TACIT KNOWLEDGE SHARING IN ONLINE ENVIRONMENTS: locating 'Ba' within a platform for public sector professionals.

Centre for Social Informatics - School of Computing - Edinburgh Napier University

Iris Buunk, Prof. Hazel Hall, Dr Colin F. Smith

@irisbuunk

27-30 June 2017

CONTENT

Background Themes

Social media affordances The concept of 'Ba'

Survey implementation Findings

Learning processes Expertise sharing Problem-solving Innovation Productivity

New understandings Questions & Discussion

BACKGROUND

Part of larger doctoral study Easier, faster, better? How social media facilitate the sharing of tacit knowledge between employees within public sector organisations.

Paper based on preliminary results from survey.

Literature review Online survey Methodology Interviews Data analysis Thesis

BACKGROUND

Research Questions

How do social media facilitate the sharing of tacit knowledge between employees?

To what extent do social media bring new capabilities in the sharing of tacit knowledge?

Which situated factors may provide the appropriate context for using social media to enhance tacit knowledge sharing practices?

TACIT KNOWLEDGE?

Assumptions

Intuition

Ideas

Understanding Routines

Expertise

Skills Know-how

Problem solving Best practices

Tips & Tricks

Mental models

Emotions

Viewpoints

Information

Data

Documentation

Reports

Tacit

Explicit

Technical dimension

Cognitive dimension

(Nonaka, 1994; Panahi, Watson, Partridge, 2013)

LITERATURE REVIEW THEMES

•Social media affordances (Panahi, 2013) – Facilitation of tacit knowledge sharing through social media affordances.

•The concept of ‘Ba’ (Nonaka, 1998) – Contextual space shared with others from which relationships emerge, and in which knowledge is exchanged.

SOCIAL MEDIA AFFORDANCES (SMA) Based on the work of Panahi, Watson, Partridge, (2013)

Initiate informal discussions among experts Informal discussions help people with similar skills and interests to discuss & solve issues (Hildrum, 2009)

Foster collective intelligence Enable the connection and addition of employees’ intelligence which consequently enhances collective intelligence (Razmerita, Karchner and Nabeth, 2014).

Make tacit and personal knowledge visible Facilitate online social interactions & help employees discover sources of expertise within the network (Mansour et al., 2011)

Decrease time & effort needed for sharing knowledge Help in communicating tacit knowledge and reduce time & efforts needed for knowledge codification (Gordoyeva, 2010)

THE CONCEPT OF 'BA‘

THE CONCEPT OF 'BA‘

Characteristics

1. Originating Ba 2. Interacting or Dialoging Ba 3. Cyber or Systemizing Ba 4. Exercising Ba

Concept invented by Nonaka & Konno (1998). Inspired by philosopher Kitaro Nishida

場

Contextual space shared with others from which relationships emerge, and in which knowledge is exchanged.

Socialisation Externalisation

Combination Internalisation

Existential Reflective

Synthetic

Originating Ba Interacting Ba (Dialoging)

Exercising Ba Cyber Ba (Systemizing )

Face-to-face

On-the-site

peer-to-peer

Group-to-group Systemic

From

To

Tacit/ tacit

Explicit/ Tacit

Tacit/ Explicit

Explicit/ Explicit

SECI model

Ba model

THE 'BA‘ & SECI MODEL

Why does it matter?

Tacit knowledge is highly contextual.

(Koskinen, Pihlanto, Vanharanta, 2003;

Jakubik, 2007; Krishnaveni & Sujatha, 2012)

'Ba' in the literature

• Nonaka, Konno (1998). The Concept of “Ba”: bulding a foundation for knowledge creation. California Management Review, 40

• Choo, W., Chun, & Alvarenga Neto, R. (2010). Beyond the ba: managing enabling contexts in knowledge organizations. Journal of Knowledge Management, 14(4)

• Martin-Niemi, F., & Greatbanks, R.

