Towards tacit knowledge sharing over social web tools

Abstract

Purpose -Researchers debate whether tacit knowledge sharing through information technology (IT) is actually possible. However, with the advent of social web tools, it has been argued that most shortcomings of tacit knowledge sharing are likely to disappear. The purpose of this paper is two-fold: first, to demonstrate the existing debates in the literature regarding tacit knowledge sharing using IT; and second, to identify key research gaps that lay the foundations for future research into tacit knowledge sharing using the social web.Design/methodology/approach -This paper reviews current literature on IT-mediated tacit knowledge sharing and opens a discussion on tacit knowledge sharing through the use of the social web.Findings -First, the existing schools of thought in regards to IT ability for tacit knowledge sharing are introduced. Next, difficulties of sharing tacit knowledge through the use of IT are discussed. Then, potentials and pitfalls of social web tools are presented. Finally, the paper concludes that whilst there are significant theoretical arguments supporting the notion that the social web facilitates tacit knowledge sharing there is a lack of empirical evidence to support these arguments and further work is required.Research limitations/implications -The limitations of the review include: covering only papers that were published in English, issues of access to full texts of some resources, and the possibility of missing some resources due to search strings used or limited coverage of databases searched.Originality/value -The paper contributes to the fast growing literature on the intersection of KM and IT particularly by focusing on tacit knowledge sharing in social media space. The paper highlights the need for further studies in this area by discussing the current situation in the literature and disclosing the emerging questions and gaps for future studies.

Tacit knowledge spillover and sustainability in destination development

“…Knowledge transfer has been recognized as one of the most critical knowledge management topics in the field (Avdimiotis, 2012;Baggio & Cooper, 2010;Borges, Eusébio & Carvalho, 2012;Buckley & Ollenburg, 2013;Dutton & Ells, 2007;Johnson & Lyons, 2011;Panahi, Watson & Partridge, 2013;Shaw & Williams, 2009a;Weidenfeld, Williams & Butler, 2010a). However, only a very small number of studies examined how knowledge transfer occurs in tourism destinations because of its intangible, often covert, and sometimes questionable legality nature (Henry & Pinch, 2000;Singh & Hu, 2008;Weidenfeld et al, 2010a).…”

Knowledge and Discourse Matters

“…The importance of trust in knowledge sharing (e.g., Bontis, 2002;Yoo and Torrey, 2002;Earl, 2001;Alguezaui and Filieri, 2010;Bock, Zmud, Kim and Lee, 2005;Leonard, 2007;Lin and Huang, 2010;Panahi, Watson and Partridge, 2013;Rechberg and Syed, 2013) and trust's status as the essence of operational functioning (e.g., Clifton, 2012) This leads to the speculation that knowledge sharing is contingent to trust, and that trust works relationally with the other identified thematic categories of knowledge sharingidentity, risk and context.…”

“…Earl (2001) invokes a culture of mutual support as critical to KS while others more explicitly emphasise a culture based on trust (e.g., Alguezaui and Filieri, 2010;Panahi, Watson and Partridge, 2013;Leonard, 2007;Lin and Huang, 2010;Bock et al, 2005). In their literature review and case study examining the effects of culture in KM practices in general, Yoo and Torrey (2002) claim that KS is concerned with trust, integrity, and status.…”

“…Panahi, Watson and Partridge (2013), for instance, emphasise the role of Web 2.0 and social media and their affordances for sharing tacit knowledge. But this implicates something of dichotomy.…”

The rhetoric of “knowledge hoarding”: a research-based critique

“…Such systems have often disappointed in practice for various reasons (e.g. Newell, 1999;Butler and Murphy, 2007) including difficulties associated with objectification of complex tacit knowledge into useful explicit forms (Panahi et al, 2013). Indeed, the authors of this paper have previously reported on how the managements at the five organizations studied here had made KMDBSs available to their workforces but that engagement with them was limited: notably, (i) IT service professionals prioritized their core responsibility to resolve service incidents over writing up knowledge to send into a database, and (ii) when engaged in investigating service incidents they tended to preference self-reliant problem-solving, drawing on colleagues and other knowledge resources as they considered most appropriate for their needs (Trusson et al, 2014).…”