HJohansen (Publishable)

Tacit Knowledge Management in High
Reliability Organizations (HRO): An Action
Research Approach
Henry Johansen
Master’s Thesis
Master of Science in Information Security
30 ECTS
Department of Computer Science and Media Technology
Gjøvik University College, 2014

Avdeling for
informatikk og medieteknikk
Høgskolen i Gjøvik
Postboks 191
2802 Gjøvik
Department of Computer Science
and Media Technology
Gjøvik University College
Box 191
N-2802 Gjøvik
Norway

Tacit Knowledge Management in High Reliability Organizations (HRO): An Action Research Approach
Abstract
Information security is about protect information assets from loss of conﬁdential, integrity and
availability. The knowledge and skills of each individual can be both an asset and a protection
mechanism from an information security perspective. In particular tacit knowledge, is knowledge
that cannot be expressed in written or oral form, is often the most important asset to protect but
the most difﬁcult to protect, since it belongs to the individual and in many cases it must be
observed and experienced in order transfer between individuals.
In a knowledge society, lack of proper knowledge at the right time can have serious con-
sequences, especially in High Reliability Organizations. The aging workforce has much know-
ledge and especially tacit knowledge that is important to capture and transfer to new younger
forces before retiring. Retired knowledge in High Reliability Organizations, which has not been
captured and transferred, will make the affected systems and ultimately society vulnerable. Time
pressure and short-term economic focus makes this often given lower priority in many institu-
tions and companies today.
The main objective of this thesis was to examine how tacit knowledge are transferred today in
a particular HRO, describe the current State-of-the-Art in tacit knowledge management in High
Reliability Organizations and testing whether an Interactive Media platform can improve that
capturing and transferring of tacit knowledge in a particular HRO.
The hypothesis for this thesis was; tacit knowledge can be captured and transformed to ex-
plicit knowledge by recording of peoples work (e.g. screen capture recording) and present it on an
Interactive Media platform.
The result of this thesis has demonstrate by testing the hypothesis with action research in
a mainframe organization with highly skilled T-shaped employees. "How-To-Do" (Tacit) know-
ledge, can be captured, documented and transferred by using Interactive Media Platform accord-
ing to the hypothesis.
iii

Sammendrag
Informasjonssikkerhet handler om å beskytte informasjon fra tap av konﬁdensiell, integritet og
tilgjengelighet. Den kunnskapen og ferdigheter hver enkelt medarbeider besitter, kan være både
en ressurs og en beskyttelsesmekanisme ut ifra et informasjonssikkerhet perspektiv. Spesielt taus
kunnskap, som er kunnskap som ikke kan uttrykkes skriftlig eller muntlig, er ofte den viktig-
ste ressursen å beskytte, men også den vanskeligste å beskytte, siden det tilhører den enkelte
medarbeider og i mange tilfeller må det observeres og erfares for å overføre den mellom indi-
vider.
I et kunnskapssamfunn, kan mangel på riktig kunnskap til rett tid få alvorlige konsekvenser,
spesielt i Høypålitelige Organisasjoner. Den eldre arbeidsstyrken har mye kunnskap og spesielt
taus kunnskap som er viktig å fange opp og overføre til nye yngre krefter før de går av med pens-
jon. Pensjonert kunnskap i Høypålitelige Organisasjoner som ikke har blitt fanget og overført,
vil gjøre de berørte systemene og til slutt samfunnet sårbart. Tidspress og kortsiktig økonomisk
fokus fører ofte til at dette blir nedprioritert i mange institusjoner og selskaper i dag.
Hovedmålet med dette prosjektet har vært å undersøke hvordan taus kunnskap fanges og
overføres i en bestemt HRO i dag, beskrive dagens State-of-the-Art i taus kunnskapsledelse i
Høypålitelige Organisajsoner (HRO) og teste om en Interactive Media plattformen kan forbedre
fanging og overføring av taus kunnskap i en bestemt HRO.
Hypotesen for denne oppgaven har vært taus kunnskap kan fanges opp og omdannes til eks-
plisitt kunnskap ved øre opptak av folk som arbeider (f.eks skjermen opptak) og presentere det på en
Interaktiv Media plattform.
Resultatet av dette prosjeket har demonstrert ved å teste hypotesen med Action Research at
i en stormaskin organisasjon med erfarne ansatte med T-kompetanse kan "How-To-Do" (taus)
kunnskap, kan fanges opp, dokumenteres og overføres ved hjelp av Interaktiv Media Platform.
v

Acknowledgments
I would like to thank my supervisor, Professor Dr. Stewart Kowalski for all his support during this
thesis. He has provided excellent guidance and assistance in all of different phases in the project
and has been available whenever needed. In addition i would like to thank assistant professor
Ali Imran Shariq for the HIP framework used in this thesis.
I will also thank all of my colleagues that participated in the project, despite a busy work day.
Without their positive attitude, it would be difﬁcult to complete this research. In addition, special
thanks to my manager Sigurd Simonsen for motivation and support throughout my study, and
for made it possible for me to combine work and study.
Finally I would like to thank my family and friends for motivation and support throughout
my study, as well as my girlfriend Liss for her understanding, support and patience.
vii

Contents
Abstract . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . iii
Sammendrag . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . v
Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . vii
Contents . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ix
List of Figures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xi
List of Tables . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xiii
1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
1.1 Topic . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
1.2 Keywords . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
1.3 Problem description . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
1.4 Justification, motivation and benefits . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
1.5 Research questions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
1.6 Contributions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
1.7 Thesis outline . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
2 Related work . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
2.1 High Reliability Organizations (HRO) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
2.1.1 Weick and Sutcliffe’s five HRO principles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
2.2 Theory of Knowledge . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
2.2.1 Data, Information, Knowledge and Wisdom . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
2.2.2 Learning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
2.2.3 Tacit and Explicit Knowledge . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
2.2.4 T-shape skills . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
2.2.5 Davenport and Prusak . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
2.2.6 Nonaka and Takeuchi . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
2.2.7 Concept of Ba . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
2.2.8 Knowledge transfer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
2.3 Tacit Signal Approach . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
2.4 Hyper Interactive Intelligent Pedagogical Media Agent . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
3 Choice of methods . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
3.1 Methods for solving the research questions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
3.2 Research question 1 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
4 Results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
4.1 Description of the HRO . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
4.1.1 The research site . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
ix

4.1.2 Collaboration Tools . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
4.1.3 Corporate Management System (CMS) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
4.1.4 Selected CMS (ITIL R ) Processes where tacit knowledge is central . . . . . 30
4.1.5 Incident Management . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
4.1.6 Problem Management . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
4.1.7 Change Management . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
4.1.8 Knowledge Management . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
4.1.9 Information Security . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
4.1.10 Capacity Management . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
4.1.11 Continual Service Improvement (CSI) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
4.2 Qualitative face-to-face interview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
4.3 Questionnaire concerning Learning Process and Styles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
4.4 How is tacit knowledge transferred in the HRO today? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
4.4.1 Knowledge Sharing Arenas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
4.4.2 Barriers to kowledge sharing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
4.5 What is the State-of-the-Art in tacit knowledge management today? . . . . . . . . 44
4.5.1 State-of-the-Art in modeling tacit knowledge management . . . . . . . . . 44
4.5.2 State-of-the-Art in measuring tacit knowledge . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
4.5.3 State-of-the-Art in tools for managing tacit knowledge . . . . . . . . . . . 44
4.6 Can Interactive Media improve capturing and transferring of tacit knowledge in
the HRO? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
4.6.1 Establish the research environment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
4.6.2 Presentations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48
4.6.3 Evaluation of "Interactive Media Presentations" . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48
4.7 Summary of Results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52
5 Discussion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
6 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61
7 Future work . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63
7.1 Recommendations for further study . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63
Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
Appendix A . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71
Appendix B (Protected) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 133
x

List of Figures
1 Iillustration of mindful infrastructure for HRO according to Weick et al.[1]) . . . 7
2 Asynchronous vs Synchronous Learning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
3 T-shape skills . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
4 T-shape skills in relation to Business/situations/Value Chains . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
5 Nonaka’s SECI model of Knowledge Conversion (Source:[2]) . . . . . . . . . . . 15
6 Nonaka’s Spiral of Organizational Knowledge Creation (Source:[2]) . . . . . . . . 17
7 Three elements of the knowledge-creating process (Source:[3]) . . . . . . . . . . 17
8 Ba and Knowledge Conversion (Source:[4]) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
9 Tacit signal priciple in performance stress curve. Source:Figure 2 in [5] . . . . . . 20
10 The cyclical process of action research according to Susman and Evered[6] . . . . 25
11 ITIL Process diagram[7] . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
12 Nordic Operations Incident Management Process (Source:[8]) . . . . . . . . . . . 31
13 Nordic Operations Problem Management Process (Source:[8]) . . . . . . . . . . . 32
14 Nordic Operations Change Management Process (Source:[8]) . . . . . . . . . . . 32
15 Nordic Operations Knowledge Management Process [8] . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
16 Nordic Operations Information Security Management Process Flow (Source:[8]) . 34
17 Nordic Operations Capacity Management Process (Source:[8]) . . . . . . . . . . . 35
18 Nordic Operations 7 step Improvement Process (Source:[8]) . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
19 Nordic Operations 8 step Problem Solving Routine (Source:[8]) . . . . . . . . . . 36
20 Learning and Retention model in Mainframe . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
21 Technology Adoption Curve Comparison in Mainframe . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
22 Using of YouTube in Mainframe . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
23 Learning Style Mainframe (VAK Test adopted from [9] . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
24 Spiral Evolution of Knowledge Conversion and Self-transcending Process accord-
ing to Nonnaka & Konno [4] . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
25 Gender Distribution in Mainframe (Total and Evaluation Group) . . . . . . . . . . 49
26 Could do the same work without watching the presentations . . . . . . . . . . . . 50
27 Could used the presentations as an instructional video for similar work . . . . . . 50
28 Comparing of Synchronous and Asynchronous learning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50
29 Comparing of presentations with and without instructional speaking . . . . . . . 51
30 Attitude to screen recording own work . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
31 Camtasia vs HIP . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52
xi

