Tacit Knowledge Sharing in Public Sector Departments in Kenya

Abstract

Organizational employees know valuable information but sharing that information throughout the organization is a challenge. Organizational employees need to share problems, experiences, insights, templates, tools and best practices. Many organizations concentrate on hard technology as the only way to gain competitive advantage and ignore the very crucial strategy that gives it a competitive edge. Tacit knowledge well guarded in the employee’s mind is the only non-imitable organizational resource (Senge, P., 1990) [1]. Knowledge focus is the third wave of human socio-economic development, the first having been the agricultural age with wealth being defined as ownership of land and the second being the industrial age where wealth is based on ownership of capital e.g. factories. In the knowledge age, wealth is based upon the ownership of knowledge and the ability to use, create and use it to improve goods and services .This review wishes to expose the challenges of functional boundaries, communication, motivation and organizational culture on tacit knowledge sharing in Kenya public sector organizations. The review will be guided by the following theories: constructivism theory that advocates for creation of knowledge through individual constructs, self efficacy theory where persons believe on their ability to organize and execute courses of action necessary to achieve a goal and Nonaka’s model of knowledge creation which demonstrates knowledge dynamics using the SECI model. The review will also look at other researcher’s literature and display the relationship between tacit knowledge sharing and the four variables.