The Dynamic Relationship

Recent research in several apparently unrelated fields has highlighted the insights afforded by distinguishing between two forms of knowledge: explicit knowledge — in its most elaborated form, science — and tacit knowledge — in its most elaborated form, art. Explicit knowledge consists of facts, theories and principles that are codified in research journals, taught in schools, and recorded in industry. In contrast, tacit knowledge is personal and cannot easily be communicated. In industry, tacit knowledge is particularly valued in the skill of a craft worker and the design know-how of an engineer — in general, the accumulated tricks of the trade. This research suffers, however, from an important limitation, a limitation inherited perhaps from Michael Polanyi’s (1958, 1966) original treatment of the issue: it has relied on an exclusively static contrast between tacit and explicit knowledge. In reality, the relationship between tacit and explicit knowledge is not static. For example, while many traditional manufacturing operations rely on extensive bodies of tacit “art ” such as found in the skills of craft workers, these skill