Perspectives on knowledge in innovation management

Int. J. Management Concepts and Philosophy, Vol. 5, No. 4, 2011

Perspectives on knowledge in innovation management – some steps toward developing a framework for tacit knowing Håvard Åsvoll and Lars Øystein Widding* Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Alfred Getz veg 3, Trondheim, Norway E-mail: [email protected] E-mail: [email protected] *Corresponding author Abstract: This paper outlines a framework for how tacit knowing can be managed by an innovation manager in the process of radical innovation. The tacit knowing perspective is discussed in terms of dynamic knowledge aspects such as proposition, skill and familiarity. Tacit knowing is compared with two other influential views of knowledge in relation to innovation management: the positivistic and externalised perspectives. In light of the tacit knowing perspective an instrumental case study of Steve Jobs as an innovation manager for the Mac project is presented. The instrumental case suggests that focus on potentially dynamic and artful execution of knowledge aspects may be of importance in the management of radical innovation. This can also be considered a challenge to the positivistic ideal of knowledge, and questions the dichotomised tacit-explicit dimension of knowledge in management research. Keywords: positivistic knowledge; externalised knowledge; tacit knowing; propositional knowledge; skill knowledge; knowledge by familiarity; radical innovation. Reference to this paper should be made as follows: Åsvoll, H. and Widding, L.Ø. (2011) ‘Perspectives on knowledge in innovation management – some steps toward developing a framework for tacit knowing’, Int. J. Management Concepts and Philosophy, Vol. 5, No. 4, pp.389–402. Biographical notes: Håvard Åsvoll is an Associate Professor in Organisational and Leadership Studies at North-Trøndelag University College in Norway. He is an author of published and forthcoming articles in journals such as Academy of Strategic Management Journal, Journal of Entrepreneurship and Journal of Entrepreneurship Education. Lars Øystein Widding’s research field is within commercialisation of technology. He has published papers related to entrepreneurs as knowledge managers, business angels, venture capital and spin outs from universities. He is currently working as an Associate Professor at Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) and a part-time academic post at Bodø Graduate School of Business (HHB). He is also the Founder and the Coordinator of the NTNU School of Entrepreneurship, and has several years of practise in leading positions, both from the military, private sectors and as a member of different boards.

Copyright © 2011 Inderscience Enterprises Ltd.

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H. Åsvoll and L.Ø. Widding

Introduction and focus

The aim of innovation management is to become better at identifying, developing and launching innovations with regard to services, technology, products, and processes in order to give a company a sustainable competitive advantage. This is not just about incremental improvements, but it can involve radical innovations which emerge with potentially severe effects on the established economic and technological systems (Schumpeter, 1934). In specific situations a manager must decide and rely on his or her knowledge about how radical innovations should be handled. At this point there will be no clear cut and ready-made answers, no accepted knowledge is available and there are no agreed models which can guarantee ‘the correct’ managerial decision.1 This suggests the need for better management of the radical innovation process. The perspective of tacit knowing is one way of focusing on some of the complexities in radical innovation management. This paper supports the knowledge creation theory (KCT) view of radical innovation (Nonaka and Takeuchi 1995). It aims to complement this view by highlighting the perspective of tacit knowing. There are two factors in tacit knowing which are shared with the knowledge creation view, namely the emphasis on innovation as a dynamic process and the importance of different types/aspects of knowledge. But in contrast to the KCT, the focus of tacit knowing is on the potentially mutual dependent relationship between tacit and explicit knowledge and the artful personal aspects involved in this process. This paper aims to question the dominant and dichotomous (tacit-explicit) view of knowledge in management literature. This is done by looking at how the different aspects of knowledge are used or are not used by the manager. The paper does not neglect the complexities and the different textures in innovation processes or their different levels, but it focuses on the knowledge innovation process conducted by the manager. The specific focus is on the manager’s personal knowledge and whether the manager can function as a catalyst and facilitator of radical innovation. Although there are differences in the understanding of knowledge innovation with respect to how to gain competitive advantages in enterprises, it is possible to identify four characteristics that can be used to analyse knowledge: 1

knowledge which is positivistic, commoditised and propositional, i.e., formulated in words, symbols, models, strategies, tools, methods, action plans, standard operation processes etc.

