Tacit Knowing

Sometimes it is hard to work out how we know something. Take riding a bike for example.
You can probably remember learning to ride and most likely the moment when you managed
to ride your two-wheeler without help. You say you know how to ride a bike, but just what
knowledge is involved? Trying to put it into words is very difficult if not impossible. This
is because it is tacit something that we know but cannot express.

There are many other skills that involve tacit knowing. Can you think of some examples?

In the area of business ethics, when we think about how to do the right thing much of what we
know to be right and wrong is based on tacit knowing. Often we just know when something
is right but when asked to explain it is difficult to explain why we know this. The problem
with such tacit knowing is that it is based on unconscious and untested ideas about right and
wrong that we use without thinking. This could therefore cause bias in our decision-making
because what we tacitly think is the right thing to may in fact not be. So it is important to
begin to understand about tacit knowing and how we can ensure that it does bias our thinking.
According to Johnson (2007), tacit knowing has four characteristics:
(1) It is personal tacit knowing is developed from personal experience and understandings.
So while some tacit knowledge may be shared with others (eg riding a bike), it is built up
within each persons own understandings.
(2) It is path dependent that is it depends on each persons individual experiences. Tacit
knowing accumulates through time. But more time is not necessarily better. Using tacit
knowledge depends on a persons intuition that the ability to understand something with
having to reason it through (to really have to think about it).
(3) It is context dependent that is it depends on the environment. For example, knowing
how to drive a car in snow and icy conditions is different from knowing how to drive in hot
and dry conditions.
(4) It is embedded that is, it is not easily shared. Expertise is something that is built up
over a long period of time and cannot easily be given to someone else without them too
spending time with an expert.
So, tacit knowing is characterised by personal KNOWLEDGE, EXPERIENCE,
INTUITION and EXPERTISE.
Doing the right thing then does not necessarily come naturally. It means observing and
imitating those who are expert decision-makers, practising to develop your own expertise,
getting lots of experience in different contexts and developing your intuitive capacities. This
take time and practice.
Over the next three seminars you will be able to begin examining your current tacit knowing
about business through reflection the fourth element in S-T-A-R. You will also be given
opportunities to start building your own business ethics tool-kit.

Copyright - D. Pick - 2010G.P.O. Box U1987, Perth, Western Australia 6845 d.pick@curtin.edu.au All rights
reserved. No reproduction without permission of the author.