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The Decision Sciences Journal of Innovative Education
Testing for the Transfer of Tacit Knowledge:
Making a Case for Implicit Learning
and
Morgan M. Shepherd
ABSTRACT
Companies are beginning to realize that simply storing data in warehouses and databases is not sufficient to ensure the usefulness of that data or information. Knowledge based applications are becoming a key factor in determining organizational value. However, knowledge exists on many planes; one is the tacit-explicit plane described by Polanyi (1966). One real paradox is how to measure changes in tacit knowledge. This research project attempts to quantify and test for changes in both types of knowledge using an active learning exercise and the topic: information as a resource.
The exercise was developed to provide a common experience for students and instructors regarding information as a resource. The basic premise being that if in today’s world, information is a key organizational resource, then college graduates in business should be able to see how information is both the same as and different from other resources. For the exercise, the students are split into three groups and an information gathering and decision making problem assigned. The problem is for the groups to determine the mix (colors and number of each color) of marbles in an opaque jar. The exercise includes ten rounds in which cards with individual pieces of information are provided to each group. Each round also offers the groups the option to gain points. For example, groups can wager on the color of marble that is drawn from the jar each round. A correct guess pays three for one back to the group. Members of a group that can amass 1000 points during the exercise receive bonus points toward their semester grade.
Using Mason’s (1978) “influence level” as a guiding principle, a questionnaire was developed to measure the impact of this exercise on the student’s perception of information as a resource. One subset of questions measured the explicit knowledge transferred; a second subset, the implicit or tacit knowledge transferred. Ninety-two, senior level, College of Business students took the questionnaire before and after participating in the exercise. Quantitative results show that the activity created observable changes in explicit and tacit knowledge. Qualitative results obtained from the student’s follow-on writing assignments provide additional support for the proposition that the exercise helped to create tacit knowledge.
The main contribution of this research is twofold. First, it provides a tested, workable classroom exercise that creates a joint environment for students and instructors to experience the nuances of information as a resource. Second, it prototypes a method for observing and testing changes in tacit knowledge based around an “influence level” research perspective. In total, students who are going to make a career by working with data and information are able to experience and thereby learn about information as a resource.
