The Knowledge in Knowledge Management
(KM)
© Fred Nickols 2000
Introduction
My aim in this brief paper is to clarify some terms commonly
used in discussions about knowledge management. These include
the following:
- Explicit knowledge
- Tacit knowledge
- Declarative knowledge
- Procedural knowledge
Along the way we will touch on the meaning of the root term, knowledge,
as well as a couple of related terms, specifically, implicit knowledge
and strategic knowledge.
You might well ask, "Why bother?" After all, doesn’t
everyone know what these terms mean? Don’t we all agree on
what they mean? The answer, of course, is "No." There
are different meanings at play. We will examine some of these
and attempt to reconcile and integrate them.
Again, you might ask, "Why bother?" After all, what
difference does it make? Well, if claims are being made that knowledge
can be managed and if the term knowledge management is to have
any credence, we must be clear about what we mean by the knowledge
in knowledge management. For this reason, once the basic terms
have been defined and related to one another, we will examine
some of their implications for practice.
Knowledge
In general, we seem to mean three things by our use of the word
"knowledge." First, we use it to refer to a state of
knowing, by which we also mean to be acquainted or familiar with,
to be aware of, to recognize or apprehend facts, methods, principles,
techniques and so on. This common usage corresponds to what is
often referred to as "know about." Second, we use the
word "knowledge" to refer to what Peter Senge calls
"the capacity for action," an understanding or grasp
of facts, methods, principles and techniques sufficient to apply
them in the course of making things happen. This corresponds to
"know how." Third, we use the term "knowledge"
to refer to codified, captured and accumulated facts, methods,
principles, techniques and so on. When we use the term this way,
we are referring to a body of knowledge that has been articulated
and captured in the form of books, papers, formulas, procedure
manuals, computer code and so on.
In Working Knowledge, Tom Davenport and Laurence Prusak (1998)
draw distinctions among data, information and knowledge. Data
and information fit within the third category above, that is,
the notion of a body of knowledge that exists apart from people.
Their view of knowledge is that it is "broader, deeper, and
richer than data or information." They offer this "working
definition" of knowledge:
"Knowledge is a fluid mix of framed experience, values,
contextual information, and expert insight that provides a framework
for evaluating and incorporating new experiences and information.
It originates and is applied in the minds of knowers. In organizations,
it often becomes embedded not only in documents or repositories
but also in organizational routines, processes, practices, and
norms."(p.5)
Thus it would appear that although Messrs. Davenport and Prusak
distinguish among data, information and knowledge, their working
definition of knowledge incorporates information, accommodates
the notion that knowledge is a state of being and, at the same
time, accommodates the view that knowledge exists apart from the
knowers. It also accommodates the notion of knowledge as the capacity
for action.
From all this it does seem safe to conclude that there are two
basic kinds of knowledge: (1) the kind that is reflected in a
person’s internal state as well as in that same person’s
capacity for action and (2) the kind that has been articulated
and frequently recorded. This brings us to the concepts of explicit,
implicit and tacit knowledge.
Explicit, Implicit and Tacit Knowledge
The diagram shown in Figure 1 offers a useful way of teasing
out the distinctions between and among explicit, implicit and
tacit knowledge.
Figure 1 - Explicit, Implicit and Tacit Knowledge
Explicit Knowledge
Explicit knowledge, as the first word in the term implies, is
knowledge that has been articulated and, more often than not,
captured in the form of text, tables, diagrams, product specifications
and so on. In a well-known and frequently cited 1991 Harvard Business
Review article titled "The Knowledge Creating Company,"
Ikujiro Nonaka refers to explicit knowledge as "formal and
systematic" and offers product specifications, scientific
formulas and computer programs as examples. An example of explicit
knowledge with which we are all familiar is the formula for finding
the area of a rectangle (i.e., length times width). Other examples
of explicit knowledge include documented best practices, the formalized
standards by which an insurance claim is adjudicated and the official
expectations for performance set forth in written work objectives.
Tacit Knowledge
Tacit knowledge is knowledge that cannot be articulated. As Michael
Polanyi (1997), the chemist-turned-philosopher who coined the
term put it, "We know more than we can tell." Polanyi
used the example of being able to recognize a person’s face
but being only vaguely able to describe how that is done. This
is an instance of pattern recognition. What we recognize is the
whole or the gestalt and decomposing it into its constituent elements
so as to be able to articulate them fails to capture its essence.
Reading the reaction on a customer’s face or entering text
at a high rate of speed using a word processor offer other instances
of situations in which we are able to perform well but unable
to articulate exactly what we know or how we put it into practice.
In such cases, the knowing is in the doing, a point to which we
will return shortly.