List of Tables
1 Interactive Media Presentations Overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
xiii

1 Introduction
The purpose of this chapter is to give an introduction of the thesis, as well as justification and
motivation of its importance. The chapter also proposes research questions to guide the thesis.
The thesis scope, outline and summary of contributions are presented at the end of this chapter.
1.1 Topic
This project is about capture and transferring tacit knowledge between people and test whether
screen capture recording and video presentation on Interactive Media can improve current method
1.2 Keywords
Data, Information, Knowledge, Wisdom, Skills, Learning, Tacit Knowledge, Explicit Knowledge,
Knowledge Management, High Reliability Organizations (HRO), Action Research, e Learning,
Interactive Media, HIP
1.3 Problem description
A challenge many organization are facing today, but that is extra critical for High Reliability
Organizations (HRO) - when employees with a huge amount of tacit knowledge (many of then
are Single Point Of Competencies (SPOC) are retired (or leaving for for other reason). HRO’s
often operates important socio and/or business critical systems that are totally dependent on
having the right knowledge/skills at all times. In the worst case; critical infrastructure will be
unavailable for shorter or longer periods because of lack of competence. Many of those retiring
today has more than 40 years of work in the same organization. As will be more rare in the
future as there is a higher degree of turnover among the younger generation.
High Reliability Organizations (HRO) usually have a higher grade of special and critical ex-
pertise than other organizations. Therefore, knowledge is the cornerstone and key to success in
an HRO. These special competences often work together in teams to solve common challenges,
each specialist is an important and crucial part of the team to succeed.
Information security is about protect information assets from loss of confidential, integrity and
availability. The knowledge and skills of each individual can be both an asset and a protection
mechanism from an information security perspective. In particular tacit knowledge, is knowledge
that cannot be expressed in written or oral form, is often the most important asset to protect but
the most difficult to protect, since it belongs to the individual and in many cases it must be
observed and experienced in order transfer between individuals. Lack of proper knowledge will
affect the information security in an HRO.
1.4 Justification, motivation and benefits
Society has evolved to become a technological and knowledge society. Because of this develop-
ment, we are becoming more and more dependent on knowledge for society to function. The
1

technology and knowledge keep the patient in an intensive care unit of a hospital alive. There
is technology and knowledge that makes it possible to perform complex surgical procedures. Its
technology and knowledge that ensures we have power, telecommunications and data commu-
nication and financial systems, and other important social systems. To keep all this operative,
society depends on high reliability organizations. The more technologically dependent a society
becomes, the more knowledge needs. Lack of proper knowledge at the right time can have ser-
ious consequences, especially in high reliability organizations (HRO). The aging workforce has
much knowledge and especially tacit knowledge that is important to capture and transfer to new
young forces before retiring. Retired knowledge which has not been transferred captured and
will make the systems and ultimately society vulnerable. Time pressure and short-term economic
focus makes this is often given lower priority in today’s society. It is therefore important to find
an efficient way to do this.
By action research both theoretical knowledge from the theory and practical knowledge from
an HRO about current method of capture and transfer of tacit knowledge will. In special with
use of Interactive Media to do the knowledge exchange.
1.5 Research questions
The main objectives of this action research is about capture and transfer of tacit knowledge,
and how this is done today and how well suited an Interactive Media such as Hyper Interactive
Intelligent Pedagogical Media Agent Platform 1
This thesis will examine a part of a HRO and see how tacit knowledge is transferred today.
Research Question 1 is therefore:
• How is tacit knowledge transferred in the HRO today?
and we will find the state-of-the-art in tacit knowledge management. Research Question 2 is
therefore:
• What is the State-of-the-Art in tacit knowledge management today?
The hypothesis for this thesis is that tacit knowledge can be captured and transformed to explicit
knowledge with recording peoples work (e.g. screen capture recording) and present it via interactive
media. Moreover, with that method improve current method for capture and transferring of tacit
knowledge in HRO. The Research Question 3 is therefore:
• Can a Interactive Media platform improve that capturing and transferring in the HRO?
1.6 Contributions
The planned contribution this thesis is to find out if recording individuals work and present
it on an Interactive Media platform can improve current method for capture and transfer tacit
knowledge among employees of an HRO. In addition, find the current State-Of-The-Art in tacit
knowledge management
1HIP Demo https://secprj.dsv.su.se
2

1.7 Thesis outline
The scope of the thesis is tacit knowledge management for HRO in general, but has to limit this
to a part of a HRO and a limited number test persons (less than 10), because the project and the
workload will be too large by covering several HRO.
3

2 Related work
In this chapter, we will look at literature and taxonomy related to this thesis. Google Scholar
have been used for literature searching, but the relevant literature are downloaded mainly from
approved databases like IEEE, ACM, SpringerLink, Emerald, ScienceDirect, JSTOR and EJKM.
2.1 High Reliability Organizations (HRO)
A HRO are an organization that conduct relatively error-free operations over a long period. An
organization that expect error conditions (incidents) happen within the organizations and its
sub-systems, and work very hard to avoid incidents while preparing for the worst case scenario
so that they can reduce the impact of an incident. An HRO organization must have an attentive
management that supports people evolving to become more of awake and alert. Becoming more
of awake is to see its flaws, details like shadows of new consequences, unexpected impact point,
unforeseen vulnerabilities. It is also important to be wary and not uncritically accept the way
things have been done before. Employees must be aware of the cost of one thoughtless action in
a complex and unpredictable world. And they must have deep knowledge of their work.[10]
"HROs struggle with decisions in a context of nearly full knowledge of the technical aspects of
operations in the face of recognized great hazard ... The people in these organizations know almost
everything technical about what they are doing-and fear being lulled into supposing they have
prepared for every contingency ... This drive for technical predictability has resulted in relatively
stable technical processes that have become quite well understood within each HRO."
— Todd R. LaPorte and Paule M. Consolini [11]
2.1.1 Weick and Sutcliffe’s five HRO principles
[12] and [1]
The three first principles is categorized as: Anticipation
HRO Principle 1: Preoccupation with Failure
Consider mistakes as key symptoms. Focus on learning from mistakes and near misses. Following
small bugs with good reporting practices, and follow up with analysis and dissemination of
findings. This applies to incident report and handling with subsequent exchange of knowledge
and adoption of improved practices. HROs are concerned if there are errors (i.e. no errors are
report) because this indicates complacency and a false solidified security.
HRO Principle 2: Reluctance to Simplify
HROs takes a conscious effort to create a more complete and nuanced picture of what they look
for to handle the uncertain and unexpected. Context, differentiation and constant interaction
provides a richer, diverse picture of the potential relationships. HROs know the world they face
5

is complex, unstable and unpredictable. Therefore, efforts are ongoing to increase understanding
and learning, credibility, trust and interpersonal relationships. HROs are hesitant to accept the
incident as a known problem. They accept it only if a thorough analysis can conﬁrm it.
HRO Principle 3: Sencitive to Operations
HROs have contact with the front line (operations). Have a high degree of awareness and trans-
parency regarding symptoms and latent errors. There are frequent operations meetings, direct
contact/interaction, dissemination of operational performance metrics. Less difference between
operational, tactical and strategically level the shift towards operational level. HROs are typical
less strategic and more situational than is the case for other organizations.
"Reliable outcomes require the capabilities to sense the unexpected in a stable manner and yet deal
with the unexpected in a variable manner."
— Karl E. Weick and Kathleen M. Sutcliffe[12]
The two last principles is categorizes as: Containment
HRO Principle 4: Commitment to Resilience
The system is so robust that it manages to preserve mission critical services when the unexpected
occurs. In other words, avoid the mistake is paralyzing. HROs develop capabilities and allocates
resources that allow them to continue operating after a major accident because of intelligent
reactions and improvisation. Based on the knowledge, experience, combination, training, simu-
lation of ’worst case’ scenarios. This includes the ability to detect, contain and bounce back from
the inevitable accidents that are part of an indeterminate world.
HRO Principle 5: Deference to Expertise
HROs cultivates diversity. It helps to notice more in complex environments. Moreover, more
importantly, it helps them to do more with the complexities they face. The HROs expertise is not
necessary matching the command line, because the command line hierarchies are vulnerable to
error. HROs pushes decision making from the power / politics of expertise. Decisions made on
the front line. Authority goes to the most competent people for the problem, regardless of rank
and position level. Hybridization between hierarchy and specializing.
Mindfulness
When people in HROs focus on the principles above, these concerns cover a broader range of
unexpected events and the concerns tied together by their capability - labeled mindfulness - to
induce a rich awareness of discriminatory detail and capacity for action. Illustrated in Figure 1
6

