The role of tacit knowledge in group innovation

California Management Review

Volumn , Issue 3, 1998, Pages 112-132

  Leonard, Dorothy ^a   Sensiper, Sylvia ^a  

^a NONE

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EID: 0032397423     PISSN: 00081256     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.2307/41165946     Document Type: Article

References (79)

1. J.C. Spender, "Competitive Advantage from Tacit Knowledge? Unpacking the Concept and its Strategic Implications," in Bertrand Mosingeon and Amy Edmondson, eds., Organizational Learning and Competitive Advantage (London: Sage Publications 1996), pp. 56-73, 58.
2. Michael Polanyi, The Tacit Dimension (New York, NY: Doubleday, 1966), p. 4.
3. Ikujiro Nonaka and Hirotaka Takeuchi, The Knowledge Creating Company (New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 1995), p. 61.
4. Spender, op. cit., p. 58.
5. Richard R. Nelson and Sidney G. Winter, An Evolutionary Theory of Economic Change (Cambridge and London: The BelKnap Press of Harvard University Press, 1982)
6. Spender, op. cit.
7. Arthur. S. Reber, "Implicit Learning and Tacit Knowledge," Journal of Experimental Psychology, 118 (1989): 219-235.
8. Reber, op. cit., p. 219.
9. Polanyi, op. cit., p. 4.
10. Reber, op. cit., p. 229.
11. Much depends, apparently, upon whether the underlying structure is in fact readily accessible, as participants in the experiments deduced incorrect rules from their implicitly learned skills. "Looking for rules will not work if you cannot find them," Reber notes. Furthermore, explicit instructions apparently aid learning only insofar as they match the person's idiosyncratic implicit learning structure. Reber, op. cit., p. 223.
12. Simon, op. cit., p. 106. Interestingly, when Simon first proposed this concept of expertise, he used as an example the ability of a chess professional to determine a good move after only a few seconds of deliberation because the grandmaster's memory holds innumerable patterns of chess plays and the inherent dangers and benefits associated with the various configurations. The recent match between Gary Kasparov and an IBM computer demonstrated that when all relevant patterns can be codified, a computer can sort even more efficiently than the human brain. For certain kinds of bounded problems, with known rules, explicit knowledge may be more important than implicit.
13. Allan D. Rosenblatt and James T. Thickstun, "Intuition and Consciousness," Psychoanalytic Quarterly, 63 (1994): 696-714.
14. Rosenblatt and Thickstun, op. cit., p. 705.
15. Researchers have also found that people organize information into groups of relatedness, called "chunks," in order to retain the information in short-term memory. Chunks themselves are "familiar patterns" that come to be understood through experience as a unit, and as learning continues become increasingly larger and more interrelated. When new stimuli is related to this stored information and recognition of a pattern occurs, ideas and actions appropriate to the situation are elicited from memory. Simon, op. cit. A related theory suggests that cognitive elements in working memory, long-term memory, and short-term memory are represented as nodes in a network. As a person gains more knowledge in an area and begins to make connections between abstract principles and actual events, links between nodes are created and strengthened. Expert's networks may be more efficient as a result of increased speed through network links. See Debra C. Hampton, "Expertise: The True Essence of Nursing Art," Advances in Nursing Science, 17/1 (September 1994): 15-24.
16. Researchers have also found that people organize information into groups of relatedness, called "chunks," in order to retain the information in short-term memory. Chunks themselves are "familiar patterns" that come to be understood through experience as a unit, and as learning continues become increasingly larger and more interrelated. When new stimuli is related to this stored information and recognition of a pattern occurs, ideas and actions appropriate to the situation are elicited from memory. Simon, op. cit. A related theory suggests that cognitive elements in working memory, long-term memory, and short-term memory are represented as nodes in a network. As a person gains more knowledge in an area and begins to make connections between abstract principles and actual events, links between nodes are created and strengthened. Expert's networks may be more efficient as a result of increased speed through network links. See Debra C. Hampton, "Expertise: The True Essence of Nursing Art," Advances in Nursing Science, 17/1 (September 1994): 15-24.