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tacitness, i.e., the extent to which knowledge is externalised, decoded and ‘propositionalised’ (Nonaka and Takeuchi, l995)

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context specificity, i.e., the degree to which knowledge relies on its environment (Nelson and Winter, 1982)

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dispersion, i.e., the number of people who own knowledge and share information sharing (Hedlund, 1986).

This paper will present a fifth view; namely the potential importance of the interwoven and dynamic quality of knowledge aspects used by the innovation manager. This perspective articulated here as tacit knowing is based on Johannessen’s (1999, 2006) and Nordenstam’s (1983) philosophical innovations. By presenting three different interwoven aspects of knowledge – propositional; skill; and knowledge by familiarity, we wish to

Perspectives on knowledge in innovation management

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shed light on the unpredictable, personal/subjective and artful aspects of the radical innovation processes. In this respect, the paper has two purposes: 1

to introduce the perspective of tacit knowing and compare it with two other views on knowledge

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to show the importance of how the dynamic relations between the aspects of knowledge such as tacit knowing are used by innovation managers in radical innovation.

We believe that such a perspective will contribute to a better theoretical understanding of the nature of knowledge involved in innovation management. A greater understanding of the tacit aspects of knowledge can potentially improve research on the use of knowledge in innovation management. Seeing knowledge as an intertwined and complex phenomenon has the potential of fully revealing its manageability. It can also be helpful to managers as a tool to manage and run radical innovation projects more efficiently. The paper will first present the two accepted views of knowledge. The perspective of tacit knowing will then be presented and positioned with regard to these two views. The perspective of tacit knowing will then be developed through an instrumental case study based on Steve Jobs who developed the Macintosh computer. Finally we will outline what lessons researchers and innovation managers could learn from employing the framework of tacit knowing.

1.1 The positivistic view of knowledge Positivistic epistemology emphasises the absolute, static, and non-human nature of knowledge, typically expressed in propositions and formal logic (Popper, 1972). This is the traditional approach to knowledge in management literature (e.g., Holsapple and Joshi, 2004) and it is reflected in the vast majority of business plans. It involves the assembly of resources (knowledge) prior to the innovation process. From the view of the innovation manager the emphasis is on the pre-launched strategies, and experience about how the constituent parts of the radical innovation such as research and development, marketing, production, and finance are assembled and codified and are just waiting to be ordered. Management is characterised by a rational decision-making and a planning approach which underpins the traditional management model. It is possible here to use a train metaphor – knowledge and experience are ordered like railcars on a train, with a predictable and clear track laid out ahead. Once the train is assembled, the radical innovation is initiated and it can be implemented with a full head of steam. But radical innovation involves unknown elements and uncertainties and the more radical the innovation the greater these are. Difficulties arise if innovation managers keep looking for that elusive ‘right answer’ or the a priori right track-based solely on propositional knowledge. If managers continue to build more and more precise theoretical frameworks to help a firm to logically deduce a single universal strategy, testing these frameworks with marked (empirical) data to explain and predict the firm’s radical innovative activities, the manager may tend to seek the one and only ‘truth’ or ‘right answer’. Certainly, propositional analysis and knowledge can explain how a manager has created value through radical innovation after it has happened. It may also be able to tell an innovation manager ex ante where he or she might find value, or provide a procedure and checklist of the issues they should be aware of. But it cannot specify exactly how an

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innovation manager finds a way to create value or implement innovation by finding an unfulfilled customer need or a new way of fulfilling an existing need, such as using new resources or a new combination or the application of existing resources. The danger of the propositional ‘train’ knowledge approach is that it reduces the flexible allocation and re-structuring of the firm’s resources and the awareness of unforeseen events, and hence it increases the probability of making the wrong decisions if the plan does not work. Propositional knowledge is insufficient when unintended major obstacles occur, e.g., over the value of products; the low efficiency of operations such as R&D, sales, or production in the radical innovation process. This is not to underestimate the value of maintaining propositional knowledge and a strategic and planning focus during the radical innovation process, but in itself this will not be sufficient to achieve progress, optimisation and competitive advantage through radical innovation. In contrast to this positivistic view of knowledge, Nonaka and Takeuchi (1995) proposed that knowledge is not just about a priori propositional knowledge, but knowledge in use, action and processes. However, Nonaka and Takeuchi (1995) also make the claim that tacit knowledge can be measured and externalised in terms of its potential to change a state of affairs.

