An empirical research on tacit knowledge explicitation in knowledge management and technologic innovation performance

The 21st century is the knowledge economy age, and it's increasingly important to reinforce knowledge management for obtaining enterprise's competitive advantage and development. Tacit knowledge explicitation is a significant activity and mission in knowledge management, and therefore, it's necessary to conduct this research. In this paper, based on sample data of some Chinese enterprises in knowledge-intensive industry, we use structure equation modeling (SEM) to analyze how the information resource, system structure, situational system factors affect the tacit knowledge explicitation and subsequently enterprise's technologic innovation performance. We find: information resource, system structure, situational system factors have markedly positive impact on tacit knowledge explicitation; Information resource factor, situational system factor, tacit knowledge explicitation have remarkably positive impact on technologic innovation performance; System structure factor has indirect impact on technologic innovation performance working through tacit knowledge explicitation, and information resource factor is distinctly correlated to situational system factor, presenting significant synergistic effect between them. Finally, we present research conclusion and limitation, and some countermeasures & proposals to promote tacit knowledge explicitation, and thus improve technologic innovation performance.