17. Mihaly Czikszentmihalyi and Keith Sawyer, "Creative Insight: The Social Dimension of a Solitary Moment," in Robert J. Sternberg and Janet E. Davidson, eds., The Nature of Insight (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 1995), p. 340. They also link problem solving to short time-frames and problem-finding to long time-frames in terms of the gestation period of the thinker, [p. 337] This linkage may be true for scientific discoveries, but there is no evidence that particular types of tacit knowledge utilization are always tied to particular time frames.
18. Debbie A. Shirley and Janice Langan-Fox, "Intuition: A Review of the Literature" Psychological Reports, 79 (1996): 563-584, 568.
19. Csikszentmihalyi and Sawyer, op. cit., pp. 339-340.
20. Lynn Rew, "Nursing Intuition: Too Powerful and Too Valuable to Ignore," Nursing (July 1987), pp. 43-45.
21. Csikszentmihalyi and Sawyer, op.cit., p. 342.
22. Csikszentmihalyi and Sawyer, op.cit., p. 347.
23. Csikszentmihalyi and Sawyer, op.cit., p. 349.
24. See Kim Clark, "The Interaction of Design Hierarchies and Market Concepts in Technological Evolution," Research Policy, 14/ 5 (1985): 235-251; Dorothy Leonard-Barton, "Implementation as Mutual Adaptation of Technology and Organization," Research Policy, 17/ 5 (1988).
25. See Kim Clark, "The Interaction of Design Hierarchies and Market Concepts in Technological Evolution," Research Policy, 14/ 5 (1985): 235-251; Dorothy Leonard-Barton, "Implementation as Mutual Adaptation of Technology and Organization," Research Policy, 17/ 5 (1988).
26. See Donald Campbell, "Blind Variation and Selective Retention in Creative Thought as in Other Knowledge Processes," Psychological Review, 67 (1960): 380-400.
27. Arthur Koestler, The Act of Creation (New York, NY: Dell Press, 1964), p. 121.
28. Herbert Simon, The Sciences of the Artificial (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1981), p. 106.
29. Csikszentmihalyi and Sawyer, op. cit., p. 342.
30. The term "creative abrasion" was coined by Gerald Hirshberg, President of Nissan Design International. See Dorothy Leonard-Barton, Wellsprings of Knowledge (Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Press, 1995), p. 63.
31. Nonaka and Takeuchi, op. cit.
32. Charlan Jeanne Nemeth, "Managing Innovation: When Less Is More," California Management Review, 40/1 (Fall 1997): 59-74; Charlan Jeanne Nemeth and Joel Wachtler, "Creative Problem Solving as a Result of Majority vs. Minority Influence" European Journal of Social Psychology, 13 (1983): 45-55; Robin Martin, "Minority Influence and Argument Generation," British Journal of Social Psychology, 35 (1996): 91-103.
33. Charlan Jeanne Nemeth, "Managing Innovation: When Less Is More," California Management Review, 40/1 (Fall 1997): 59-74; Charlan Jeanne Nemeth and Joel Wachtler, "Creative Problem Solving as a Result of Majority vs. Minority Influence" European Journal of Social Psychology, 13 (1983): 45-55; Robin Martin, "Minority Influence and Argument Generation," British Journal of Social Psychology, 35 (1996): 91-103.
34. Charlan Jeanne Nemeth, "Managing Innovation: When Less Is More," California Management Review, 40/1 (Fall 1997): 59-74; Charlan Jeanne Nemeth and Joel Wachtler, "Creative Problem Solving as a Result of Majority vs. Minority Influence" European Journal of Social Psychology, 13 (1983): 45-55; Robin Martin, "Minority Influence and Argument Generation," British Journal of Social Psychology, 35 (1996): 91-103.
35. In a review of literature about diversity, Susan E. Jackson, Karen E. May, and Kristina Whitney report that "there is clear support for a relationship between diversity and creativity." See Susan E. Jackson, Karen E. May, and Kristina Whitney "Understanding the Dynamics of Diversity in Decision-Making Teams," in Susan E. Jackson et al., eds., Diversity in the Workplace: Human Resources Initiatives (New York, NY: Guilford Press, 1992), p. 230.
