Tacit and Explicit Knowledge

I work for a family-owned CPA firm, where the owner has been a CPA for the last 31 years. This is an example of tactic knowledge. Tacit knowledge is defined as the knowledge that someone holds in their head. This is in sharp contrast to explicit knowledge, which is the knowledge that can be documented, archived, and codified. Our organization shares explicit knowledge in the software we use, and this is another one of our greatest assets. This knowledge is the database that stores tax laws, changes in filings, and updated records. This explicit knowledge can be searched for, read, and understood.

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Because of the vast amount of tacit knowledge, the owner holds, this often means he is the only one that can make complex decisions. As a result, this means he has the most oversight of our daily operations. As great of an asset as his knowledge is, this presents a problem in identifying that knowledge and sharing it with the rest of us, which can present a significant obstacle when we are busy, and he can not be everywhere at once. We have a diverse staff at the office, some have been in accounting without any formal education for the last ten years, others have some school like myself and others have completed bachelor’s degrees. This presents a broad mix of tacit knowledge that each one of us possesses.

The way we can communicate and share this tacit knowledge is through using examples and, in a sense teaching others and showing them what we know. This channel of transferring tacit knowledge takes patience, and the learner can only progress with time and experience. The learning that this person acquires, in turn, becomes their tacit knowledge, and they can pass it on to someone else that needs it.
Our organization does its best to capture the knowledge of the owner as the owner is involved in every tax return, and he must review it before anything is e-filed. While the owner is considering the tax preparation, he is explaining the thought process that he uses, and we are learning his logic that helps us to be better with the next tax return. In my opinion, there is no solution here to share tacit knowledge. The only solution would be to hire more experienced employees that can bring to the table a higher level of expertise than what is currently the average in our office. This means the most effective way of sharing his tacit knowledge is the way he has been doing it all these years, which is by showing us from example and the learner picking up as much as they can.