1.2 The externalisation or ‘converted’ view of tacit knowledge The tacit-explicit dimension of knowledge is one of the most widely discussed topics in knowledge management. Nonaka and Takeuchi (1995) presented a new description of knowledge in an organisational context. Successful innovation then comes from the mobilisation and conversion of tacit knowledge through four modes of knowledge conversion – socialisation, externalisation, combination, and internalisation. This is the so-called ‘SECI’ model. Here we will focus specifically on externalisation and combination, since they are the key elements in Nonaka and Takeuchi’s work on knowledge creation; forming the path from tacit to explicit knowledge and the nurturing of explicit knowledge. Nonaka and Takeuchi’s assumption is that tacit knowledge is a key component of innovation. There are two dimensions to tacit knowledge, one technical and the other cognitive. The technical dimension encompasses the kind of informal personal skills or crafts often referred to as know-how. The cognitive dimension consists of beliefs, ideals, values, schemata and mental models which are deeply ingrained in us and which we often take for granted. As the staff of an organisation possesses both dimensions, they give any organisation much of its competitive advantages and power. Nonaka and Takeuchi define explicit knowledge as something that can be articulated/-externalised in formal language including grammatical statements, mathematical expressions, specifications, and manuals. They conclude that such explicit knowledge can be diffused easily and formally across individuals. For example, a manager might invite a seasoned team of frontline workers to design a training manual that describes their own tacitly acquired skills. Metaphors can be highly effective in conveying the feeling of tacit workplace experience. Thus a product team at Matsushita Electric Industrial Company charged with building a high-speed clothes dryer that operated by means of centrifugal force used the image of stir-frying a Chinese wok to describe the quick, short bursts of movement that would make a rotating drum efficient. Combination is the extension of tacit knowledge into explicit forms that can then be disseminated throughout the organisation. Combination involves the conversion of


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explicit knowledge into more complex sets of explicit knowledge. In this stage, the key issues are the communication and diffusion processes and the systemisation of knowledge. New knowledge is generated in the externalisation. The knowledge conversion involves the process of social processes to combine different bodies of explicit knowledge held by individuals. The reconfiguring of existing information through the sorting, adding, recategorising and recontextualising of explicit knowledge can lead to new knowledge (Nonaka and Takeuchi, 1995).

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The perspective of tacit knowing

This perspective was developed by two Scandinavian philosophers, Johannessen (1984) and Nordenstam (1983) during the 1980s based on and developed from the arguments of Wittgenstein and Polanyi. One of the core insights in this approach is that “knowledge is an activity which would be better described as a process of knowing” [Polanyi, (1969), p.132]. These words stress the dynamic and actionable character of tacit knowing. Tacit knowing consists of three aspects of knowledge – propositional, skills, and familiarity knowledge and concepts such as art and rules of art which can show the extent of the dynamic interplay between these aspects.

2.1 Propositional knowledge The discourse of propositional knowledge states that knowledge should be clearly capable of formulation in words and symbols and it should be empirically-based (Johannessen, 2006). In short the following conditions must be fulfilled: 1

our knowledge must be capable of formulation in some language

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our linguistically articulated knowledge must be supported by experience or be proven by formal means [Johannessen, (2006), p.268].

If this does not occur then it is not legitimate to call ‘knowledge’ propositional knowledge. Indeed a positivist would even say that we have absolutely no claim to know something at all. These constraints seem reasonable, because it would be remarkable to maintain that we know something without ever being able to articulate it in some way. Translated into the context of the innovative manager propositional knowledge may include. •

Knowledge about the company. The manager should have a clear understanding of the company’s needs and strategy so that the manager can identify and pursue relevant ideas. What will determine relevant ideas are technical and marketing needs and organisational resources and constraints (personal competence, available risk capital, physical locations etc.)

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Knowledge about technology. The manager should have a sound understanding of the product and production to be able to realistically asses their technical limitations and advantages.

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Knowledge about market. The manager should be able to define the characteristics of the market for the product and develop a relevant marketing strategy.

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But from the perspective of tacit knowing, propositional knowledge cannot be justified by its own means. This aspect of knowledge needs some additional aspects of practical knowledge, which cannot be reduced to or articulated as propositional knowledge2. A theory or proposition is itself an operation which can be executed more or less intelligently, but we also need skills and recognition to intelligently perform actions.

