Tacit knowledge sharing in virtual teams:is it even possible?

Amanda Lam

Tacit knowledge sharing in virtual teams:is it even possible?

BarCamp 2014

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• Product Manager at jobsDB

• Product management experience:

• jobsDB job seeker features on desktop site, mobile sites and

apps

• Android app for CJOL

• Self-service job ad posting service

• BEng Computer Systems Engineering, University of Warwick

• MSc Programme and Project Management, University of Warwick

(graduate in 2015)

Who is Amanda?

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Let me share a story…

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Before a product launch preparation meeting…

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Product launch preparation meeting

• Product marketing strategies

• Product selling techniques

• Customer services skills

Any questions?

Q&A session

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So what should we do next?We need your help to align with your Marketing team to execute this marketing plan…

Are they really listening? Hmm, at least they still ask… that's not too bad!

Q&A session

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No question.

Any more questions?

All good!We are ok, thanks!

No more. Thanks!

Oh shxt…

Q&A session

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After the meeting…

Hi I have seen your marketing promotion page draft. It seems that its message tone and page design do not align with our current branding guidelines.

Conversations on Microsoft Lync…

Product Manager

Oh? Which parts are not okay?

Marketing Manager

Let me send you Singapore’s example…

Product Manager

11:35am

11:36am

11:36am

11:37am I see. So what are your suggestions?

Marketing Manager

11:37am

Can I call you now and show you my screen to explain further?

Product Manager

11:38am

Sure.

Marketing Manager

11:38am

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What are the insights of this story?

• Before the meeting, we've sent the country product representatives

an email with document attached, but they still don't understand

what are we saying!

• Having a teleconference with international virtual team members is

a tiring experience, because：

• We can't see each others' immediate response, not sure if they

understand or not

• We have different cultural background and English standards

• In order to maintain the order of the meeting, meeting is

dominated by Hong Kong headquarters, and hence lack of

interactivity.

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• Using an Instant Messenging system (e.g. Microsoft Lync in sthe story) for

follow-up helps abstract knowledge sharing, because:

• The tool supports individual conversations, and supports instant

transferring of documents and images etc. This encourages frequent

bidirectional interactions

• The tool supports screen sharing and voice conversations,

and this lets knowledge receivers observe your real-time demonstration,

and this helps them understand abstract knowledge more

• However, using a single tool has its own constraints, e.g.

• If the email and the meeting didn't exist, and everything just rely on the

Microsoft Lync conversations, the Thailand Marketing Manager may need

more time to really understand our requirements

• Therefore using multiple tools at different context concurrently can help

complementing the weaknesses of tools. 10

What are the insights of this story?

Explicit knowledge and

Tacit knowledge

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• Facts and theories that are easily to learn.

• Describable in words, the “know-what” aspect of the knowledge. Commonly

seen in prints, electronic media, documents, blueprints, manuals or patents.

• Knowledge that are open, conscious, logical, structural and directly shareable.

What is explicit knowledge？

Courtesy: Flickr

(Grant 1996, Smith 2001, Nonaka 1994, Wong, Radcliffe 2000, Kikoski, Kikoski 2004)

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• Know-how knowledge that cannot be easily documented, and learning it

often requires observations and practices.

• Can be learnt through imitation, face-to-face interactions, best practices,

knacks and special techniques.

• Knowledge that is personal, abstract, unconscious, illogical; and sharing such

knowledge is often unstructured and indirect.

What is tacit knowledge？

Courtesy: Wikipedia Commons

(Grant 1996, Smith 2001, Choo 2000, Wong, Radcliffe 2000, Athanassiou, Nigh 2000, Smith 2001, Kikoski, Kikoski 2004)

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• Driving, sports (swimming, ball games, ice skating)

• Handcrafts and art creation techniques

• Fashion tastes

• Technical techniques, e.g. coding best practices

• Interpersonal skills

• Instincts of problem identification

• Grabbing insights from data

Examples of tacit knowledge

Courtesy: Flickr、Wikipedia Commons

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The SECI Knowledge Conversion Model (Nonaka et al. 2000)

Learn more about the products through IM or face-to-face interactions

Product manager prepares the document

Product launch manager combines and summarisedocuments from several product managers.