Implicit Knowledge
Knowledge that can be articulated but hasn’t is implicit
knowledge. Its existence is implied by or inferred from observable
behavior or performance. This is the kind of knowledge that can
often be teased out of a competent performer by a task analyst,
knowledge engineer or other person skilled in identifying the
kind of knowledge that can be articulated but hasn’t. In
analyzing the task in which underwriters at an insurance company
processed applications, for instance, it quickly became clear
that the range of outcomes for the underwriters’ work took
three basic forms: (1) they could approve the policy application,
(2) they could deny it or (3) they could counter offer. Yet, not
one of the underwriters articulated these as boundaries on their
work at the outset of the analysis. Once these outcomes were identified,
it was a comparatively simple matter to identify the criteria
used to determine the response to a given application. In so doing,
implicit knowledge became explicit knowledge.
Declarative, Procedural and Strategic
Knowledge
The explicit, implicit, tacit categories of knowledge are not
the only ones in use. Cognitive psychologists sort knowledge into
two categories: declarative and procedural. Some add strategic
as a third category. As before, we will use a diagram to aid in
sorting out matters (see Figure 2).
Figure 2 - Declarative & Procedural Knowledge (Describing
vs Doing)
Declarative Knowledge
Declarative knowledge has much in common with explicit knowledge
in that declarative knowledge consists of descriptions of facts
and things or of methods and procedures. The person most closely
associated with the distinction between declarative and procedural
knowledge is John Anderson of Carnegie-Mellon University. He has
been writing about these two notions for almost 25 years (Anderson,
1976; 1993; 1995). Being able to state the cut off date for accepting
applications is an example of declarative knowledge. It is also
an instance of explicit knowledge. For most practical purposes,
declarative knowledge and explicit knowledge may be treated as
synonyms. This is because all declarative knowledge is explicit
knowledge, that is, it is knowledge that can be and has been articulated.
Procedural Knowledge
This is an area where important differences of opinion exist.
One view of procedural knowledge is that it is knowledge that
manifests itself in the doing of something. As such it is reflected
in motor or manual skills and in cognitive or mental skills. We
think, we reason, we decide, we dance, we play the piano, we ride
bicycles, we read customers’ faces and moods (and our bosses’
as well), yet we cannot reduce to mere words that which we obviously
know or know how to do. Attempts to do so are often recognized
as little more than after-the-fact rationalizations. This knowing-is-in-the-doing
view of procedural knowledge is basically the view of John Anderson,
the Carnegie-Mellon professor mentioned earlier.
Another view of procedural knowledge is that it is knowledge
about how to do something. This view of procedural knowledge accepts
a description of the steps of a task or procedure as procedural
knowledge. The obvious shortcoming of this view is that it is
no different from declarative knowledge except that tasks or methods
are being described instead of facts or things.
Pending the resolution of this disparity, we are left to resolve
this for ourselves. On my part, I have chosen to acknowledge that
some people refer to descriptions of tasks, methods and procedures
as declarative knowledge and others refer to them as procedural
knowledge. For my own purposes, however, I choose to classify
all descriptions of knowledge as declarative and reserve procedural
for application to situations in which the knowing may be said
to be in the doing. Indeed, as the diagram in Figure 2 shows,
declarative knowledge ties to "describing" and procedural
knowledge ties to "doing." Thus, for my purposes, I
am able to comfortably view all procedural knowledge as tacit
just as all declarative knowledge is explicit.
Some reading this will immediately say, "Whoa there. If
all procedural knowledge is tacit, that means we can’t articulate
it. In turn, that means we can’t make it explicit, that is,
we can’t articulate and capture it in the form of books,
tables, diagrams and so on." That is exactly what I mean.
When we describe a task, step by step, or when we draw a flowchart
representing a process, these are representations. Describing
what we do or how we do it yields declarative knowledge. A description
of an act is not the act just as the map is not the territory.
Strategic Knowledge
Strategic knowledge is a term used by some to refer to what might
be termed know-when and know-why. Although it seems reasonable
to conceive of these as aspects of doing, it is difficult to envision
them as being separate from that doing. In other words, we can
separate out strategic knowledge only in the describing, not the
doing. Consequently, strategic knowledge is probably best thought
of as a subset of declarative knowledge instead of its own category.
For this reason, strategic knowledge does not appear in any of
the diagrams in this paper.
Integration
Figure 3 integrates the diagrams from Figures 1 and 2 and illustrates
the "fit" between and among explicit, implicit, tacit,
declarative and procedural knowledge. These relationships are
reasonably clear and, with two exceptions, warrant no further
discussion.