Figure 1: Iillustration of mindful infrastructure for HRO according to Weick et al.[1])
The mindfulness in HRO is distinctive because that is closely relate to the repertoire of action
capabilities. The key to effectiveness in HROs is the close relationship between mindfulness and
the action repertoire. The best HROs have a cognitive infrastructure that enables simultaneous
adaptive learning and reliable performance. Moreover, the HROs strive for reliability through
processes of cognition as much as process of production. And the cognitive processes that make
sense of a activity is stable even there is variation in activity.[1]
"When fewer cognitive processes are activated less often, the resulting state is one of mindlessness
characterized by reliance on past categories, acting on "automatic pilot," and ﬁxation on a single
perspective without awareness that things could be otherwise."
— Weick et al. [1]
Click-Whirr
Social psychologist Robert B. Cialdini writes [13] about automatic patterns of behavior both in
animals and humans that are triggered by a single characteristic in the total amount of informa-
tion. Cialdini call these automatic reaction patterns for a Click-Whirr.
"Civilization advances by extending the number of important operations which we can perform
without thinking of them"
— Alfred North Whitehead [13]
According to Armstrong & Mahmud: "Tacit knowledge has a tendency of becoming unconscious
and procedural where a employee following a particular sequence of delivery regardless of the chan-
ging work situations" [14]
An observation made by Weick et. al in [1] and earlier by Turner [15] was that when a HRO
adopted orderly procedures to reduce error often spread errors, and orderly hierarchy especially
near the top, can amplify errors.
7

2.2 Theory of Knowledge
In this section, we will provide an overview about the theory of knowledge and the subjects
related to knowledge capture, knowledge creation and knowledge sharing.
First let’s have a look on the definition about "Data, Information, Knowledge and Wisdom"
2.2.1 Data, Information, Knowledge and Wisdom
Definition (made up of several different sources found online)
• Data Letters and numbers are meaningless.
• Information Data set in a context that my make sense for some. In other words, situational
and person depending on which can be called information.Information is thus ’interpreted
data’.
• Knowledge Information combined with experience, context, interpretation and reflection.
• Wisdom Knowledge connected to learning, insight and judgment. And is located in the hu-
man organism’s subjective mental process
"Information is a flow of messages, while knowledge is created and organized by the very flow of
information, anchored on the commitment and beliefs of its holders. This understanding emphasize
an essential aspect of knowledge that relates to human action"
— I. Nonaka [2]
Professor on BI Norwegian Business School Petter Gottschalks writes the following in his present-
ation [16]
• Knowledge is information combined with experience, context, interpretation and reflection.
Knowledge is justified belief, knowledge occurs between the ears of the human brain.
• Competence=Knowledge is about knowing+Skills is about to do+Skills is all about personal
characteristics.
• Knowledge management is a method that simplifies the process of sharing, distributing,
creating, capturing and understand an organization’s knowledge. Knowledge management
involves an integrated approach to the identification, management and dissemination of all
information and knowledge assets in business.
According to Bollinger and Smith knowledge is not tangible, but measurable, but employee
"know-how" and organizational knowledge which is intangible and measurable. Organizational
knowledge is knowledge people know about customers, products, processes, mistakes and suc-
cesses. Employee’s "know-how" is crucial strategic resources. Moreover, Bollinger and Smith ar-
gue that collective and cumulative organizational knowledge embodied in wisdom rather than
the knowledge of mobile individuals that is a strategic asset. And define knowledge management
as: "..the identification and communication of explicit and tacit knowledge residing within processes,
people, products, and services" [17]
8

2.2.2 Learning
According to Kolb[18]; to understand knowledge we must understand the nature of learning and
vice versa. And the Kolb define learning as:"Learning is the process whereby knowledge is created
through the transformation of experience".
"Learning is the modification of behavior by experience; and formal education is a conscious effort
to modify behavior in chosen ways by appropriately structuring experience"
— Raplh W. Gerard [19]
Fisher and White argue that the effect of downsizing on organizational learning can be viewed
as a nonlinear function of learning network size, and the potential damage of the organizations
learning capacity is greater than head-count rations imply. In addition define organizational
learning based on cognitive and social network view as learning as: "Organizational learning
i a reflective process, played out by members at all levels of the organization, that involves the
collection of information from both the external and internal environments. This information is
filtered through a collective sense-making process, which results in shared interpretations that can
be used to instigate actions resulting in enduring changes to the organization’s behavior and theories-
in-use"[20]
Learning Style
The concept "Learning Style" introduced by R.Dunn in 1960, and later been developed by several
researches that support that concept. Kolbs [18] is one of those. By determine the learner’s
learning style the learning environment can be design according to that. The knowledge about
learners learning style can be used in the evaluation of the learning environment [21]. Usually
people have a main preferred learning style, but this will be part of a blend of all three (Visual,
Auditory and Kinesthetic). Some have a very strong preference and other have a more even
mixture of two or less commonly, three styles. There is no right or wrong learning style. [9]
Kolb Learning Style
Kolb’s [18] cyclical model of learning, consisting of four stages, which can begin at any stage,
but must follow each other in the sequence.
1. Concrete Experience (or "DO")
2. Reflective Observation (or "OBSERVE")
3. Abstract Conceptualization (or "THINK")
4. Active Experimentation (or "PLAN")
VAK Learning Style
Victoria Chislett’s has develop a VAK Learning Style Questionnaire [9] which has been used in
this Thesis. Chislett emphasize that this test is not a scientifically validated testing instrument
but it is a free assessment tool designed to give a broad indication of preferred learning style(s).
• Visual - seeing and reading
• Auditory - listening and speaking
9

• Kinesthetic - touching and doing
Asynchronous vs Synchronous Learning
According to Hrastinski who compared asynchronous and synchronous e-learning in his PhD
thesis, use asynchronous e-learning when reﬂecting on complex issue, because the learner have
more time to reﬂecting. [22]
Asynchronnous e-learning e-mail, media (interactive media). Synchronnous e-learning media
such videoconferencing and chat where the teacher are in synchronous session with the e-learner
participants.
Figure 2: Asynchronous vs Synchronous Learning
According to Da˘g and Geçer [21] online learning is all learning who use the internet to access
learning material, interacts with the content, instructor and other learners.
10

2.2.3 Tacit and Explicit Knowledge
In the field of knowledge management, the concept of tacit knowledge refers to an individual
knowledge that is difficult to communicate to others via words and symbols. Transferring tacit
knowledge without language - working with mentor and learn not through language but by
observation, imitation, and practice. It doesn’t mean language is unnecessary in these case, but
the language is not sufficient for obtaining and transferring tacit knowledge.
Distinction between tacit and explicit knowledge is often expressed in terms of knowing-how
or embodied knowledge and knowing-that or theoretical knowledge
"We can know more that we can tell"
— Michael Polanyi [23]
Most people treat tacit knowledge as personal, private knowledge. It is therefore most appro-
priate to be processed at the individual level [24],
In a literature study, Stephen Gourlay conclude that the term "Tacit Knowledge" is being spent
on six different ways. (Listed below:)[24]
1. "Someone can do something, but apparently cannot give an account"
2. "Someone claims they feel something of which they cannot give an account, but it is not clear if
subsequent events validate the claim"
3. "Someone can do something, but not give an account at that moment, but can, if pressed, recall
the explicit knowledge that was used tacitly when acting"
4. "Knowledge existing prior to the situation in which it is effective, and due to innate (biological)
characteristics"
5. "Knowledge existing prior to the situation in which it is effective,and due to cultural factors"
6. "Situations where A knows something that B does not, but where it could be argued A and B
share the same practice"
Type of Tacit Knowledge
Already from the born of the concept tacit Knowledge [23], it has been identified different types
of tacit knowledge. Polanyi identified two types of tacit knowledge: Intuitive knowledge which
is knowledge directly related to a particular task and worldview which is "strong personal feel-
ings or commitments" and is knowledge applied to any tasks. "Tacit knowledge is made up of best
practices, experience, wisdom and unrecoverable intellectual property that lives within individuals
and teams. Since tacit knowledge exists within minds, it cannot be reduced to the digital domain as
a material asset, or be manipulated directly. However, it expresses in the social realm as the response
ability of individuals (productivity, innovation and initiative), and teamwork (communication, co-
ordination and collaboration)." [25]
2.2.4 T-shape skills
T-shape skills means an individual that has both very dept knowledge (the stem of the T) in a
specific area/discipline and have a broad (the cross of the T) knowledge that span through many
11

difference situation/systems.[26] as illustrated in ﬁgure 3. All individuals have unique skills,
which make each other as individuals. Thus, have each individual unique T-shapes for each
discipline. And the different Business/Situations/Value Chains need different skills in different
discipline in order to operate, as illustrated in ﬁgure 4
Figure 3: T-shape skills
Figure 4: T-shape skills in relation to Business/situations/Value Chains
12

