(A) methodology for tacit knowledge management based on the hybrid of cognitive map and case-based reasoning

Abstract

Knowledge is at the heart of knowledge management. In literature, a lot of studies have been suggested covering the role of knowledge in improving the performance of management. However, there are few studies about investigating knowledge itself in the arena of knowledge management. Knowledge circulating in an organization may be explicit or tacit. Until now, literature in knowledge management shows that it has mainly focused on explicit knowledge. On the other hand, tacit knowledge plays an important role in the success of knowledge management. It is relatively hard to formalize and reuse tacit knowledge. Therefore, research proposing the explication and reuse of tacit knowledge would contribute significantly to knowledge management research. In this sense, we propose using cognitive map as a main vehicle of formalizing tacit knowledge, and case-based reasoning as a tool for storing cognitive map-driven tacit knowledge in a form of frame-typed cases, and retrieving appropriate tacit knowledge from case base according to a new problem. Tacit knowledge management framework we suggested includes three phases such as knowledge formalization, knowledge retrieval and adaptation, and problem-solving phase. Tacit knowledge formalization is performed by CM which can represent tacit knowledge hidden in individual’s memory in a form of a set of concept nodes and causality values between nodes. After multiple CMs have been explicated and stored as cases in case base, then we can retrieve such case from the case base considering the characteristics of problem on hand. This is knowledge retrieval and adaptation phase. Then, the final phase of our proposed tacit knowledge management is problem-solving phase in which a set of retrieved CM cases are applied to the given problem, and we can perform an appropriate inference with those retrieved CMs which would result in proper solutions or intuitions to the problem. If this use of tacit knowledge is repeatedly done in an orga...