CHAPTER 2: KNOWLEDGE AS A CONCEPT
2.4 Types of knowledge
• Knowledge: The cognitive state beyond awareness. Knowledge implies an active involvement and understanding and the ability to extend the level of understanding to meet life’s contingencies. Knowledge can also refer to the organised record of human experience given physical representation (books, reports).
Personal or tacit knowledge is the most basic form of knowledge. In most cases, it is detailed, complete and integrated knowledge. Wiig (1993: 147) indicates that the two other types of knowledge - public knowledge and shared knowledge - are derived from personal knowledge through long-term knowledge acquisition and codification.
2.4.2 Public knowledge
Public knowledge is generally available in the public domain. Polanyi (cited in Wiig, 1993: 148-150) describes public knowledge as articulated knowledge. Public
knowledge is shared broadly and taught routinely. Public knowledge is more general and abstract and less detailed than personal knowledge. It often requires extensive personal interpretation and personal knowledge before it can be used. At times it may be even incomplete and incongruent (e.g. newspaper stories).
2.4.3 Shared knowledge
Shared knowledge consists of knowledge of all types and is more detailed than public knowledge. It is knowledge that is shared among individuals or professionals in a specific domain or field. Shared knowledge is of great importance in business and in industry (Wiig, 1993: 150)
Shared knowledge often deals with how a particular type of work should be performed and is structured as the “know-how” of organisations. This knowledge form also includes knowledge that is embedded in technology, work practices and patents. According to Wiig (1993) shared knowledge and embedded knowledge constitute the major knowledge assets of any organisation.
2.4.4 Organisational knowledge
Organisational knowledge is a combination of shared and personal knowledge.
Organisational knowledge is embodied in two main forms – in products and
processes. One of the challenges facing those who lead knowledge initiatives in their
organisations is how to classify and codify knowledge. Theorists offer many classifications. For example Wiig (1993: 147) lists four main types:
• Factual knowledge – facts, data, observations
• Conceptual knowledge – concepts, intuition, insights
• Expectational knowledge – judgement, hypotheses, expectations
• Methodological knowledge – procedural knowledge
Factual knowledge is retrieved from memory and is knowledge of what people “know to be true”. Conceptual knowledge entails abstract models of the world for complex situations, built from observations and available facts and data. Expectational knowledge is accumulated experiences and associations.
Beliefs are formed by expectations and based on perspectives and confirmed data.
Methodological knowledge provides the meta-knowledge for how to think and reason within a particular context.
Savage (1999) used a much simpler language in his categorisations: know-why, know-what, know-who and care-why. Quinn, Anderson and Finkelstein (1996: 71-83) describe four types of knowledge that incorporate some of Savage’s categorisations:
• Cognitive knowledge (know-what) – the basic mastery of a discipline.
• Advanced skills (know-how) – beyond book learning into practical execution.
• Systems understanding (know-why) – “a deep knowledge of the web of cause and effect”, the ultimate expression of which is high intuition.
• Self-motivated creativity (care-why) – the knowledge and motivation to succeed.
Know-what is the basic sense of knowing and represents experience. Know-how is the knowledge of how to get things done. Some of this knowledge is made explicit in organisation procedures. In practice, much of this knowledge is “tacit” and in people’s heads. Know-why allows individuals to go about unstructured tasks in the most
appropriate ways. An example is of doing what is right for a customer rather than slavishly following procedures. Care-why is the knowledge and motivation to succeed (Savage, 1999).
There is, however, another dimension of knowledge that is more closely aligned in theory and practice. According to Taylor (1996) knowledge is formulated in the minds of individuals through experience. Knowledge is shared between groups and communities through shared experience and through the transfer of knowledge, both tacitly and explicitly.
Polanyi first made such a distinction in the 1960s, but it also forms one of the central structures of Nonaka and Takeuchi’s viewpoint and is widely quoted by various other practitioners. According to Nonaka and Takeuchi (1995: 5-9) explicit knowledge is formal “codified” knowledge conveyed from one person to another in systematic ways:
“Explicit knowledge can be expressed in words and numbers and can be easily communicated and shared in the form of hard data, scientific formulae, codified
procedures or universal principles.”
Such knowledge is seen as being only the tip of the iceberg. Nonaka and Takeuchi (1995: 8) describe tacit knowledge as something not easily visible and expressible.
Tacit knowledge is highly personal and hard to formalise. Subjective insights and intuitions fall into this category of knowledge.
“It is hard to formalise… difficult to communicate… deeply rooted in action and in an individual’s commitment to a specific context… captured in the term
‘know-how’. It consists of mental models, beliefs and perspectives so ingrained that we take them for granted, and therefore cannot easily articulate them” (Nonaka
& Takeuchi, 1995: 9). The transfer of tacit knowledge throughout an enterprise involves complex processes including the conversion from tacit to explicit knowledge, and vice versa (see 2.5).
The above-mentioned categories are helpful in allowing practitioners to categorise and position knowledge in organisations. However, at this stage of development, most practitioners appear to be working most consciously only along one dimension – wrestling with the practical problems of making the tacit knowledge explicit.
Consideration of the other types or forms of knowledge can provide important insights into unlocking knowledge potential.