Tacit Meaning | Implied knowledge

Knowledge management is both a skill everyone should learn and an important branch of current sciences and researches. it allows you to distinguish false and right facts, discover origins of ideas and their types, know knowledge's classification... But most importantly: distinguish tacit knowledge from explicit knowledge.




In today's article, we will analyze this concept of tacit, discover its definition, as we will provide more useful facts about the topic!

Table of content:

• What is the implied knowledge or what known tacit definition?

• What is Explicit knowledge definition?

• How to know each type and detect its specifics?

• The relativity of implicit knowledge

• Nonaka's model

• Nonaka Ikujiro Biography

👉To begin with, Scientists specialized in Km divide knowledge into two types: explicit and implicit ( tacit )knowledge.

1-Tacit Defenition

Tacit: hidden knowledge that includes inclusive processes, and this refers to the skills that exist in the mind of each individual, that is, it is a personal knowledge that is called informal (subjective) knowledge, and implicit knowledge represents customs, traditions, and culture, it is the outcome of mental processes that are difficult to manage and control In it because it is present in the capital of its owners only, but it can be invested through some special practices, and this knowledge is what gives the privacy of the institution, and it is the basis in its ability to create knowledge.

Tacit knowledge can be transformed into other tacit knowledge by sharing an individual's technical knowledge with others to transfer and exchange skills, and these factors make it difficult to reformulate and exchange them. Therefore, many organizations resort to a system of incentives that would encourage individuals to share knowledge.

2-Explicit Knowledge

Explicit knowledge: Explicit: It is the official, leadership, coded, and systematic knowledge expressed quantitatively, transferable and educational, also called leaked knowledge of the possibility of leakage out of the company, and we find it in legally protected forms of intellectual property such as patent, copyright, trade secrets. .. We also find it embodied in the company's products and services, and there are those who define it as the candidate knowledge for the ease of transferring it from one person to another or from one institution to another or quoting it from a document that is ready and accurately documented.

Explicit knowledge in other words:

It is that which can be expressed in an official language, and in the form of data placed in a scientific form and briefly, as it can be operated, transferred and stored easily, it is a knowledge that can be quantified, written and communicated to others, and it is concrete in which there is no need to gain experience since it is something It has changed and transformed into a base

3-Tacit knowledge from Nonaka's opinion

Nonaka distinguishes tacit knowledge and explicit knowledge which can be transmitted in a formal language while the tacit knowledge has a personal aspect which makes it difficult to formalize and communicate.



Tacit knowledge has, on the one hand, a cognitive component, namely the mental models that humans form on the world and, on the other hand, a technical component, to know the concrete know-how, skills applying in specific contexts.



Explicit knowledge is captured in libraries, archives, and databases.

4-The relativity of Implicit knowledge

"Implicitly" is not a characteristic of knowledge, but of access to this knowledge, that is to say, that it depends on a communication situation in which this knowledge is brought into play. This crucial point must be understood: the tacit or explicit quality of knowledge is revealed only in a situation of expression, transmission, and specific learning. 



So that one can even take as a principle that there is no explicit knowledge in itself since a piece of knowledge is explicit only in a particular communication situation. Apart from this situation, it is not possible to judge whether a piece of knowledge is explicit or if it is not.

5-Nonaka's model

A template used to create a dynamic knowledge of an organization, it aims to demonstrate how Tacit Knowledge and Explicit Knowledge are transformed into organizational knowledge.


The knowledge creation model is based on the distinction between tacit knowledge and
knows explicit. Tacit knowledge is rooted in action, in routines, in a context-specific (which can give personal productivity at an individual level and benefit
competitive at the enterprise level). 

Explicit knowledge is codified knowledge,
transmittable in a formal and systematic language (production of data at the level
individual, and electronic document management at the company level).



This model  is called the " SECI model of knowledge "as well, which stands for: 

• Socialization

• Externalization

• Combination

• Internalization

📌 It was originally developed by Ikujiro Nonaka in 1990 and subsequently modified by Hirotaka Takeuchi.

6-Nonaka's Biography

Ikujiro Nonaka, born May 10, 1935, is professor emeritus at Hitotsubashi University, within the Graduate School of International Corporate Strategy.

Ikujiro Nonaka is a Japanese professor best known for his research on the theory of management by knowledge and especially thanks to his book, co-written in 1995, with Hirotaka Takeuchi, on the creation of knowledge by the firm.