Country product representatives listen to what HK office shared in the meeting.

Conversions betweenExplicit knowledge and Tacit knowledge

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Socialisation

Learn through

interpersonal

relationship

Externalisation

Able to explain the

knowledge explicitly

Internalisation

Learn the generalised

knowledge and keep it

ingrained in mind

Combination

Linking, organising and

generalising multiple

sources of information

Tacit

Ta

cit

Ta

cit

Explicit

Tacit

Exp

licit

Exp

licit

Explicit

• Tacit knowledge cannot be documented

easily

• Tacit knowledge must be learnt through

lengthy observations, practices, thinking

and figuring out processes

• Existing knowledge management tools

are biased to explicit knowledge sharing

• Knowledge sharers and receivers cannot

express and observe on IT tools for a

prolonged period

Why sharing tacit knowledge in virtual teams is so difficult？


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• Whether Tacit knowledge is…

• codifiable

• complex

• informative

• relevant to knowledge receivers

• Knowledge sharers and receivers:

• Are mutually trusted

• Interact frequently

• Perceive that the knowledge sharing is fair

• Have adequate time for knowledge sharing

• Use the approriate tools

Factors affecting sharing of tacit knowledge

(Hendriks 1999, Gertler 2003, Kearns, Lederer 2003, Zakaria et al. 2004, Cho, Lee 2004, Lin 2007a, Lin 2007b , Ryan, O'Connor 2009, Seidler-de Alwis, Trkman, Trkman 2009 , Hartmann 2008, Li 2010, Tohidinia, Mosakhani 2010, Xue et al. 2011, Chow 2011)


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• Knowledge sharers’…

• Teaching techniques

• Language and culture background

aligns with knowledge receivers

• Knowledge receivers’…

• personal background and context

• absorptive capacity

• language and culture background

matches with knowledge sharers


图片来源：Open Source Hong Kong

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• Organisational culture and policies

• Clear knowledge sharing objectives

• Management endorsement

• Organisational structures, departmental

independence and relationships

• Rewarding policies

• Office politics and culture


Courtesy: Amanda Lam @ jobsDB

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Our research

Exploring factors affecting the use of IT tools in tacit knowledge sharing for virtual project team in an international collaborative

product development environment

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• Multi-methods Exploratory Case Study approach

(Yin 2008)

• Repertory Grid Technique,

a elicitation technique from psychology

• Data collection methods

• Face-to-face interactions

• Surveys

Feel free to participate!

https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/TJSF36D (English)

https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/PJ6G967 (中文)

Methodology

Courtesy: SAGE Publications

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https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/PJ6G967

https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/PJ6G967

Personal background of interviewees andsurvey participants

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Preliminary results

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How to share tacit knowledge in virtual teams effectively via IT tools?

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Factors that affect tacit knowledge sharing are also applicable to virtual teams

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• Most people use a mixture of new (e.g. WhatsApp) and traditional tools (e.g.

phone)

• Traditional and new tools complement each other

• Traditional tools have strengths in popularity

• New tools support better bidirectional interactions, which benefits tacit

knowledge sharing

How social networking tools influence people sharing tacit knowledge？

Courtesy: Microsoft, WhatsApp, Skype26

• In the world of knowledge management, tacit knowledge is just a tip

of the iceberg. Most knowledge are tacit knowledge that cannot be

preserved easily

• The research findings helps management to:

• Formulate better communication strategies for virtual teams

• Better leverage IT tools to preserve tacit knowledge

• Coordinate with resource planning and personnel training

• As a result, promotes overall sharing efficiency and effectiveness to

achieve a better competitive advantage

Management implications of this research

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Thank you!

Follow me on twitter:

@amanda_lam

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Business

Tacit knowledge sharing in virtual teams:is it even possible?