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INTRODUCTION 7

essentially adopt a knowledge as possession epistemology, and then process and
practice perspectives, which adopt a knowledge as practice epistemology.

>> STRUCTURAL PERSPECTIVES AND TYPES OF
KNOWLEDGE
Structural perspectives on knowledge draw largely from the epistemology of
possession and focus on identifying different types, or forms, of knowledge that
people have. Citing Polanyi’s (1962) earlier work on ‘personal knowledge’, two
forms or types of knowledge – tacit and explicit – are often distinguished. Tacit
knowledge is associated with the skills or know-how that people develop through
their own experience in specific contexts (e.g. knowing how to ride a bicycle) and
has an essentially personal quality that makes it hard to formalize or communicate.
In contrast, explicit knowledge is that which has been ‘spelled out’ or codified,
making it more communicable across contexts (e.g. knowing what components a
bicycle needs to have to make it work and how they should be put together).
An important aspect of tacit knowledge is that we know more than we can
articulate or attend to at any point in time. Hence tacit knowledge is often
referred to as ‘know-how’ – it resides in our heads and in practical skills and
actions. For example, many of us ‘know’ how to swim. However, explaining this
to someone is extremely difficult. Indeed, if a novice tried to follow our verbal
instructions they would probably drown! In fact, the individual’s experience of
learning to swim for themselves and what the water feels like, coupled with help
and instruction, is what leads to the accumulation of tacit knowledge.
However, if everything had to be learned from first-hand experience then learn-
ing in organizations would be severely limited. Explicit knowledge, on the other
hand, can be readily codified, articulated and communicated to others and is, there-
fore, seen by some as more useful for organizational learning (Teece, Pisano and
Shuen, 1997; Zollo and Winter, 2002). The way to create knowledge in organiza-
tions, then, according to the structural perspectives is to identify important tacit
knowledge, make it explicit, and convert it back again into the tacit knowledge of
others elsewhere in the organization so that it can be applied (Nonaka, 1994).

Frameworks for understanding knowledge types
Structural perspectives are useful in providing frameworks that help us to under-
stand further what kinds of knowledge can be involved in knowledge work. Next
we outline three models developed by organization theorists that are particularly
helpful in this regard. Of course there are many others we could have looked
at but the different principles captured in those selected underpin many of the
approaches to managing knowledge work that we see today.
Nonaka’s framework (1994)

Nonaka’s now well-cited ‘SECI’ model (see Figure 1.2) sees knowledge creation
as a spiraling process of interactions between knowledge types (explicit and
tacit). He identified four distinct knowledge conversion processes through which

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