2.2 Skills as an aspect of knowledge Skills are necessary in order to execute actions and can therefore be considered as the actionable aspect of knowledge. The link between propositional knowledge and skills can have many expressions. Theoretically, these two aspects of tacit knowing can be differentiated, but they are interwoven in real knowing processes executed by experts. “The facts of biology and medicine, for example, can be recognized as a rule only by experts possessing both special skill for examining the objects in question and a special connoisseurship for identifying particular specimens” [Polanyi, (1959), p.23]. Connoisseurship and skill are the indispensable elements of the art of knowing. The aspects of art or craft, as Polanyi (2002, p.31) put it, are connected to maxims; “Maxims are rules, the correct application of which is the part of the art which they govern. The true maxims of golfing or poetry increase our insight into golfing or poetry … but these maxims would instantly condemn themselves to absurdity if they tried to replace the golfer’s skill or the poet’s art”. Maxims as propositional knowledge therefore cannot replace the art of knowing. The practise of these experts can be considered as being dependent on tools, i.e., physical and conceptual tools which can be regarded as; “The act of making them form a part of our body … while we rely on a tool or a probe, these are not handled as external objects” [Polanyi, (2002), p.59]. The embodied act of knowing is also inherently linked to personal commitment. Polanyi (1958) affirmed the irreducible involvement of personal, existential, commitment in the act and art of knowing. The act of knowing includes an appraisal, a personal coefficient and commitment that shape all factual knowledge. Translated to the role of the innovation manager this can be about the drive and commitment to push the idea and get work done and decisions made. It can also be about embodied skills and tools concerning the execution of technological, organisational and marketing matters in decision demanding situations of the innovation process.

2.3 Knowledge by familiarity Knowledge by familiarity is shown and achieved by means of specific encounters with the phenomena. This aspect can be interwoven with; “The skills involved in handling the conceptualized phenomena, our reflective familiarity with them, expressed in the sureness in our behavior towards them” [Johannessen, (1988), p.358]. This is a form of tacit knowing which is based on first-hand experiences. It is often expressed in an illustrative language by examples, analogies, metaphors etc. It is possible to see family likenesses between various situations and analogical likeness that one can learn from in a mode of behaviour that involves language/articulation. Johannessen (1999) suggests that skills research has demonstrated that experience in occupational contexts is of necessity analogical, i.e., based on examples on which enable us to reflect by means of comparative analysis.


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The perspective of tacit knowing should not be understood as criticising the four views of knowledge listed in the introduction, but it should be recognised as an underestimated and alternative view on manager’s use of knowledge in innovation. In this paper the most relevant views to compare with tacit knowing are (1) and (2), even if views (3) and (4) could be very important in a further development of the tacit knowing perspective. View (1), described in the introduction, represents a positivistic ideal of knowledge. Compared to a tacit knowing perspective, it does not acknowledge that there is any more to knowledge than that which fits into propositional knowledge. One of the challenges related to this view is that one tends to assume that people who lack theoretical knowledge in specific areas also lack any knowledge at all of that area. In other words there is little space for a discussion of the difficulties that arise in innovation management. Empirical research by Crossan (1997) supports this criticism when he suggests that many companies have created an over-reliance on the planning process and standardised procedures (i.e., explicit knowledge), but this may change with a “…greater emphasis than ever on innovation and experimentation” [Leybourne, (2007), p.231]. Comparing the perspective of tacit knowing to view (2), Nonaka and Takeuchi (1995) held that the most striking difference is how tacit knowledge can be made explicit. While Nonaka and Takeuchi seem to propose a main strategy – that tacit knowledge should be made explicit through different mechanisms for exchanging knowledge (for example, by using metaphors, analogies and models), it is important to be aware that not all tacit knowledge can be made explicit and externalised in this manner. There is no doubt that the ‘externalisation’ strategy of Nonaka and Takeuchi is important, but it underestimates one way of showing the dynamic of knowledge aspects among innovative managers. The tacit knowing perspective (Johannessen, 1999, 2006) suggests that all our knowledge (tacit and explicit) can be exercised in practise. It is possible to show retrospectively how a manager uses both the theoretical and practical aspects of knowledge by conducting an instrumental case study.

