knowledge
that flows, by being shared, acquired and exchanged, generates new knowledge.
Existing tacit knowledge can be expanded through its socialization in communities
of interest and of practice, and new tacit knowledge can be generated through the
internalization of explicit knowledge by learning and training. New explicit
knowledge can be generated through the externalization of tacit knowledge, as
happens, for instance, when new best practices are selected among the informal
work practices of an organization. Existing explicit knowledge can be combined to
support problem-solving and decision-making, for instance through the application
of data mining techniques to identify meaningful data relationships inside corporate
databases. These four different phases of the knowledge life-cycle—socialization,
internalization, externalization and combination—have been formalized by Nonaka
and Takeuchi (1995) in the diagram in Fig. 1. Under this view, “knowledge
management” can be explained as the management of the environment that makes
knowledge flow through all the different phases of its life-cycle.