Employee’s Two Types of Knowledge

The employees’ skills provide the greatest and most sustainable source of  the organization’s competitive advantage, however, unfortunately for many companies, taking advantage of employee knowledge can be difficult. Therefore,in order to address this problem, strategies need to be developed that will allow your company to capture, store, and retrieve knowledge. (Moon, 2015).

There are two distinct types of knowledge: tacit and explicit in Knowledge Management.

Explicit Knowledge

"Explicit knowledge is knowledge that can be easily articulated, codified, accessed, and verbalized. Explicit knowledge can be readily shared and lends itself to electronic capture, storage, communication, management, and automation. Its transfer does not require the interaction of individuals. A simplified explanation of explicit knowledge is to think of it as your company manuals and training programs. Explicit knowledge includes those basic procedures that are quantifiable. There should not be any ambiguity in explicit knowledge. Instead, it should be available for all employees and should be easy to absorb".  (Moon, 2015).

Tacit Knowledge

“Tacit knowledge (TK) exists in every corner of SME, in its structure and relationship especially in its people. Even though knowledge management will benefit SME as they are rich of tacit knowledge but lacking in expertise, financial capital and infrastructure, knowledge management (KM) is almost impossible for Small and Medium Enterprise (SME) currently. Since SME have efficient and informal communication network, knowledge sharing is essential especially in an organization with scarce resources. Therefore, in the wake of knowledge-based economy, tacit knowledge sharing is the best tool for SME in enhancing competence and organizational performance which suit its needs and background. Tacit knowledge sharing is still at infancy especially in SME”. (Ngah & Jusoff, 2009)