(2010). The ba of blogs: enabling conditions for knowledge conversion in blog communities. Vine, 40(1)

Bartolacci, C., Isidori, D., Cristalli, C. Niccolini, F. (2016). Ba evolution. Virtual spaces for inter-organizational knowledge creation. Journal of Knowledge Management, 20(4)

RESEARCH DESIGN Population

• Members of an online social

platform of knowledge sharing hosted by UK public service.

• Respondents based in various

public & 3rd sector organisations (national & local Government, health service, charities) mainly in Scotland.

RESEARCH DESIGN

Online survey

• Demographic questions • Digital usage of social media

features • Knowledge sharing practices

(Lickert scale)

RESEARCH DESIGN Data collection • Survey opened during 6 weeks (July-August 2016) • 1062 respondents

Data analysis • Descriptive statistics • Smart Survey & Excel • Fuller analysis to follow (correlations, T-test) after the analysis of

qualitative data

Findings Social platform KHub enables the sharing of tacit knowledge by facilitating:

1. Learning processes 2. Expertise sharing 3. Problem-solving 4. Innovation 5. Productivity

1.Learning processes

58% indicated that they agreed or strongly agreed with this statement, against a small number (12%) who disagreed or strongly disagreed Learning process occurs during knowledge conversion between tacit & explicit knowledge and through social interactions.

“On KHub I find it easy to develop my learning.”

This correlates with the Exercising Ba

2.Expertise sharing

58 % indicated that they agreed or strongly agreed with this statement against a small number (11%) who disagreed or strongly disagreed. Sharing of knowledge and expertise facilitated by online communities of practice.

‘On Knowledge Hub I find it easy to share my knowledge and expertise’.

This correlates with the Interacting Ba

3.Problem solving

63 % indicated that they agreed or strongly agreed with this statement, against a small number (10 %) who disagreed or strongly disagreed.

'On Knowledge Hub I find it easy to request help from others’ .

‘On Knowledge Hub I find it easy to help others to solve their problems’ 53 % indicated that they agreed or strongly agreed with this statement, against a small number (9%) who disagreed or strongly disagreed.

This correlates with the Interacting Ba

Collaborative media tools can facilitate problem-solving when employees look for answers among the online community of users.

4.Innovation

52 % indicated that they agreed or strongly agreed with this statement, against a small number (14%) who disagreed or strongly disagreed. The discovery of ideas can only occur when those are shared with other members of a community and through social interactions.

This correlates with the Interacting Ba

‘On Knowledge Hub I find it easy to discover new ideas.’

5.Productivity

Less than a third (30.3%) of the respondents have agreed or strongly agreed with this statement, less than a half (42.90%) neither disagreed nor agreed. This does not seem to support what is suggested in the literature.

‘Knowledge Hub has helped me to save time at work.’

DEVELOPMENT OF UNDERSTANDING OF SMA

Panahi et al., 2012 Findings SMA initiate informal discussions among experts

Learning process Problem solving

SMA foster collective intelligence Innovation Expertise sharing

SMA make tacit and personal knowledge visible

Learning process, Problem solving Innovation Expertise sharing

SMA decrease time & effort needed for sharing knowledge

Productivity

WHAT IS THE LINK?

Social interactions

Expertise sharing Informal

discussions

Collective intelligence

Skills visibility

Innovation

Problem solving

WHAT IS THE LINK?

Social interactions facilitate the sharing of tacit knowledge But in which contextual environment?

Socialisation Externalisation

Combination Internalisation

Physical Mental

Synthetic Virtual

Originating Ba Interacting Ba

Exercising Ba Cyber Ba

Face-to-face

On-the-site

peer-to-peer

Group-to-group

DEVELOPMENT OF UNDERSTANDING OF THE ‘BA’

Tacit

Tacit Explicit

Explicit

2. Expertise sharing 3. Problem solving 4. Innovation

1. Learning process

?

Thank you. Any questions?

Next conference:

18th European Conference on Knowledge Management 7 – 8 September 2017 Universitat, Internacional de Catalunya, Spain ‘Skills in Sight: How Social Media Affordances Increase Network Awareness.’

@irisbuunk

uk.linkedin.com/in/irisbuunk/en

www.theknowledgeexplorer.org

www.napier.ac.uk/people/iris-buunk

CONTACT

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