Based on research aimed at developing a typology of forms of organizational
knowledge, in the domain literature was proposed the takeover of a distinction initially
grasped (sesizate)by epistemologist Polanyi: that between explicit knowledge (articulated),
which is formalizable, accessible and communicable, on the one hand, and implicit
knowledge (tacit), which is subtle, deeply personalized, unofficialized and diffusely present
in the organizational context. Some additional attributes are shown in Table 3.
In their functioning, organizations build their representations about their own state of
knowledge; they face the challenge of finding ways to use what they know, and the
paradoxical finding that they are not altogether aware of what they know, or what they do
not know. In this respect, it is considered anthological the statement made by the former
CEO of Hewlett-Packard, Lewis Platt: "If Hewlett-Packard were aware of what it knows, we
might become three times more profitable". Such knowledge gaps that are found both in
individual subjects and in collective ones (groups, whole organization) can be typologically
assigned according to table 4.