Paper info

The role of tacit knowledge in innovation management

Evi Hartmann , Hans Georg Gemünden and Ragna Seidler-de Alwis

The paper was published at the 20th IMP-conference in Copenhagen, Denmark in 2004.

Innovation management includes the management of processes to strive for novelassignments through the combination and integration of different knowledge components.Besides, next to explicit knowledge, tacit knowledge has a crucial influence on the successof innovation processes in companies. The sole application of tacit knowledge cannotguarantee an effective innovation process as organizational knowledge for innovation iscreated through a continuous dialogue between tacit and explicit knowledge, where fourdifferent modes of knowledge conversion can be postulated. Tacit knowledge is mobilizedthrough a dynamic combination of the different modes of knowledge conversion in aprocess, which can be called a 'spiral model? of knowledge creation. Tacit knowledge is animportant driver in the innovation process and its application has significant impact on theinnovation process and, therefore, plays a prominent role as a company resource andsuccess factor.Compared to the work on explicit knowledge, the management of tacit knowledge isrelatively unexplored. The authors of this paper want to assess the significance andimplications of tacit knowledge in the innovation process. Therefore, it is essential tounderstand the different approaches of tacit knowledge in knowledge management andinnovation management literature, and its assigned characteristics. The purpose of thispaper is to structure the existing research by identifying the underlying dimensions. Therole of tacit knowledge in innovation management is explored; creation, availability andtransfer of tacit knowledge within the organization are discussed, and examples of barriersto generating and sharing tacit knowledge are given.Based on this literature review the authors have developed an integrated model describingthe impact of tacit knowledge on successful innovation management. Key levers for tacitknowledge management have been identified and the positive impact of tacit knowledge oninnovation success is analysed. In a next step, this model will be tested by an empiricalstudy.Finally, suggestions for future research are discussed.