2.2.5 Davenport and Prusak
In [27] Davenport1
and Prusak2
define knowledge as "a fluid mix of framed experience, values,
contextual information, and expertise to provide a framework for evaluating and incorporating
new experiences and information. Occurs and applied in the minds of the judgment. This is often
incorporated in organizational routines, processes, practices and norms"
Knowledge marked
Davenport and Pursak believe that organizations act as a knowledge market, with knowledge
buyers and knowledge sellers. Where people with a problem are seeking in the knowledge market
for people with a reputation for having substantial knowledge about a process or subject. The
knowledge brokers are people who create connections between people who need knowledge and
those who have it
The knowledge marked’s pricing mechanism operates with three types of payments: recipro-
city, reputation and altruism:
Reciprocity Individuals who share knowledge with expect of favor when seeking or buys know-
ledge.
Reputation Individuals, who have a reputation for sharing, gain a reputation for being know-
ledgeable, and willing to share knowledge.
Altruism Individuals who enjoy share knowledge and help others.
Knowledge generation are according to Davenport and Prusak activities to increase the stock
of organizational knowledge. By establishing units that conduct research and development, re-
sources been dedicated to the production of knowledge. When individuals with different special-
izations and perspective are working together on a problem or project, knowledge generation
through fusion can occur. Knowledge are also generated in self-organizing networks where indi-
viduals have common interests and challenges and are motivated to share knowledge generate
knowledge.
Knowledge codification
. Davenport and Prusak’s four principles that should guide the codification of organizational
knowledge.
1. "Managers must decide what business goals the codified knowledge will serve."
2. "Managers must be able to identify knowledge existing in various forms appropriate to reaching
these goals."
3. "Knowledge managers must evaluate knowledge for usefulness and appropriateness for codifica-
tion."
4. "Codifiers must identify an appropriate medium for codification and distribution."
In general Codification of tacit knowledge is limited to finding someone with knowledge,
pointing applicant on them and get them to interact.
1About Tom H. Davenport http://www.tomdavenport.com/about
2About Laurence Prusak http://www.laurenceprusak.com
13

Knowledge Transfer
. When organizations behave as knowledge markets, the knowledge exchange take place at the
market places. Typical places are at the coffee machines, conferences and open forums. But also
people sitting in open plan offices. Much of the knowledge exchange takes place through personal
conversations. Davenport and Prusak identifies seven barriers for knowledge transfer:
1. "Lack of confidence"
2. "Different cultures, vocabularies, and frames of reference"
3. "Lack of time and meeting places"
4. "Status and rewards going to knowledge holders"
5. "Lack of absorptive capacity in recipients"
6. "Believe that knowledge is reserved for special groups, "not-invented-here" syndrome"
7. "Intolerance for mistakes or need for help."
2.2.6 Nonaka and Takeuchi
The two Japanese knowledge scientists Ikujiro Nonaka 3
and Hirotaka Takeuchi 4
says that organ-
izations create new knowledge through social interaction between tacit knowledge and explicit
knowledge.[28] Nonaka and Takeuchi explains why Japanese companies are so good at innov-
ation by referring to this theories of dynamic knowledge creation in organizations. Nonaka and
Takeuchi criticizes the Western social sciences (including economics, management and organiz-
ation theory) to focus exclusively on explicit knowledge. They believe that the Western world
focuses too much on the value of knowing that rather than knowing how. The main focus in the
eastern philosophy (knowledge vision in traditional Japanese epistemology) is the tacit know-
ledge. And they believe that the most important learning takes place through direct experience.
The core of knowledge development is to achieve a conversion between tacit and explicit
knowledge through various social processes. They look at the development and application of
knowledge as a harmonious process. Knowledge is considered that a person knows, which means
that knowledge is a dynamic and ongoing process in the individual’s brain.
In addition Nonaka and Takeuchi distinguish between two dimensions of knowledge: tacit
and explicit knowledge. This distinction is the cornerstone in [28].
Here are two quotes from Nonaka and Takeuchi
1. "Knowledge of experience tends to be tacit, physical and Subjective, while knowledge of
Rationality Tends to be explicit"
2. "Tacit knowledge is a necessary but not sufficient element of knowledge. Kernel is to achieve
conversion between tacit and explicit knowledge through various social processes: socializ-
ation, externalization, combination and internalization. It is not necessarily the performing
a task to be articulate (externalize) it. Another person who is good at articulating can do it,
after having worked with the person over time (socialization)"
3About Ikujiro Nonaka http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ikujiro_Nonaka
4About Hirotaka Takeuchihttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hirotaka_Takeuchi
14

Tacit knowledge is highly personal context-specific knowledge as the ’owner’ is difficult to
articulate and communicate. Tacit knowledge can only be taught through observation, imitation
and practice. Tacit knowledge includes an individual’s mental models of the world and technical
skills.
Explicit knowledge is knowledge that ’owner’ can easily articulate in a formal syntactic
language, and thus easy to communicate to others. Explicit knowledge can be communicated
through both oral speech and recorded information. It can be processed by computers and trans-
mitted electronically stored in databases and shared in the form of words, numbers, mathemat-
ical expressions, specifications and manuals .
Information is explicit knowledge that is recorded or captured in a medium. Unlike know-
ledge, which is a dynamic and continuous process in the individual’s head, information objects
with an inscription - thus static - content.
Examples of information recording (captured human speech) and written documentation (re-
corded human writing).
Tacit and explicit knowledge is complementary because both is essential to knowledge cre-
ation [29]
In [2] Nonaka identified the "Four modes of knowledge conversion", illustrated in figure 5.
This is a conversion between tacit knowledge to explicit knowledge.
Figure 5: Nonaka’s SECI model of Knowledge Conversion (Source:[2])
Nonaka’s "Four modes of knowledge conversion":
1. Socialization (Tacit to Tacit) - This dimension explains capture and transfer of tacit know-
ledge with social interaction through joint activities where parties as spending time together
or living in the same environment. Apprentice work with their mentors and learning by ex-
perience not through language. Since tacit knowledge not only taught directly by the use of
language, sharing of tacit knowledge happen otherwise. Socialization is when individuals in
an organization learn from each others tacit knowledge by doing and sharing experiences
together. Nonaka and Takeuchi highlights apprenticeship learning as a good example of so-
15

cialization. In apprenticeship learning works apprentices with their masters and learn the
discipline not through language but through observation, imitation and practice.
2. Externalization (Tacit to Explicit) - Externalization is to convert tacit knowledge to explicit
knowledge. It could be to write down experiences on documents and make them available in
a database or to allow experienced employees tell stories to new employees. Explicit know-
ledge never catches up all aspects of tacit knowledge. The explicit knowledge is articulated
image of the silent, and this picture can contain many large holes. Such gaps are not ne-
cessarily an obstacle to knowledge sharing. They can also help to provoke reﬂection of the
individuals, both in the person who conveys the explicit knowledge and whoso receiveth it.
Externalization is the key to knowledge creation, because it creates new explicit concepts
from tacit knowledge.
3. Combination (Explicit to Explicit) - Combination to combine different parts explicit know-
ledge to new explicit knowledge. It may be to cut a piece of text and paste it into another text
or to add music to a video clip
4. Internalization (Explicit to Tacit) - Internalization is to make explicit knowledge to tacit
knowledge, by that makes practical use of the explicit knowledge. It’s about "‘learning by
doing"’.
In [2] Nonaka distinguishes on individual and organizational knowledge creation. In organiz-
ational creation take place when all four modes knowledge creation are "organizationally" man-
aged to form a continual cycle. Knowledge creation and organizational learning take a path of
socialization, externalization, combination, internalization, socialization, externalization, com-
bination . . . etc. in an inﬁnite spiral. Figure 6 "Knowledge creation is a spiral process of inter-
actions between explicit and tacit knowledge"[4] , once created, becomes in turn the basis for a
new spiral of knowledge creation.[30].
"New tacit knowledge is social construction through the interactions amongst individuals and
individuals and their groups, rather than by an individual operating in isolation" (Erden et al. [31]
cite Nonaka et al. [30])
"The collective mind can be conceptualized as a pattern of implicitly coordinated, heedful interre-
lations of actions in a social system" [32]
16

Figure 6: Nonaka’s Spiral of Organizational Knowledge Creation (Source:[2])
Figure 7: Three elements of the knowledge-creating process (Source:[3])
2.2.7 Concept of Ba
According to Nonaka and Konno was the Japanece concept of "ba", which roughly can be trans-
lates to the English word "place" originally proposed by the Japanese philosopher Kitaro Nishida
and further developed by Shimizu. Nonaka and Konno adopted the consept of ba for elaborating
a model for knowledge creation. The concept of ba can be thought as a shared space for emer-
ging relationships, where the space can be physical, virtual, mental or a combination of these.
[4]. According to Erden et al is "contex" in the theory often referred to as "Ba".[31]
Below is Nonaka and Konno’s four types of ba that correspond to the four stage in the SECI
model (from [4]):
• Originating ba → Socialization phase
17

