How people learn knowledge in organizationsThrough which knowledge sharing and creation culture being instilled in learners. In this regard, knowledge conversion process between tacit and explicit knowledge would be useful especially from the viewpoint that according to Nonaka (1991), tacit and explicit knowledge are not separate but mutually complementary entities. 

SECI MODEL

• This mode enables the conversion of tacit knowledge through interaction between individuals. One important point to note here is that an individual can acquire tacit knowledge without language. Apprentices work with their mentors and learn craftsmanship not through language but by observation, imitation and practice. In a business setting, on job training (OJT) uses the same principle. The key to acquiring tacit knowledge is experience. Without some form of shared experience, it is extremely difficult for people to share each other’ thinking process.

• The tacit knowledge is exchanged through join activities – such as being together, spending time, living in the same environment – rather than through written or verbal instructions.

• In practice, socialization involves capturing knowledge through physical proximity. The process of acquiring knowledge is largely supported through direct interaction with people.

How people learn knowledge in organizations

SECI MODEL: Socialization

• Externalization requires the expression of tacit knowledge and its translation into comprehensible forms that can be understood by others. During the externalization stage, an individual commits to the group and thus becomes one with the group. The sum of the individuals' intentions and ideas fuse and become integrated with the group's mental world.

• In practice, externalization is supported by two key factors. • First, the articulation of tacit knowledge—that is, the conversion of

tacit into explicit knowledge –involves techniques that help to express one’s ideas’ or images as words, concepts, figurative language (such as metaphors, analogies or narratives) and visuals. Dialogues, "listening and contributing to the benefit of all participants," strongly support externalization.

• The second factor involves translating the tacit knowledge of people into readily understandable forms, into such learning media as printed, audio/visual and digital (multimedia) via either synchronous or asynchronous means.

How people learn knowledge in organizations

SECI MODEL: Externalization

• A process of creating explicit knowledge from explicit knowledge. Combination involves the conversion of explicit knowledge into more complex sets of explicit knowledge. In this stage, the key issues is the systemization of knowledge.

• Capturing and integrating new explicit knowledge is essential. This might involve collecting and combining externalized knowledge from internal or external sources.

• The dissemination of explicit knowledge is based on the process of transferring this form of knowledge directly by using presentations, meeting or conversation. Here new knowledge is spread among the group members (i.e. COP).

• Furthermore, the editing or processing of explicit knowledge makes it more usable (e.g. documents such as plans, report, learning notes, procedures, rules and regulations).

• In the combination process, information-processing approach is fully applied that is to sort, add, categorize, store and disseminate explicit knowledge that can lead to new knowledge.

How people learn knowledge in organizations

SECI MODEL: Combination

• The internalization stage involves the conversion of explicit knowledge into tacit knowledge. This requires the individual to identify the knowledge relevant for one’s self to be embedded into the common knowledge of his/her respective learning group. Learning by doing, training and exercises allow the individual to access the knowledge realm of the group.

• In practice, internalization relies on two dimensions:• First, explicit knowledge has to be embodied in action and

practice. Thus, the process of internalizing explicit knowledge actualizes concepts or methods about the subjects and problems being learned.

• Second, there is a process of embodying the explicit knowledge by using simulations or experiments to trigger learning by doing processes.

How people learn knowledge in organizations

SECI MODEL: Internalization

• Lave and Wenger (1991) suggest a process called Legitimate Peripheral Participation (LPP) in which learners learn in Communities of Practice (CoPs).

• A process by which learners who are members of a COP attempt to negotiate meanings from what they learn day in, day out.

• It involves two sub-processes, participation and reification that form a duality of knowledge concept.

How people learn knowledge in organizations

How people learn knowledge in organizations

• LPP – negotiation of meaning via participation and reification:

• For Wenger (1998) participation is more than engaging in particular activities with a selected group of people.  Learning is social participation, that is, it is a process in which people are not only the active participants in the practice of a community, but also one through which they develop their own identities in relation to that community.  He describes participation as:– ... the social experience of living in the world in terms

of membership in social communities and active involvement in social enterprises ... Participation ... is not tantamount to collaboration.  It can involve all kinds of relations, conflictual as well as harmonious, intimate as well as political, competitive as well as cooperative. (Wenger, 1998: 55-56)

How people learn knowledge in organizations

• Having concentrated on the participation dimension to LPP, Wenger (1998) points out that this remains undefined without the other constituent process that makes up the negotiation of meaning: reification - giving concrete form to something that is abstract.  He uses the concept of reification:– ...to refer to the process of giving form to our experience

by producing objects that congeal this experience into 'thingness' ... With the term reification I mean to cover a wide range of processes that include making, designing, representing, naming, encoding and describing as well as perceiving, interpreting, using, reusing, decoding and recasting. (Wenger, 1998: 58-59)

• He explains that any CoP will produce artefacts such as tools, procedures, stories and language, which reify some aspect of its practice.  However, knowledge has both softer and harder aspects, so participation and reification are indivisible.

How people learn knowledge in organizations