1.1 Knowledge
Knowledge is often defined as a “justified personal belief.” There are many taxonomies that specify various kinds of knowledge. The most fundamental distinction is between “tacit” and “explicit” knowledge. Tacit knowledge inhabits the minds of people and is (depending on one’s interpretation of Polanyi’s (1966) definition) either impossible, or difficult, to articulate. Most knowledge is initially tacit in nature; it is laboriously developed over a long period of time through trial and error, and it is underutilized because “the organization does not know what it knows” (O’Dell and Grayson, 1 998, p. 154). Some knowledge is embedded in business processes, activities, and relationships that have been created over time through the implementation of a continuing series of improvements.