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The instrumental case study approach

An instrumental case study seeks to answer questions that arise from a conceptual review of theories and tries to understand the theoretical framework within a specific setting (Stake, 1995). We use the instrumental case study or exploratory case in Yin’s (1989) typology, to explore how theories play out in a real life context. The particular instance of the role of Steve Jobs at Apple is used as the instrumental case to provide insight into the issue. The process of radical innovation involved in developing the Macintosh computer in a team setting is elaborated on the basis of tacit knowing as a theoretical framework. In case studies there are challenges regarding the determination of boundaries or the unit of analysis (Creswell, 1998; Stake 1995). In this study the boundaries were defined according to a priori categories and theoretical propositions. The boundaries were set within three categories: the idea stage, recruiting and strategic fit. The rationale is to rely on theoretical propositions, i.e., how three aspects of knowledge are combined and then analyse data based on those propositions. The instrumental case study is thus used to provide tentative insight into an issue about how tacit knowing is used in these three areas.

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This involves data triangulation, i.e., choosing descriptions from various sources of research. We have drawn empirical research on this case from Moritz (1984), Sculley and Byrne (1988), Young (1988), Guterl (1984, pp.34–43) and Walton (1985, pp.13–28). The use of different research sources, autobiography, unofficial biographies, and historical analysis has been shown to be a good approach to find information, descriptions and interpretations of the manager’s actions, decisions and knowledge use. We have also used theory triangulation to obtain a more comprehensive view of tacit knowing. It has been proposed that the triangulation of multiple theories can, “produce a richer, more sophisticated understanding of the phenomenon” [Baxter and Babbie, (2004), p.319]. Here, theoretical triangulation means that various theories are examined and compared to facilitate the research question, theoretical insights and practical implications. Using opposing viewpoints can enhance the validity (Denzin, 1970), especially when a broader, deeper analysis of findings is provided (Banik, 1993). In the last section ‘lessons to learned’ we present some theoretical insights and managerial implications which are articulated in the light of opposing theories. The benefits of this type of triangulation hopefully include a better understanding of the tacit knowing phenomenon. The case study presented next tries to show how the tacit knowing comes into play.

3.1 The Apple computer, the project of Macintosh and Steve Jobs Apple is located in Silicon Valley and is a quintessential venture-capital financed high-technology firm. Apple had begun selling personal computers produced in the garage of one of its corporate founders in 1976, and it was incorporated in 1977. Apple’s first important product, the Apple II personal computer, was released in 1977, and by 1982 Apple’s sales had increased to over $750 million. The early 1980s were a difficult period for Apple as it released the Apple III and the Lisa which were both failures on the market. This was after the success of Apple II and there were still little organisational and financial control from the team of top managers. We could say that Apple was in a constant state of confusion, with many different R&D projects going on simultaneously. Within this turmoil the Macintosh group was formed in 1979 to examine the feasibility of developing an extremely low-cost computer for the public. This was an opportunity for innovation, because it demanded a radical reconsideration of design for a PC suited to the home. In this way a high-tech computer at low price could ‘create’ a new market [Sculley and Byrne, (1988), pp.7–8]. Several questions have been asked regarding how Jobs achieved this purpose: “Was it blind luck that offered the opportunities he seized [in starting Apple]? Was his marketing of technology, the development of Apple’s remarkably successful products, and the packaging of computing to the public a product of his particular personality? Was it merely serendipity that threw him into the headlines? Could anyone have sold computers as well, given the go-go years the industry went through from 1978 to 1985?.”

Maybe this case can contribute to give tentative answers to some of these questions especially with regard to how opportunities are sensed and seized. In late 1979, Steven Jobs, one of the Apple’s founders, was removed from the Lisa project. Jobs was attracted to the small Macintosh group. By early 1981, Jobs had started the project and had begun to build up the project team. Jobs was appointed ‘product champion’ and hence he was prepared to battle within Apple for the resources necessary


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to bring the product to market. It was always Jobs who made the final decisions. Here we describe and analyse three aspects Jobs’ role and the processes behind them:

