care services [12,[15][16][17][18], building people's trust in the health care system [19][20][21][22][23], and advancing health literacy [24,25] in a country. A cordial relationship between physicians and journalists is therefore crucial for improved health care delivery and the public health of a country.…”