36. Katherine Y. Williams and Charles A. O'Reilly III, "Demography and Diversity in Organizations: A Review of 40 Years of Research," Research in Organizational Behavior, Vol. 20 (1998, forthcoming). The authors note that the same cannot necessarily be said of the implementation phase of the innovation process. This review also points out that while "functional diversity has positive effects on group performance," other forms of diversity have been found to have negative effects. Information and decision theories maintain that increased diversity more likely has a positive effect on innovations, complex problems, or product designs, (which are the domains about which we are most concerned here), but social categorization and similarity/attraction theories suggest that diversity is more problematic and can have a negative effect on group process and performance. Much depends, then, not only on the task being addressed but on exactly what kind of diversity is being researched, and through what theoretical lens the material is viewed. Clearly, some kinds of diversity can lead to disharmony. As we suggest in this article, the conflict that arises from intellectual disagreement has to be managed carefully, lest it spill over into personal anger.
37. Irving L. Janis, Groupthink (Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin, 1972, 1982). Janis suggests various ways of avoiding groupthink, including assigning someone the role of devil's advocate and inviting into policy discussions outside experts or colleagues not normally included, who would be encouraged to challenge the views of core members.
38. This technique has been much denigrated after laboratory research revealed that "nominal groups" of individuals attacking a problem produced more, and better, ideas. However, such research relied upon highly artificial problems (e.g., what could you do with a second thumb on your hand?) and enlisted individuals who had no prior knowledge of each other. The group dynamics obviously differ in real world circumstances in which participants know each other well (and therefore do not spend time and energy on self presentation), the problem is actual and urgent, and, most important, their background expertise is relevant and probably essential. In short, in the real world, tacit knowledge is critical to brainstorming and we believe that laboratory research underestimates the power of the technique. See Robert I. Sutton and Andrew Hargadon, "Brainstorming Groups in Context: Effectiveness in a Product Design Firm," Administrative Science Quarterly, 41/4 (December 1996): 685-718. Sutton and Hargadon report six important consequences for design firm IDEO as a result of this practice: supporting the organizational memory of design solution; providing skills variety for designers; supporting an attitude of wisdom; creating a status auction; impressing clients; and providing income for the firm.
39. Ove Granstrand, Erik Bohlin, Christer Oskarsson, and Niklas Sjoberg, "External Technology Acquisition in Large Multi-Technology Companies," R&D Management, 22/2 (1992):111-233.
40. Interview, December 10, 1993.
41. John Seely Brown and Paul Duguid, "Organizational Learning and Communities-of-Practice: Toward a Unified View of Working, Learning, and Innovation," Organization Science, 2/1 (1991): 40-57.
42. See Dorothy Leonard and Susaan Straus, "Putting Your Company's Whole Brain to Work," Harvard Business Review, Vol. 75/4 (July/August 1997): 110-121.
43. Product integrity refers to an internal dimension-namely, the product's structure and function-and an external dimension-the product's performance and the expectation of customers. The process of development affects both dimensions. For a discussion of how the innovation process affects outcome, see Kim Clark and Takahiro Fujimoto, "The Power of Product Integrity," Harvard Business Review, 68/6 (November/December 1990): 107-118. See also Marco Iansiti, Technology Integration (Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Press, 1998).
44. Product integrity refers to an internal dimension-namely, the product's structure and function-and an external dimension-the product's performance and the expectation of customers. The process of development affects both dimensions. For a discussion of how the innovation process affects outcome, see Kim Clark and Takahiro Fujimoto, "The Power of Product Integrity," Harvard Business Review, 68/6 (November/December 1990): 107-118. See also Marco Iansiti, Technology Integration (Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Press, 1998).
45. See Dorothy Leonard and Jeffrey Rayport, "Sparking Innovation through Empathic Design," Harvard Business Review, 75/6 (November/December 1997): 102-113. The topic is also discussed in Chapter Seven of Dorothy Leonard-Barton, Wellsprings of Knowledge (Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Press, 1995 and 1998).
46. See Dorothy Leonard and Jeffrey Rayport, "Sparking Innovation through Empathic Design," Harvard Business Review, 75/6 (November/December 1997): 102-113. The topic is also discussed in Chapter Seven of Dorothy Leonard-Barton, Wellsprings of Knowledge (Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Press, 1995 and 1998).
47. Moreover, even in high-volume, highly automated processes, workers' tacit knowledge about the way that particular equipment works and their ability to problem solve is critical to continuous improvement. See Gil Preuss and Dorothy Leonard-Barton, "Chaparral Steel: Rapid Product and Process Development," Harvard Business School Case 9-692-018.