3.1.1 Familiarity and formation of an idea Jobs set several challenges for the project team that demanded a complete rethinking of personal computer design. For example, one of them arose when Jobs began to contemplate the role of computers in society. With the eye of an ethnographer he spent time studying telephones in houses and public offices and noticed that they often sat on telephone books. He also realised that PC could have the same transformative role as telephones had in an earlier period. On the basis of this observation he became convinced that the new computer should have a base similar to the dimensions of a telephone book. This was a much more difficult task because it made it necessary to lay out the interior of the computer in a vertical rather than horizontal manner. It also gave the Mac a distinctive design and made it much more compact [Young, (1988), pp.226–228]. The notion of knowledge by familiarity can explain how Jobs was able to see the family likeness between an everyday observation (telephones on boxes) and a possible new PC design. In Johannessen’s theory (2006) this can be considered as an example of an analogical skill or reasoning which enables the use of embodied skills. The first-hand experience of telephones at home and on boxes activates the manager’s art (skill) and allowed Jobs to realise how this might be transferred into a new design. Eventually the familiar knowledge is transformed into an articulated plan for a new revolutionary design (propositional knowledge). Here it is possible to show how the manager successfully executed a dynamic and coherent use of different aspects of knowing. The manager’s artful execution of a skill consisting of a creative analogy constitutes the early process of radical innovation. This idea also formed the basis for a strategy of recruiting.

3.1.2 The familiarity of recruiting technological (software hardware) knowing To facilitate the idea developed by Jobs, many members of the Mac team were recruited from Xerox Park and the Apple Lisa teams. They were thus able to benefit from the knowledge that had been developed in these earlier projects. However, the Mac team had a plan (propositional knowledge) to adopt many of the features of these machines in a computer that was smaller, faster and much less expensive. Their average age of the team was 28, and for the majority this was their first experience of working on a major project. There was strong emphasis on selected members of the Mac team who were considered key players in the machine’s development. Among the most central were Burell Smith and George Crow (hardware), Andy Hertzfeld and Bill Atkinson (software), Mike Murray (marketing), and Susan Kare (computer artist). There were controversies about the choices of some of these people. But such decisions were up to Steve Jobs, and nobody could contradict him (Moritz, 1984). By 1982 the team consisted of 25 members including engineers, ‘hackers’, industrial designers, which meant that each member was responsible for a large amount of the total design. The selection of these members may indicate that Jobs ignored or lacked knowledge about the Apple Company’s strategic plans. Recruiting people from mainly outside the company also led to a situation where most of them left the company after the project was finished, perhaps due to a lack of loyalty. This was hardly in accordance with

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the firm’s articulated strategy in propositional knowledge terms of becoming a world leading firm. Organisational, technological and market plans and needs were written in documents (propositional knowledge) but it is disputed how Jobs, as an innovative manager, related to this propositional knowledge. However, there is an indication of a lack of dynamic relations between the three aspects of knowledge executed by Jobs, which may in a long run have resulted in a decreasing competitive advantage in the Apple Company.

3.1.3 Challenges regarding strategic fit and knowing The research done by the Mac team shows that many good ideas were ignored because of Job’s preconceptions. For example, in the decision regarding the use of the 5.25 inch or 3.5 inch floppy disk, Jobs wanted the slower, lower-capacity 5.25 inch floppy disk, even though the engineers insisted that the 3.5 inch would be a better solution. Because the maker of the 5.25 disks could not deliver on schedule the engineers prevailed. In this situation there was a contradiction between high-tech vision/strategy of the firm and lowtech solutions proposed by Jobs, or between the propositional knowledge set by the firm and Jobs (knowledge by) familiarity with technological advantages. From the perspective of the firm the negative aspect was also that he made decisions on the basis of ignoring marketing needs. For example, Jobs decided against providing expansion slots on the original Mac which would allow third-party vendors to produce add-on equipment. Jobs wanted the product to be simple, consumer-friendly and used immediately by anyone. It did not allow additional circuitry, because it was to be used only as intended [Sculley and Byrne, (1988), p.162]. All successful personal computers, though, such as the IBM PC, Apple II, and NEC 9800 series, included this add-on capability. Third-party vendors provide value-added to the computer and develop new functions and designs. In fact, they make the computer more valuable and useful. Jobs, however, remained stubbornly opposed to them, perhaps due to a lack of familiarity knowledge of the application context (need for add-on equipment) or ignoring established, propositional, strategic knowledge about market and marketing. Management at Apple was initially ambivalent toward the Mac project. It was only later that management became completely supportive. Maybe ignoring or ignorance of, the need for a strategic fit and the lack of support from the top management was compensated by Jobs commitment and articulated vision. He was determined to build a computer that was in his words ‘insanely great’. A crucial element in tacit knowing is the involvement of personal, existential, commitment in the act and art of knowing (Polanyi 1958). It was about how drive and commitment to push the idea forward were handled and how it is distributed in the Mac team. In brief the role of Jobs as product champion was critical, but he also introduced major complications into the development process. Moritz (1984, p.129) observed that, “Some at Apple thought the entire Mac project reflected a parade of personal idiosyncrasies rather than any grand design. There was no plan of Napoleonic proportions. False starts, diversions, mistakes, experiments, rebellion, and competition formed the stuff of the machine”. In other words, Jobs displayed skills and knowledge by familiarity and personal idiosyncrasies which were not always interwoven with propositional knowledge; this could and also made the execution of skills (art) full of flaws. It is not possible to conclude if too much ignorance of propositional knowledge made the project and


