Howells (1996) notes that intuition based on tacit qualities plays an important role in the
innovation process, which shows that a great deal of the knowledge that is important to the
operation or improvement of a given process or product technology is tacit. Tacit knowledge,
which ‘‘cannot be wholly formalized, nor transmitted solely through written documents’’
(Madeuf, 1984, p. 127), is a kind of knowledge which is difficult to codify and embody in a
blueprint or operating manual.