Large Company (X)

Abstract

In many ways the quote from Pfeffer (1992) illustrates the importance of tacit knowledge communication; or rather what takes place if the communication breaks down. This chapter deals with communication flows between personnel in the first of three organisations. An understanding of tacit knowledge patterns was gained in the previous chapter. It was noted that experts do in fact produce different responses generally speaking from that of the novices and that there existed a group of staff whose results made them effectively “expert” non-experts (ENEs). There existed in effect a certain street-smarted-ness to varying degrees amongst the IT staff studied in the three organisations. Through modelling the relationship patterns of individuals one is able to determine the consequences of knowledge flowing from one individual to the next. Implicit within this assumption is that those within a clique of higher tacit knowledge savvy individuals are more likely to benefit by gaining access to soft knowledge. Conversely those not within expert-rich cliques are likely to be disadvantaged by their lack of access to scarce knowledge related resources.