Originating ba is the primary ba where the knowledge-creation process begins and in-
dividuals share feelings, emotions, experience and mental models in a physical face-to-face
situation.
• Interactive ba → Externalization phase
Interactive bais where tacit knowledge is made explicit through dialogue and mental
process by convert individuals mental models and skills into common terms and concept; The
process are both individuals which reflect and analyze by their own and collective reflection.
• Cyber ba ↔ Combination phase
Cyber ba is a virtual place where existing information and knowledge generates and
systematizes explicit knowledge throughout the organization. Is most efficiently supported in
collaborative environments by using information technology.
• Exercising ba → Internalization phase
Exercising ba is when explicit knowledge is converted to tacit through action as training
and exercising.
Figure 8: Ba and Knowledge Conversion (Source:[4])
2.2.8 Knowledge transfer
According to von Krogh et al "typical knowledge transfer starts with the identification of know-
ledge to be transferred, in which the potential benefits of the transfer are signaled to the receiving
partner or to the sending partner" An the knowledge transfer mechanism should be used select-
ively, since not everybody in the company needs to know everything at all times. And presents
three conditions that should be satisfied in order to accelerate the knowledge transfer process:
18

[33]
1. "the parties are aware of the opportunity to exchange the knowledge."
2. "the parties involved expect the knowledge transfer to prove worthwhile for both parties."’
3. "Participant must be motivated and interested to applying know.trans. into their own activities
realize the benefits of the transfer."
2.3 Tacit Signal Approach
The Tacit Signal Method is developed by Marki Kesti 5
Kesti define the tacit signals in his PhD
thesis[34] as: "Human options and feelings that are guiding to the improvement. Tacit signals are
used at measuring competences"
According to Syväjärvi and Kesti’s [35], the Positive Human Tacit Signal Approach works as an
organizational development process and analysis are needed to recognize, develop and manage
emotional intelligence in a workplace and identify organization development needs and to raise
competence system intelligence. Tacit signals are based on employees tacit knowledge. Positive
human tacit signals and competence system intelligence are connected to the organizational
development process. Where both individual and interactive developments
The measuring of the competence development. The inverted U-curve known as Yerkes-
Dodson law is originally invented by Yerkes and Dodson [36]
The pressure - performance relation is studied and verified in several research studies (Aber-
crombie et al [37], Goleman [38], Putkonen [39])
Kesti and Syväjärvi present a theoretical hypotheses how tacit signals method is utilized in
competence measurement and organization performance improvement.[5]
5Marko Kesti http://www.tacit.fi/en/tacit-signals/marko-kesti.html
19

Figure 9: Tacit signal priciple in performance stress curve. Source:Figure 2 in [5]
2.4 Hyper Interactive Intelligent Pedagogical Media Agent
The Hyper Interactive Intelligent Pedagogical Media Agent (HI2
P)6
is an e-learning platform
consisting of five elements [40]
The main element is the video section. It shows a video recording of the instructor who
shares his knowledge by drawing and explain. The recording may also contain screen capture
showing things in practice. This section compares to YouTube7
which is a social network for
sharing knowledge, in addition to sharing video and music. On YouTube you will find a videos
for almost everything; from replacing hard drive on a PC to appendectomy. HI2
P is in a way a
more advanced version of YouTube where videos are indexed and merged with other documents
related to the subject of the video.
Another element on HI2
P is the chatbot (Conversational Agent) where the user can have a
chat with virtual "instructor", based on the most known chatbot, A.L.I.C.E. 8
. The first version of
A.L.I.C.E. was developed in 1995 by Richard S. Wallace [41]. A.L.I.C.E. AIML (Artificial Intelli-
gence Markup Language) is an XML-compliant language makes it possible to begin customizing
an Alicebot or creating one from scratch within minutes. At Luleåtekniska universitet, Runesson
has conduct a study of using chatbot in customer support [42].
The EU project "PeTEX" (Platform for e-learning and tele-operative experimentation (PeTEX)
has designed a technical platform for e-learning based on customized learning environment
6HI2P Demo:https://secprj.dsv.su.se/HVPCA_Demo/index.htm
7http://www.youtube.com/
8Artificial Linguistic Internet Computer Entity http://www.alicebot.org
20

including human-computer-interactive, tele-operated experimentation and didactic and social
structure for successful online learing. [43]
At University in Stockholm, Abacioglu and Risinger has conduct a small study of e-learning
with chat-bot for young people at High School. [44]
"Youth using new media often learn from their peers,not teachers or adults. Yet adults can still
have tremendous inﬂuence in setting learning goals, particularly on the interest-driven side where
adult hobbyists function as role models and more experienced peers" [45]
21

3 Choice of methods
This chapter includes a description of methods used to solve the research questions in section
1.5. I will give a brief presentation of the available methods before I go into detail for each
research question. This chapter will start by addressing the three terms ’Quantitative Research’ ,
’Qualitative Research’ and ’Action Research’ and examining what sets them apart.
Quantitative research is a term used for studies of problems often defined by specific variables
and where there is standardized methods of data collection (e.g. educational and psychological
measurement/testing). The variables can then be expressed in numerical values, and this data
can then be described and analyzed using statistical methods. This approach is advantageous
in that it allow the researcher(s) to be objective to the findings, and it is strong in measuring
data with statistics. The conclusion is based on amounts, or quantities of data.[46] Some of the
disadvantages of quantitative research is that the context of study is ignored, i.e. it does not
study things in their natural environment or take into account what meaning the thing has for
different people. It also relies on being able to obtain large amounts of data to be accurate.
Qualitative researchers aim to gather an in-depth understanding of human behavior and the
reasons that govern such behavior. The studies include a variety of data collection methods,
such as participant and non-participant observation, qualitative interviews, document analysis,
video recording and audio tape recording. Qualitative research focus on phenomena that occurs
in natural settings (in the ’real world’) and they involve studying those phenomena in all their
complexity [46]. Qualitative method investigates the why and how of decision making, not just
what, where, when. Hence, smaller but focused samples are more often used than large samples.
In the conventional view, qualitative methods produce information only on the particular cases
studied, and any more general conclusions are only propositions (informed assertions). Quantit-
ative methods can then be used to seek empirical support for such research hypotheses. Whatever
the type of data collection, certain ethical principles are important to comply, as confidentiality,
informed consent and safeguarding research subjects’ integrity. The most common analysis of
qualitative data is observer impression. That is, expert or bystander observers examine the data,
interpret it via forming an impression and report their impression in a structured and sometimes
quantitative form. One traditional and specialized form of qualitative research is called cognitive
testing or pilot testing which is used in the development of quantitative survey items. Survey
items are piloted on study participants to test the reliability and validity of the items. Qualitat-
ive research is useful when approaching a problem that is not clearly defined, i.e. not having
a hypothesis, therefore allowing the study to unfold more naturally. It allows the researcher to
examine the data in more detail and obtain a more detailed view. The main disadvantage of
qualitative research is that the values obtained through this kind of analysis is hard to put to
23

number, and conclusions can often be subjective. And sometimes the applied method can be very
time consuming. Some times several years.
Action Research is a natural way of acting and researching at the same time. It achieve the action
outcomes mostly by involving people in the planning and the action and by being flexible and
responsive to situation and people [47]. It is a process well suited to situations where you wish
to achieve change (the ’action’) and understanding (the ’research’) at the same time. Action re-
search is according to [47] "a flexible spiral process which allows action (change, improvement)
and research (understanding, knowledge) to be achieved at the same time. The understanding
allows more informed change and at the same time is informed by that change. People affected
by the change are usually involved in the action research. This allows the understanding to be
widely shared and the change to be pursued with commitment.". Participants are able to con-
tribute to action research through using natural processes and qualitative data. All five phases
(Illustrated in figure 10) are considered to be necessary for a comprehensive definition of action
research. [6] According to Koshy[48], the main role of action research is to facilitate practitioners
to study aspects of practice. And it’s all about developing the act of knowing through observation,
listening, analyzing, questioning and being involved in construction one’s own knowledge. The
new knowledge and experiences helps the researcher’s to make a new direction and influences
action.
In action research we do something. Then check if it worked as expected. If it didn’t, we
analyze what happened and what we might do differently. If necessary we repeat the process as
a spiral of cycles of action and research in four major phases:
1. Planning - includes problem analysis and a strategic plan
2. Acting - refers to the implementation of the strategic plan
3. Observing - includes an evaluation of the action through the use of appropriate methods and
techniques
4. Reflecting -entails reflecting on results of the evaluation and on the whole action and re-
search process. This may lead to the identification of a new problem, and the cycle may start
again.
Carr and Kemmis [49] describe the action research as being about:
• the improvement of practice
• the improvement of the understanding of practice
• the improvement of the situation in which the practice take place
24