48. Alberto Cambrosio and Peter Keating, "Going Monoclonal: Art, Science and Magic in the Day-to-Day Use of Hybridoma Technology," Social Problems, 35/3 (June 1988): 244-260.
49. H. Zola and D. Brocks, "Techniques for the Production and Characterization of Monoclonal Hybridoma Antibodies," in John G.R. Hurrell, ed., Monoclonal Hybridoma Antibodies: Techniques and Applications (Boca Raton, FL: CRC Press) quoted in Cambrosio and Keating, op. cit., p. 248.
50. H. Zola and D. Brocks, "Techniques for the Production and Characterization of Monoclonal Hybridoma Antibodies," in John G.R. Hurrell, ed., Monoclonal Hybridoma Antibodies: Techniques and Applications (Boca Raton, FL: CRC Press) quoted in Cambrosio and Keating, op. cit., p. 248.
51. Cambrosio and Keating, op. cit., p. 249.
52. See Preuss and Leonard-Barton, op. cit.; John J. Kao, "Oticon (A)," Harvard Business School Case 9-395-144.
53. See Preuss and Leonard-Barton, op. cit.; John J. Kao, "Oticon (A)," Harvard Business School Case 9-395-144.
54. See Scott D.N. Cook and Dvora Yanow's account of three flute workshops in "Culture and Organizational Learning," Journal of Management Inquiry, 2/4 (1993): 373-390.
55. For an explanation of "community of practice," see Jean Lave and Etienne Wenger, Situated Learning: Legitimate Peripheral Participation (New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 1991). For an application of the idea to organizations and businesses, see John Seeley Brown, "Changing the Game of Corporate Research: Learning to Thrive in the Fog of Reality," Raghu Garud, Praveen Rattan Nayyar, and Zur Baruch Sapira, eds., Technological Innovations: Oversights and Foresights (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1997), pp. 95-110; John S. Brown and E.S. Gray, "The People Are the Company," Fast Company, (premiere issue), pp. 78-82; Etienne Wenger, "Communities of Practice: Where Learning Happens," Benchmark (Fall 1991), pp. 82-84.
56. For an explanation of "community of practice," see Jean Lave and Etienne Wenger, Situated Learning: Legitimate Peripheral Participation (New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 1991). For an application of the idea to organizations and businesses, see John Seeley Brown, "Changing the Game of Corporate Research: Learning to Thrive in the Fog of Reality," Raghu Garud, Praveen Rattan Nayyar, and Zur Baruch Sapira, eds., Technological Innovations: Oversights and Foresights (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1997), pp. 95-110; John S. Brown and E.S. Gray, "The People Are the Company," Fast Company, (premiere issue), pp. 78-82; Etienne Wenger, "Communities of Practice: Where Learning Happens," Benchmark (Fall 1991), pp. 82-84.
57. For an explanation of "community of practice," see Jean Lave and Etienne Wenger, Situated Learning: Legitimate Peripheral Participation (New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 1991). For an application of the idea to organizations and businesses, see John Seeley Brown, "Changing the Game of Corporate Research: Learning to Thrive in the Fog of Reality," Raghu Garud, Praveen Rattan Nayyar, and Zur Baruch Sapira, eds., Technological Innovations: Oversights and Foresights (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1997), pp. 95-110; John S. Brown and E.S. Gray, "The People Are the Company," Fast Company, (premiere issue), pp. 78-82; Etienne Wenger, "Communities of Practice: Where Learning Happens," Benchmark (Fall 1991), pp. 82-84.
58. For an explanation of "community of practice," see Jean Lave and Etienne Wenger, Situated Learning: Legitimate Peripheral Participation (New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 1991). For an application of the idea to organizations and businesses, see John Seeley Brown, "Changing the Game of Corporate Research: Learning to Thrive in the Fog of Reality," Raghu Garud, Praveen Rattan Nayyar, and Zur Baruch Sapira, eds., Technological Innovations: Oversights and Foresights (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1997), pp. 95-110; John S. Brown and E.S. Gray, "The People Are the Company," Fast Company, (premiere issue), pp. 78-82; Etienne Wenger, "Communities of Practice: Where Learning Happens," Benchmark (Fall 1991), pp. 82-84.