Figure 3 - A Framework for Thinking About the Knowledge in Knowledge
Management
The arrow connecting declarative and procedural indicates that
we often develop procedural knowledge or the ability to do something
as a result of starting with declarative knowledge. In other words,
we often "know about" before we "know how."
The arrows connecting explicit with declarative and tacit with
procedural are meant to indicate the strong relationships that
exist between these terms.
On to More Practical Matters
So what? Why are these concepts important? What are we to do
with them? How can we put them to practical use? A few thoughts
follow.
First off, it is important to recognize that the acquisition
of declarative and procedural knowledge occurs in very different
ways. Second, although tacit knowledge cannot be reduced entirely
to words, it is quite possible to acquire tacit knowledge through
means other than verbal descriptions. Third, if "knowledge
management" is to have any meaning and any credence at all,
we must say what we mean by knowledge – in all its variations
and permutations – and we must do so in ways that are as
free of conflict and overlap as we can make them. Otherwise, we
run the distinct risk of appearing to not know what we are talking
about.
On my part, I will focus on three aspects of knowledge capture,
sharing and transfer:
- The process of capturing explicit knowledge, that is, of making
implicit knowledge explicit.
- The development of procedural knowledge (in the sense that
the knowing is in the doing).
- The transfer of tacit knowledge from one person to another
without resorting to verbalization.
In all three cases, we will be talking about the systematic
or facilitated acquisition of knowledge, not simply learning
from experience.
Making Implicit Knowledge Explicit
This is a process of articulation, of making implicit knowledge
explicit. Sometimes we are able to do this on our own and sometimes
it requires the assistance of someone like a performance analyst
or a knowledge engineer. When a performance analyst documents
the work of insurance claims examiners in the form of adjudication
algorithms, those algorithms represent implicit knowledge that
has been made explicit.
Developing Procedural Knowledge
We are talking here of skill development, specifically, the acquisition
of explicit, declarative knowledge as the basis for skill development.
Often this works as follows:
We are presented with a description of a way to perform a task.
We practice it, perhaps haltingly at first but our proficiency
improves with continued practice and it benefits from feedback.
Finally, we reach the point at which our ability to perform the
task is automatic, we no longer have to think about it.
Over time, we might even forget the original task descriptions
that enabled our early attempts to perform the task.
Transferring Tacit Knowledge
The key here is to remember that tacit knowledge cannot be articulated
but it can be communicated or transferred. Remember Polanyi’s
example of being able to pick a face out of a crowd? Although
we might not be able to adequately articulate how we do that,
or even to describe facial characteristics in such a way that
someone unfamiliar with the face in question could pick it out
of similar looking faces, we can develop the ability to recognize
that face by presenting pictures and developing the ability to
recognize that face from several different angles.
Conclusion
Knowledge management seeks to manage knowledge. Knowledge itself
is a very slippery concept with many different variations and
definitions. The nature of knowledge and what it means to know
something are epistemological questions that have perplexed philosophers
for centuries and no resolution looms on the horizon. Are we therefore
to throw up our hands and turn away? Or do we simply acknowledge
that we are in an ambiguous area and do the best we can? We must
each make these choices in as informed a way as we can manage.
There are no unequivocally correct answers, only theories and
opinions. In the last analysis, we must decide for ourselves.
Consequently, we owe it to ourselves to do two things:
Become as knowledgeable as we can about the choices and issues
facing us, including the nature of knowledge and knowing and what
it means when we use terms like "knowledge management."
Muster up as much clear thinking as we can because shoddy, muddy
thinking will do us no good at all, whether in relation to knowledge
management or any other area of endeavor.
This article represents an effort on my part to share some of
what I think I know about knowledge, knowing, different categories
of knowledge and how they relate to one another. I wrote it because
I believe it is important for an aspiring area of professional
practice such as knowledge management to develop a professional
language that is as precise and stable as we can make. If we fail
to do this, we are faced with the prospect of conversations dominated
not by substantive issues but by repeated requests for definitions
of the terms being used. If knowledge management is to become
an area of professional practice, there must some traces of a
standard language and I hope this article is a step in that direction.
In closing, and to turn what I’ve said on itself, this article
is itself explicit and declarative in nature. Some readers might
conclude that I possess some implicit knowledge and that would
be consistent with what I’ve written. There is, however,
not one whit of tacit knowledge contained in this paper; there
can’t be because tacit knowledge can’t be articulated.
Nor is there any procedural knowledge in this article, unless
you are of the mind that descriptions of methods or procedures
count as procedural knowledge. I don’t but you might. Nor
is there any strategic knowledge in this paper; indeed, I take
that construct with a large grain of salt. But, then, who’s
to say? You might know better than I.
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