Figure 10: The cyclical process of action research according to Susman and Evered[6]
3.1 Methods for solving the research questions
There are several scientific approaches for solving research related problems. The methods I will
be discussing in this section are interviews and observations.
Scientific interviews is a qualitative approach to solving a problem[46]. It should be performed
as a face-to-face interview, with some questions outlined in advance. It is a good way to obtain
information from subjects, but the information may be distorted in the subjects memory. Another
problem is that the information gathered from such an approach will always be subjective. It is
also a time consuming approach if there are many interviews to be conducted, and the results
may vary in quality and be hard to analyze. Kvale and Brinkmann[50]
Scientific observations can be conducted in both quantitative and qualitative studies [46].
Qualitative observation can be a useful tool for employee and organizational development. Man-
agers and human resources professionals use it for job analysis, employee performance evalu-
ations, and identifying problems or opportunities for improvement. Organizations use it in con-
junction with quantitative data (such as statistics) or to evaluate subjective perceptions. Obser-
vation in a qualitative research are intentionally unstructured and free-flowing. The researcher
focus shifts as new and potential significant objects and events present themselves. It should
be performed by recording in great detail with field notes or videotapes and from these data
the researcher constructs a complex yet integrated picture of how people act. The primary ad-
vantage is the flexibility in that manner the researcher can take advantage of unforeseen data
sources as they surface. The drawback of such an approach is the researcher (especially a novice
25

researcher) won’t always know what things are most important to look for. Another challenge is
to be objective because the observation my be confused by own (researcher) interpretations of
the observation objects.
Observation in Quantitative research are focus on a particular aspect of behavior which is
quantified in some way[46]. In some situations, each occurrence of the behavior is counted, to
determined the overall frequency. In other situations, the behavior is rated for accuracy, intensity,
maturity, or some other dimension. The researcher must strives to be as objective as possible in
assessing the behavior being studied.
3.2 Research question 1
The first research question is stated as ’How is tacit knowledge transferred in the HRO today?’ The
goal of solving this was to find the practice for tacit knowledge management in the HRO. We had
to examine the organizational culture, processes and how they are working and collaborate and
what practices exist for knowledge management in the specific HRO, and identify barriers for
knowledge sharing. One possible approach to solve this question was to do a mix of qualitative
interview, observation and action research. That was both a qualitative and quantitative action
research. According to Yauch and Steudel[51], using methods from both quantitative and qual-
itative research paradigms for cultural assessment enable a greater understanding of cultural
artifacts and behaviors but more important of the underlying cultural values and assumptions.
And it is recommended that both methods be used to produce more robust results than could be
accomplished using a single approach.
The action research site was in the HRO where the researcher is been working. There was
both advantages and disadvantages of that. The advantage was that the researcher known the
organization and know who to ask/observe/do interview with. The disadvantage; it was difficult
to be objective. The approach to solve this research question was to create input for comparing
in the research question 3.
The second research question is stated as ’What is the State-of-the-Art in tacit knowledge man-
agement today?’. The goal of solving this was to identify methods for capture and transfer tacit
knowledge. One possible approach to solve this question was a qualitative research approach by
gather an in-depth understanding of the tacit knowledge management. We have looked at the
scientific aspects of tacit knowledge and best practice in tacit knowledge management. What is
State-of-the-Art are the researchers subjective assessment of the different kinds of tacit know-
ledge management.
The third research question is stated as ’Can a Interactive Media platform improve that capturing
and transferring in the HRO?’. The goal of solving this was to find out how efficient Interactive
Media platform is for tacit knowledge transfer compare the method identified in research ques-
tion 1 and to test the hypothesis that tacit knowledge can be captured by screen recording the
work of a practitioners. The most appropriate way to address this question was to do a practical
26

testing, which is an action research approach (which is also reﬂected in the title of this thesis).
In order to compare the Interactive Media with the result from research question 1 and testing
the hypothesis, a Quantitative analysis at a certain selection was selected. A questionnaire survey
with both ’Likert scale’ and ’Open-ended’ questions was used for that. The selection was the par-
ticipant group which was a limited proportion of the total population. That was a non-parametric
statistics, which are statistics that do not assume the data or population have any characteristic
structure or parameters. According to Craig [52] a ’Likert scale’ is always a non-parametric. Ac-
tion Research can be both quantitative and qualitative. The result from a questionnaire which is
a quantitative research was used as input to the qualitative evaluation of the Interactive Media.
27

4 Results
4.1 Description of the HRO
The HRO in this thesis is a Business Area (BA) in a Nordic IT Corporation with about 10.000
employees in different countries world wide. To maintain a certain degree of confidentiality, the
Business Area (BA) will be referred to in this thesis as Nordic Operations or the abbreviation NO
or "the HRO". Nordic Operations has approximately 1300 full time employees (FTE), where 65%
are Onshore (Norway and Sweden), 25% are Offshore and 10% Consultant.
4.1.1 The research site
The research was implemented in the Business Unit (BU) Mainframe which is the first level below
the BA with 111 employees in Norway (101) and Sweden (10) which is 13% of the Onshore FTE.
There is no Offshore FTE in the BU Mainframe. BU Mainframe are organized in 6 department,
each with a department manager which is the first line manager. Each department are divided
into professional groups or teams, each with a team leader. The team leader does not have any
personal or administrative responsibility for the team-members. Employees/team members are
located on four different locations in Norway and one location in Sweden. Most employees have
a laptop and possibility to work from home or anywhere where it’s internet connection.
Workforces in BU Mainframe originated from many different organizations, as a result of
various mergers, acquisitions and in-sourcing over decades. There is therefore a multicultural
professional community in the sense that employees have extensive experience from the ori-
gin organizations, and consequently that are many different organizational cultures and way
of working in the company. Although individuals work across all customer environments so it
remains that each individual are knowing best the environments each are originally come from
and have worked with most. BU Mainframe is the part of the Corporate with the highest average
age of its employees. With so many veterans in the mainframe field (many with more than 40
years experience), this organization manages a huge amount of highly personal and highly pro-
fessional knowledge about customers and specialists. The sum of years mainframe-experience
in BU Mainframe is about 3000 years. These employees have followed the biggest technological
developments in human history - from punch card to cellphone with more power than the first
mainframe. With so much extensive experience in mainframe discipline a huge part of the know-
ledge is tacit knowledge. Both Group Tacit Knowledge and Individual Tacit Knowledge.
4.1.2 Collaboration Tools
The Company is using Microsoft Yammer as social collaboration which is a integrated part of
the intranet. The intranet is based on Microsoft SharePoint 2013. 36% of BU Mainframe are
registered and member of the Mainframe Group on Yammer, but even fewer are active using
it (posting, commenting, "Likes" and Share). Microsoft Lync 2013 are used for unified commu-
nications as instant messaging, online meeting with audio, video & shared desktop. Usually, all
29

meetings are scheduled as Lync Meeting because usually not all meeting participants are at the
same locations at same time. When using shared desktop all participants can follow the same
screen and meeting leader can give control of the screen to anyone of participants. The shared
desktop with "Give Control" functionality are commonly used feature in Lync for remotely help
and guiding (Both from the HelpDesk, between colleagues, between team-members & custom-
ers and team-members and specialists from the SW-& HW suppliers). Shared desktop with "Give
Control" is a very useful feature which makes presentation, troubleshooting, training, and demon-
stration much easier and more efficient. Especially the travel costs are reduced significant.
4.1.3 Corporate Management System (CMS)
The Corporate Management System (CMS) is the common place for all approved processes,
checklists and guidelines within the company. The structured processes in CMS [8] are based
on the ITIL R [53] framework (figure 11), LEAN[54] methodology for Process Improvement and
KAIZEN R [55] for Continuous Improvement. Because tacit knowledge is central in the daily op-
erations, processes thus is central in the daily operations has been identified from the interview
and the authors observations and own experience.
4.1.4 Selected CMS (ITIL R ) Processes where tacit knowledge is central
Figure 11: ITIL Process diagram[7]
Below is a list which is a results from the interview of the managers and the authors observa-
30

tion and experience of the most used ITIL R processes in the day-to-day operations
Process:
[8]
1. Incident Management (IM) 4.1.5
2. Problem Management (PM) 4.1.6
3. Change Management (CM) 4.1.7
4. Knowledge Management (KM) 4.1.8
5. Information Security (IS) 4.1.9
6. Capacity Management (CAP) 4.1.10
7. Continual Service Improvement (CSI) 4.1.11
4.1.5 Incident Management
The IM process is intended to ensure efficient and standardized work to restore normal operation
Incidents in a quick and efficient manner so that SLA requirements are met.
The main goal of the IM process is to restore normal operation of a service as soon as possible
after occurrence of an Incident.
Minimize business impact and enforce high service availability by restoring the service and
applying permanent solutions or temporary workarounds.
Timely restore normal operation in accordance with agreed to resolution times defined in the
Customers Service Level Agreements.
Figure 12: Nordic Operations Incident Management Process (Source:[8])
4.1.6 Problem Management
Problem Management includes the activities required to diagnose the root cause of incidents
and to determine the resolution to those problems. It is also responsible for ensuring that the
resolution is implemented through the appropriate control procedures, especially Change Man-
agement. The main goal of the Problem Management Process is to identify and solve PROBLEMS
to prevent future INCIDENTS, and minimizing the impact of unavoidable INCIDENTS caused by
errors.
All employees in Nordic Operations may act as a Problem Analyst, and are authorized to ini-
tiate possible Problems. Problem Analyst is responsible for ensuring that all relevant information
is recorded and well described.
31

Figure 13: Nordic Operations Problem Management Process (Source:[8])
4.1.7 Change Management
This is one of the most used process in the Nordic Operations. Change Management has two
purposes: to limit change-related incidents and to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of
day-to-day operations. [8]
The main goal of the Change Management process (CHM) is to control the planning, as-
sessment, approval and implementation of all CHANGES in Nordic Operations to minimize the
adverse impact and risk on already operational IT services.
This routine regulates the classification, registration and monitoring of process deviations in
Change Management and supports continuous improvement of process performance and quality
What is a Change?
A Change is the addition, modification or removal of anything that will or may have an effect on
operational IT services. All changes need traceability and must be documented in the Operational
System, handled and approved by Change Management.
Figure 14: Nordic Operations Change Management Process (Source:[8])
32