59. Helga Wild, Liby Bishop, and Cheryl Lynn Sullivan, "Building Environments for Learning and Innovation," Institute for Research on Learning Report to the Hewlett-Packard IRL Project, Menlo Park, CA (August 1996).
60. Brown and Duguid, op. cit.
61. See "Fire and Forget?" The Economist, U.S. Edition, April 20, 1996, p. 51. Similarly, Freda Line, the membership manger of Britain's Employers Forum on Age (EFA), points out that many down-sizing companies have had to hire back as consultants those employees who have taken early retirement. It is not so much the skills and experience that are needed, but many of those people "understood the crucial development history of their businesses - a vital part of corporate memory." See Tim Dawson, "Firms See Downside of Down-Sizing," The London Times, June 1, 1997.
62. See "Fire and Forget?" The Economist, U.S. Edition, April 20, 1996, p. 51. Similarly, Freda Line, the membership manger of Britain's Employers Forum on Age (EFA), points out that many down-sizing companies have had to hire back as consultants those employees who have taken early retirement. It is not so much the skills and experience that are needed, but many of those people "understood the crucial development history of their businesses - a vital part of corporate memory." See Tim Dawson, "Firms See Downside of Down-Sizing," The London Times, June 1, 1997.
63. See Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, Flow (New York, NY: Harper & Row, 1990).
64. Csikszentmihalyi, op. cit.
65. See discussion of guiding visions in H. Kent Bowen, Kim B. Clark, Charles A. Holloway, and Steven C. Wheelwright, "Development Projects: The Engine of Renewal," Harvard Business Review, 72/5 (September/October, 1994): 110-120.
66. H. Kent Bowen, Kim B. Clark, Charles A. Holloway, and Steven C. Wheelwright, The Perpetual Enterprise Machine (New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 1994), p. 74.
67. Nonaka and Takeuchi, op. cit., pp. 12-16.
68. Angela Dumas, "Building Totems: Metaphor-Making in Product Development, " Design Management Journal, 5/1 (Winter 1994): 70-82.
69. Personal communication, December 1997.
70. Howard Gardner, Frames of Mind: The Theory of Multiple Intelligences (New York, NY: Harper Collins, 1993).
71. Leonard and Straus, op. cit.
72. Interview, February 28, 1994.
73. Interview, November 1984.
74. Lisa Hope Pelled, "Demographic Diversity, Conflict, and Work Group Outcomes: An Intervening Process Theory," Organization Science , 7/6 (1996): 615-631. Pelled lumps creative idea generation, decision making, and problem solving together in her definitions of cognitive tasks and considers group tenure, organizational tenure, education, and functional background to be job-related diversity. "The more job-related a particular type of diversity is, the stronger its relationship with substantive conflict will be. . . . The more visible a particular type of diversity is, the stronger its relationship with affective [i.e., emotional] conflict will be." [p. 3] The literature reviewed by Williams and O'Reilly [op. cit.] seems to concur. The claim that diversity is beneficial for groups is based on variation in individual attributes such as personality, ability, and functional background.
75. Lisa Hope Pelled, "Demographic Diversity, Conflict, and Work Group Outcomes: An Intervening Process Theory," Organization Science , 7/6 (1996): 615-631. Pelled lumps creative idea generation, decision making, and problem solving together in her definitions of cognitive tasks and considers group tenure, organizational tenure, education, and functional background to be job-related diversity. "The more job-related a particular type of diversity is, the stronger its relationship with substantive conflict will be. . . . The more visible a particular type of diversity is, the stronger its relationship with affective [i.e., emotional] conflict will be." [p. 3] The literature reviewed by Williams and O'Reilly [op. cit.] seems to concur. The claim that diversity is beneficial for groups is based on variation in individual attributes such as personality, ability, and functional background.
76. Especially Nonaka and Takeuchi, op. cit.; Leonard-Barton (1995), op. cit.
77. Especially Nonaka and Takeuchi, op. cit.; Leonard-Barton (1995), op. cit.
78. For suggested ways of producing "light instead of heat" in very disparate groups, see Leonard and Straus, op. cit..
79. Dorothy Leonard and Sylvia Sensiper, "American Management Systems: The Knowledge Centers," Harvard Business School Case N9-697-068.