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outcome better or worse. The ‘worse’ scenario can perhaps be seen in the case when Jobs did not allow add-on equipment and high-tech solutions, and the ‘better’ scenario can perhaps be seen in Jobs’ commitment, autocratic sureness and efficiency. When there is too much trust in familiarity and subjective skills without considering propositional knowledge, it seems reasonable to say that this could have resulted in project failure. This case is an indicator of a sufficient use of tacit knowing in new product development and radical innovation. After all Jobs’ project did succeed and the Macintosh became a major leap forward in personal computers including the introduction of on-screen display with small pictures called, for the first time, icons. To use the computer, the user pointed at an icon and clicked a button using another new device called a mouse. The simplicity of its use, imagined from the outset, was one of this computer’s most attractive features (Guterl, 1984), something which suggests that there is a relevant use of tacit knowing. Maybe another case would show different conclusions. A frequent criticism of case study methodology is that its dependence on a single case renders it incapable of providing a sufficient generalisation (Yin, 1989). In this study multiple and different cases might have produced different conclusions. There is reason to assume that another case(s) of ‘failure’ of radical innovation than Steve Jobs as a single ‘success’ case could lead to different descriptions and conclusions. For example there could be severe challenges with regard to identifying and interpreting the degree to which the three aspects of knowledge interplayed and were used. If cases were presented which show a severe disrupted interplay between the three aspects of knowledge, then it would also be reflected in the conclusion which could say that there are no strong links between tacit knowing and successful radical innovation. In other words, linking data to propositions would be flawed and the instrumental case would not meet the objectives. It should be born in mind that the generalisation of results, from single or multiple cases is made for theory and not for populations (Yin, 1989). It is not necessarily relevant to rely on the sample logic to get satisfactory results. Multiple cases could have strengthened the conclusions by increasing confidence in the robustness of the tacit knowing framework, if the cases were selected on the basis of some ‘success’ criteria of radical innovation management. However, the purposes of the study should establish the criteria of quality. In this way, even a single case could be considered acceptable, provided it met the established objective, i.e., as in this case of Jobs which provides data to highlight insights from the tacit knowing framework.

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Lessons to be learned from a tacit knowing perspective

There are both theoretical insights and practical or managerial implications which can be drawn from this instrumental case study but more as propositions which suggest the need for further research in the perspective of tacit knowing. The management of explicit or propositional knowledge is understood as the management of knowledge-objects typically held as information in the organisation’s information base or in its systems in the form of data records or documents. Most companies assign the management of knowledge to their information and planning departments, which focus on codifying best practise that can be captured, stored, indexed, and retrieved as efficiently as possible The perspective of tacit knowing views all forms of data and propositional knowledge management as a necessary, but not a sufficient aspect of the innovation manager’s practise that can enable business success through radical innovation. The practical