4.1.8 Knowledge Management
The scope of the Knowledge Management process is to manage, to process and to publish the
knowledge that is generated in the day-to-day operations of the services. [8]
Figure 15: Nordic Operations Knowledge Management Process [8]
Knowledge Management includes the following activities[8]:
• Definition of policies for Knowledge Management
What Operational Data is selected as Knowledge
Who is responsible for the selection
How must the Operational Data processed before publishing
Use of Knowledge Management tools
• Capture Knowledge Data
• Analyze, process and transform the Knowledge Data
Based on the needs from the target groups (f.ex. Customer’s First Line Support, End-
Users)
• Publish the Knowledge in the selected tools
• Quality Assurance of the Knowledge
• Analyze the needs for Knowledge and the relevance of existing Knowledge
4.1.9 Information Security
Nordic Operations is ISO27001 certified, and the requirements in ISO27001 1
[56] are therefore
to be fulfilled by every business unit in Nordic Operations. As stated by Blakley et al. [57] "In-
formation security is required because the technology applied to information create risk and every
risk has a cost which can be quantified"
1ISO27001 http://www.iso27001security.com/html/27001.html
33

Figure 16: Nordic Operations Information Security Management Process Flow (Source:[8])
Periodic Analysis of Critical and pri 1 incidents
All incidents in Nordic Operations that are categorized as Critical and handled by the Critical
Incident Management (CIM) team. Periodic analysis is initiated by the Analysis Team in CSI
based on monthly report from CIM and analysis of pri 1 Incidents Identify any new risk areas
causing Critical Incidents. Verify existing risk assessments whether they have the sufﬁcient scope
and coverage
4.1.10 Capacity Management
Capacity Management (CAP) (Figure 17) is the process of ensuring the required capacity is
available to deliver the service commitment. CAP performs a balancing act on "Cost vs. Capacity"
and "Supply vs. Demand".
The Capacity Management Process shall enable the services:
• the right capacity
• at the right location
• at the right moment
• for the right customer
• at the right cost
34

Figure 17: Nordic Operations Capacity Management Process (Source:[8])
4.1.11 Continual Service Improvement (CSI)
LEAN KAIZEN R
Figure 18: Nordic Operations 7 step Improvement Process (Source:[8])
8 step Problem Solving Routine
The routine is modeled after the Plan-Do-Check-Act circle as follows:
35

Figure 19: Nordic Operations 8 step Problem Solving Routine (Source:[8])
4.2 Qualitative face-to-face interview
Ref#sec:interviewframework
Ref to 3 the qualitative face-to-face interview was chosen as the preferred method for evaluat-
ing management’s perception of how tacit knowledge is captured and shared today, and attitudes
toward knowledge sharing using e-Learning / Instructional Video / Interactive Media and how
this may affect the CMS (ITIL R [53]) processes[8] used in the daily work. Seven managers was
interviewed, which is the whole Management Team in Business Unit Mainframe .
Each interview was scheduled as a 1,5 hour meeting based on a structured approach with
eighteen questions, but without strict limits and where the interview objects had opportunity to
give explanations in each answer. The author had also opportunity to ask control questions or
give more explanation with examples to the different answers.
Since all interview objects is managers in the Business Unit author is working and have daily
contact, a friendly and casual tone was chosen so that the interview object were comfortable
and able to give honest answers to questions. No one of the interview objects has been watching
the presentations made in this thesis before the interview. But at the beginning av this thesis the
author was presenting the thesis aim for all managers, where a HIP Demo web page was demon-
strated. All interviews began with a brief explanation of the setting and the main objectives for
the interview.
The complete answers from the interview is classiﬁed as "Protected" and attached to Appendix
B (Protected). A non-protected extract from the interview has been used in the main report of
this thesis.
4.3 Questionnaire concerning Learning Process and Styles
In order to get an impression of the how individuals solving technical problems and sharing
knowledge with others, and get a indication of theirs preferred learning style, learning pro-
36

cess with technology adoption. A questionnaire was selected as method, which is a quantitative
method. The aim of the questionnaire was to compare the "Mainframe" people in the Business
Unit Mainframe with students on the "Mainframe" class at HIG. Number of question in the ques-
tionnaire was 40 questions.
Only 2 students and 9 colleague answered the questionnaire. Answer from two students gives
a too small population for using in a quantitative comparison, and was excluded in this thesis.
The answer from the 9 mainframe colleague "Technical Expert" which representing about 10
percent of the population of all "Technical Experts" in Mainframe are acceptable for quantitative
analysis, and are used in this thesis. The complete questionnaire with all questions and answers
are attached in Appendix A. Because of late respond on the questionnaire, the time limit and
the total workload of this thesis only part of the questionnaire are evaluated and included in the
main report.
Two-thirds believe that Learing and Retention pyramid to the National Training Laboratories ﬁts
well how retention rates are in the Business Unit Mainframe. Figure 20
37

Figure 20: Learning and Retention model in Mainframe
The average technology adoption curve for mainframe indicate that mainframe technical spe-
cialist are little more innovative and early adopters compare to Everett Rogers curve 2
. Figure
21
2About Everett Rogers http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Everett_Rogers
38

Figure 21: Technology Adoption Curve Comparison in Mainframe
Some of the mainframe technical specialist are searching for an instructional video on YouTube
when have problem with pc, mobile, printer, etc. Figure 22
Figure 22: Using of YouTube in Mainframe
39

Based on the VAK Test, the major of the Mainframe Technical Specialist have a VISUAL Learning
Style. Which means that visual media like the Interactive Media/e-learning should be a good
learning method for the those people. ( 2.2.2). Figure 23
Figure 23: Learning Style Mainframe (VAK Test adopted from [9]
40

4.4 How is tacit knowledge transferred in the HRO today?
4.4.1 Knowledge Sharing Arenas
Team Meeting
Each professions team have regular meeting (2-4 meetings per month) where team members
from different locations participate the meeting via Lync Meeting. Team members on each location
gather in a meeting room and connected together with one computer and group speaker. The
aim of those meetings is to share the current status of work and projects. Planning future work.
Distribute work among team members.
Team meeting agenda grouped by CMS-process[8] (ITIL R )
Incitent Management process 4.1.5 Incident (IM) since last time are discussed. Root cause of
the IM, how the incident was solved, preventing how the same incident can be avoided in
the future (Create a Problem from the IM) Open Problems and Change events since the
last problems, continuous improvement (KAIZEN R ). Discussions on best practice on how
to do things (share know-how).
According to Nonaka that is "Ba:Contex-Knowledge Place" where four modes of knowledge
conversion is this meeting both Externalization and Combination 5
Problem Management 4.1.6 Follow and discuss open Problems.
Change Management 4.1.7 Discussing planned changes and just implemented changes (just
implemented by the own team, or in other team where our team are involved for testing
and verification)
Knowledge Management 4.1.8 Discussing a new (or change of a old) Task Plan Template for a
specific task (All changes have to be documented by a task plan before the approval of the
changes. Where the task must be written in the way that anyone within a professions area
can perform the task. Discussing best-practice of the different daily operation. Sometimes
a new best-practice results in a Kaizen. After a task is completed, the Taskplan are archived
in a common storage available for all staff in BU Mainframe. Knowledge sharing about
experience from a Incident or Change.
Information Security 4.1.9 Analysis recently Critical and pri 1 incidents which has been assign
and resolved by this assignment group (team). After critical and pri 1 incidents CIM leason
learn meeting and incident report are created and distributed to involved parties. Identify
any new risk areas in our team that can cause Critical Incidents. If identified verify existing
risk assessments that affect our team whether they have the sufficient scope and coverage
and give feedback to CIM. Discussing possible vulnerabilities that each has come across in
the daily work and report discovered vulnerabilities to the line manager and the Business
Units Risk Manager.
Capacity Management 4.1.10 Discussing the current state of the capacity (machine power and
storage) and planning the future need. Own Capacity and Configuration Forum for the
Business Unit and cross-business for total planning and future need.
41

