Tacit knowledge sharing in online environments: locating ‘Ba’ within a platform for public sector professionals

Presented in this article are some findings from a study which investigates tacit knowledge sharing and social media use. The results reported here derive from a survey completed by members of an online platform that incorporates social media features, and enables information and knowledge sharing amongst public sector professionals. Two main findings emerge from the study. The first is that online social platforms play a strong role in in the facilitation of tacit knowledge sharing, and this leads to outcomes of learning, expertise sharing, problem solving, and innovating. The second is that the online platform is important to the initiation of discussions among experts, the fostering of collective intelligence, and making tacit and personal knowledge visible and accessible quickly, and with minimal effort. This work makes an important theoretical contribution by renewing consideration of the concept of Ba (Nonaka and Konno, 1998), and through the identification of Dialoguing/interacting Ba and Exercising Ba (in addition to Cyber Ba) in online environments