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implication is that tacit knowing can be used to remedy shortcomings in such plans based on propositional knowledge alone, and it can help to create and resolve unpredictable issues. Awareness of the importance of tacit knowing can force managers to take responsibility for their actions, as there may be no explicit and validated knowledge or plan to support decisions. The execution of actions based on tacit knowing is therefore often not known in advance, and such artful action can put the manager at risk, exposing their actions to scrutiny and maybe unwelcome transparency following less successful innovative decisions. Being aware that the risk element in tacit knowing involves different knowledge aspects means that the manager could become better at identifying and measuring the risks faced by the firm and become better at explaining on what grounds and which aspects decisions were taken. A sharper awareness of the role that skills and knowledge through familiarity play in evaluating propositional knowledge can contribute to improved understanding of the limitations of this aspect of knowledge. The tacit knowing view can contribute to a change in the management’s ideal of knowledge. The participation of the innovative manager in shaping his or her knowledge, which in the positivistic view is tolerated only as a flaw or a shortcoming to be eliminated can now be seen as a guide to the manager’s innovative practise. The ideal of knowledge embodied in strictly impersonal statements and propositional knowledge forms can now appear self-contradictory, counterproductive and an inhibition to radical innovations. Perhaps we must learn to accept as our part of our knowledge idea an element that is manifestly personal and tacit, but not always dominantly tacit without theoretical aspects being involved. The theoretical insight is that tacit knowledge has a logical priority, but is integrally related to explicit knowledge, in a way that explicit/theoretical knowledge always has a corresponding tacit aspect (Polanyi, 1958). The strength of tacit knowledge is not that it needs to be converted, but that it can be shown in action on the spot. It is how the manager acts (follows a rule) that can show how we practise our knowing, both theoretically and tacitly. For managerial practise, tacit knowing is action-constitutive and therefore can be considered an important driver in radical innovation process and decisions. The perspective of tacit knowing might appear to be in correspondence to Nonaka and Takeuchi’s (1995) view that the manager’s knowledge perspective can be externalised and captured. It is this ‘externalisation’ perspective of tacit knowledge which has often been the principal reference point in management literature (Gourlay, 2002). But there is another point of view which is less known but which is also more in line with Polanyi’s original epistemological project – this is the focus on how innovation managers use different but potentially dynamic and interwoven aspects of knowledge in the innovation process. According to Polanyi (1958) there are other important modes of articulation than ‘converted’ and verbal articulation. Action as a mode of articulation is as fundamental as language (theory). This non-verbal mode of articulation is central to the perspective of tacit knowing, and it can contribute to enhance our theoretical sensitivity to non-verbal modes of management articulation. The case of Steve Jobs showed how the relationship between aspects of knowledge (tacit and theoretical) influences the process of innovation. This evokes many empirical propositions for further research; how the different knowledge aspects that form the manager’s perspective can be used and how they merge into each other, evolve and consolidate throughout the radical innovation process. Previous research (Wikström and Normann, 1994; Dougherty, 1992; Augier and Vendelø, 1999), has suggested that innovation success and the resolution of


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organisational problems depends on whether it is possible to integrate and utilise distinctive knowledge effectively but the process by which this is done is problematic. The ‘rationality’ behind innovation through a manager’s tacit knowing is not so much a logical (technical/propositional) property as a subjective property. The different views of innovation management, Nonaka and Takeuchi’s (1995) SECI model, the positivistic knowledge or our tacit knowing may appear as equally logical and rational alternatives. They may be hard to distinguish on logical grounds alone. In our terms there must be a subjective sensitivity, an art of knowing what is ‘rational’ as distinct from a logical sensitivity about what is formally consistent. Also, if this is true, presumably the best innovation managers have the greatest amount of it. Perhaps, rather than develop propositional knowledge, this is what we ought to seek to develop in innovation managers in organisations. Maybe the next step of developing the framework of tacit knowing should be to concentrate on how to cultivate the aspects of tacit knowing. Perhaps the tentative framework of tacit knowing can be the first step in enhancing our theoretical sensitivity towards how the interwoven aspects of knowledge can improve radical innovations.

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Notes 1

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Research in new product development and what is called the ‘fuzzy front-end’ stress the point that there seems to be characteristics (uncertainty, ambiguity) in radical product innovations that do not fit well with approaches requiring accurate up-front information and (Montoya-Weiss and O’Driscoll, 2000; Reid and Brentani, 2004). If it where the case that any intelligently executed operation presupposes a prior theoretical operation which in turn has to be intelligently performed, it would be logically impossible to act intelligently. Therefore every theoretical operation has to rest on practise (praxis) or ‘the rough ground’. This argument are postulated by a number of philosophers for example Ryle (1949), Polanyi (1958), Wittgenstein (2002) and Heidegger (1962).