Title: Crafting conversations with dialogic questioning to enable tacit knowledge enlivening in knowledge creation work

Authors: Patrícia Cristina do Nascimento Souto

Addresses: Programme of Post-Graduation in Management, University Center of United Metropolitan Faculties (FMU), Liberty Avenue, 749 – São Paulo, Brazil

Abstract: The purpose of the current conceptual article is to discuss how conversations that support the creation of knowledge (knowing) from others' tacit knowledge need to be carefully, continuously, and responsively crafted to enable the enlivening and communication of such dimension of knowledge. Excessively open, answer-oriented, short-term conversations, and undisciplined questioning chaotically generate outcomes, reducing their pertinence, insightfulness, and contributiveness to knowledge creation. It is argued that knowing-conversations need to be crafted because enlivening and communicating tacit knowledge strongly require time, depth, reflection, and reflexive communication. The author intersected the foundational theory of Polanyi's tacit knowing and concepts of the communications field to approach the crafting of knowing-conversations with a disciplined 'dialogic questioning': a questioning mind, competence, and questioning practices. The article enriches the understanding of knowledge creation from others' tacit knowledge by deepening the comprehension of and addressing the peculiar demands of enlivening and communication tacit knowledge.

Keywords: knowledge creation; tacit knowledge; tacit knowing; innovation; knowledge communication; conversations; dialogue; knowledge work; questioning.

DOI: 10.1504/IJTLID.2015.070368

International Journal of Technological Learning, Innovation and Development, 2015 Vol.7 No.3, pp.191 - 217

Received: 18 Aug 2014
Accepted: 18 Aug 2014
Published online: 03 Jul 2015 *

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