Continual Service Improvement (CSI) 4.1.11 KAIZEN R Board - follow up old Kaizens and
discussing new improvements and decide which should be registered as a new Kaizens.
These Kaizen originates from one or more of the processes above. E.g. a change where one
or more improvements possibility (Kaizens) has been identified. A incident which Number
of Kaizen according to the target
Knowledge transferring between individuals
According to the qualitative interviews of managers and the researchers scientific observation,
the most common way of transfer knowledge between individuals working together two and two
on the same office/workplace, where one appear as a master and the other as apprentice. As illus-
trated as "Synchronous Learning - Situation 1 (Side-by-side)" in figure 2In that way apprentice
learning not only through language, but through observation of the master’s work and imita-
tion and practice on his own computer. This is in practices according to Nonaka’s Socialization,
described in 1.
Another observed and owned experienced method of knowledge sharing is use of Lync to work
together remotely from different locations. This is a common used and very useful method as the
employees are spread over multiple locations. When two are working together and sharing the
desktop so that both can see the same screen, and at same time have a oral and written conver-
sation (and video if they like to see each other). The apprentice can follow the master/mentors
work and at same time ask questions, and the master can give the the apprentice control over the
shared screen and let him practice by it self. Or the apprentice can share his screen to the mentor
and let him watch and control how the apprentice work (according to four eyes principle). This
situation are illustrated as "Synchronous Learning - Situation 2 (Remotely)" in figure 2
An unstructured casual way of exchanging knowledge takes place in an open office landscape
where one can observe other colleagues working without direct dialogue with them. Especially
in some incident situations where the involved experts sitting in the same office environment
each expert works with the issue within their field and communication takes place in space.
The observation identified many self-organizing networks where individuals with common in-
terests and challenges exchange knowledge. A fair amount of the identified self-organizing net-
work are at the value-chain level, where the individuals from any place along the value-chain
participate in a network.
One departments with 24x7 operations in a separate location, the employees work shift in teams
of 4 employees in each shift. The manager organize the shift team with employee that comple-
ment each other in terms of expertise, and on the way as they can learn from each other. This
little working society is a practical approach to Nonaka’s Socialization, described in 1.
42

Working on "autopilot"
Based on a observation over more than 16 years of technical specialist in a mainframe envir-
onment, the researcher have been fascinated of the high degree of individuals who work on
"autopilot" in many situation. These automatic reaction patterns can be determined by one or
a few triggers, as what Cialdini[13] call "click-whirr" (Described in 2.1.1, e.g. triggers can be a
error code/change of behavior (workload, response time, number of transaction, etc) in a par-
ticular context (customer system/value chain) generating one type of action pattern. The same
situation in another context can generate a different type of action pattern. When asking the
individuals afterward to describe in detail each step, down to each key-stroke and mouse click in
the recently situation, they will very often not be available to explain in detail everything what
he has done, and why. Which confirms that the knowledge used is tacit and tacit knowledge used
unproven.
T-shaped mainframe staff
The research found the mainframe staff T-shaped (illustrated in figure 3. The reason for that is
the high grade of deep special skills of both technical and non-technical art, about systems, cus-
tomers, value chain, which is being used in different situation/processes. E.g. Change, Incident,
Problem, Configuration, Capacity, Sales. Projects are created with teams of people with different
special skills, which makes a chain of ’T’s, as illustrated in figure 4
4.4.2 Barriers to kowledge sharing
Barriers to knowledge sharing has been identified from the interviews and by the researchers sci-
entific observation and own experience. In general, on a scale from 1 - 10 the level of knowledge
sharing is 5.
Physical Barriers Employees who are physically separated have less knowledge exchange and
especially tacit knowledge sharing than people sitting physically together. According to
the managers there is small difference between physical separated (different floor where
you have to walk few minutes) in the same building compare to physically separated over
greater distances.
Organizational Barriers Barriers are identified between Team, Department, Business Unit, Busi-
ness Area and Hardware platform, especial between Mainframe and Non-Mainframe which
is the biggest organizational barriers identified.
Individual Barriers Some individuals are more extrovert by nature and share knowledge unso-
licited and other individuals are more introvert and only share knowledge upon request.
Some individual with long work experience has a barriers of asking for help especially
within it’s own profession area, because the fear of appear to be stupid and feeling of "I
should know". Another barrier identified is chemistry between employees. Although the
chemistry between employees is generally good, there are instances where the chemistry
between employees prevents knowledge transferring. Employees who have been through
one or several organizational restructuring processes and workforce reductions through
the time are some times more restrictive to share knowledge.
43

4.5 What is the State-of-the-Art in tacit knowledge management today?
The aim of this research question was to find the current State-of-the-Art in tacit knowledge
management. The approach to solve this question is a qualitative research approach by gather an
in-depth understanding of the tacit knowledge management. And look at the scientific aspects
of tacit knowledge and find the Best Practice in tacit knowledge management linked into the
the HRO in this thesis. What is State-of-the-Art are the researchers subjective assessment of the
different kinds of tacit knowledge management. Literature and theories used in this section has
been outlined in the "Related Work" chapter 2
4.5.1 State-of-the-Art in modeling tacit knowledge management
A widely accepted and often used model of knowledge creation and conversion is Nonaka’s four
modes of knowledge creating and conversion illustrated by the SECI model in figure 5 and
described in section 2.2.6 This SECI model are selected as the base model for tacit knowledge
management in this thesis. According to Nonaka et al [58] the SECI model has been followed up
and tested in variety of settings with positive results.
Nonaka’s SECI spiral of knowledge creation, figure 6 are selected as the model for the tacit
knowledge exchange process.
A conceptual model of tacit knowledge sharing and social media has been suggested by Panahi
et al where social media can be used in tacit knowledge sharing. Further empirical studies are
suggested to acknowledge the findings in that study. [59] This model has not been used in this
project but will be mention in the future work chapters.
4.5.2 State-of-the-Art in measuring tacit knowledge
Because of the nature of tacit knowledge, it is difficult to measure. There is limited amount
of research in tacit knowledge measurement compare with explicit knowledge measurement.
During this action research cycle one, only one measurement approach of tacit knowledge was
found. This was the Kesti’s Tacit Signal Approach, described in section 2.3
4.5.3 State-of-the-Art in tools for managing tacit knowledge
As stated by Nonaka and Konno [4] "Knowledge is manageable only insofar as leaders embrace and
foster the dynamism of knowledge creation...The success of knowledge creation depends on manage-
ment’s assumption of responsibility, justification, financial backing, and caring...Top management
must come to the realization that knowledge needs to be nurtured, supported, enhanced and cared
for"
According to Gottschalk [60] knowledge as strategic resource is still difficult to manage and
all employee should encourage to become a manager of knowledge.
When managing tacit knowledge in a HRO it must take into account the observations to
Weik et.al [1] and former Turner[15] mentioned in section 2.1 "...when a HRO adopted orderly
procedures to reduce error often spread errors, and orderly hierarchy especially near the top, can
amplify errors"
The Tacit knowledge can be managed with different tools and processes.
44

Collaboration Tools
When managing Tacit Knowledge by using collaboration tools and social media, these tools must
be incorporated so that they become a natural part of the daily work.
Public Social Media like YouTube are a "bottomless" repository of video presentations. (some
of them presented in subscribeable YouTube channels), including "How-To-Do" videos, can be
used for sharing public know-how (tacit knowledge) e.g. screen capture recording of work shared
on YouTube are more and more used for non-classified work procedure. A considerable part of the
issues related to everyday work revolves around "How-To-Do" within topics found on YouTube.
E.g. installing a Apache Web server or Appendix Removal Surgery.
Corporate Social Network like Yammer can be used to sharing ideas, thought, discussing prob-
lem or "How-To-Do", best practice, and get colleagues connected (according to Davenport and
Pursak secion 2.2.5 "...finding someone with knowledge, pointing applicant on them and get them
interact.". The Corporate Social Network will behave as Davenport and Pursak calls "Knowledge
Market Place".
Unified communications with online meeting platform like Microsoft Lync/Skype for Business
can be used to real-time communication, with audio, video (face-to-face) and screen sharing for
sharing both verbal and non-verbal behavior. The conversation/meeting can be recorded and
used later, e.g. for documentation and asynchronous learning and reflecting.
Below are different example of different knowledge situation with collaboration tools linked
to Nonaka and Konno’s four types of "ba" [4]
1. Originating ba
*When sharing knowledge in real-time on an unified communications with online meet-
ing, tacit knowledge are transferred between the individuals, thus it represents the Socializa-
tion process in the SECI model.
2. Interactive ba
When sharing knowledge as a Interactive Media/e-learning Presentation of own work and
on a Social Network, tacit knowledge is made explicit, thus it represents the Externalization
process in the SECI model.
3. Cyber ba
When acquiring new "How-To-Do" knowledge from an Interactive Media/e-learingSocial/Social
Media and remember it or write it down, new explicit knowledge are combining with existing
information and knowledge which generate and systematizes the explicit knowledge through
the organization, thus it represents the Combination phase of the SECI model.
4. Exercising ba
When acquiring new "How-To-Do" knowledge from a Social Media while exercising sim-
ultaneously as watching as "doing-by-learning", explicit knowledge are synthesized to tacit
knowledge, thus it represents the Internalization phase of the SECI model.
*)According to Nonaka & Konno’s "Cyber ba is a place of interaction in a virtual world instead of
real space and time; and it represents the combination phase...The combination of explicit knowledge
is most efficiently supported in collaborative environments utilizing information technology." which
45

is a "Cyber ba [4]. There has been a tremendous technological advances in way to interact via
information technology since Nonaka & Konnons words in 1998, therefore, the researcher will
argued that the distinction between physical interaction and virtual interaction is so small when
share knowledge in real-time with unified communications with all possibilities in use, which
share most of the physical and mental parameters involved in knowledge sharing. Thus can this
type of collaboration environments be defined as Socialization in the "Originating ba".
From a learning point of view, Interactive, Cyber and Exercising ba are asynchronous learning
and Orginating ba is synchronous learning as illustrated in figure 2
Figure 24: Spiral Evolution of Knowledge Conversion and Self-transcending Process according to Nonnaka
& Konno [4]
46

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