The Role of Explicit and Implicit Knowledge in Work Performance1

Abstract The article aims at the question if performance advantages of experts do relate to certain properties of their implicit and explicit knowledge. An overview on features of explicit and implicit knowledge shows divergent results from different research perspectives. Moreover, current research paradigms do not allow a direct comparison of explicit and implicit knowledge in a world domain. A new approach to facilitate such a comparison is presented. A sample of fifteen nurses completed an interview on explicit professional knowledge. These nurses had to act in a critical nursing situation and their action-guiding implicit knowledge was explicated. Groups of successful and unsuccessful performers were established. Results from the professional knowledge test and the method for explication were compared by means of the Formal Concept Analysis regarding content and structure of explicit and implicit knowledge in the two performance groups. Several differences between good and poor performers were found. For example, poor performers revealed more emotional contents in their explicit knowledge than good performers meanwhile good performers had more flexible implicit knowledge than poor performers. The results are discussed in relation to methodological issues and practical consequences for knowledge management. Key words: implicit knowledge, explicit knowledge, performance, Formal Concept Analysis In day-to-day life as in scientific debate high performance is seen in close relation to knowledge. Approaches to pinpoint such special performance to explicit knowledge have not always been successful. Therefore, in the last years, implicit knowledge is becoming a focus of interest in the research of high performance. The phenomenon of implicit knowledge has been investigated from different angles like cognitive, work and educational psychology. Based on these different perspectives varying methods and approaches can be found. The experimental paradigms of cognitive psychology mostly contain tasks where the implicit learning of artificial rules is necessary (see Seger, 1994). These rules do not have any relation with knowledge from the real life in order to ensure comparability of the knowledge bases of the test persons. This advantage turns into a disadvantage if one wants to compare explicit and implicit knowledge in a certain domain e.g., in working. The limitation is problematic from a work psychology perspective since empirical research regarding high performance, expertise, and work experience indicates a close relation between explicitly learned, domain specific knowledge and diffuse, somehow difficult to verbalize knowledge that is acquired implicitly during working. This article describes an approach that tries to integrate different methods in a common framework and that compares explicit and implicit knowledge and its role in (high) work performance aiming at an analysis of the knowledge prerequisites for high performance in working. Theory Quite recently it became apparent that implicit knowledge may play an important role in expertise although the relation between experience and implicit knowledge was outlined by Polanyi as early as 1958. One reason for this might have been that a common definition of expertise is still lacking or, as Sloboda (1991) states, there is no consensus among experts on the issue of expertise. Although expertise is a quite heterogeneous concept, researchers agree that experts usually work faster, more precisely and efficiently than novices and need less resources (Sonnentag, 2000; Speelman, 1998). Usually, experts do not display higher expenditures or better physical abilities than novices do. Differences between novices and experts are found above all in qualitative aspects - in the organization of performance prerequisites for a flexible, situation- and goal-orientated use of resources as well as in meta-knowledge and strategies (Hacker, 1992). …