The role of explicit and implicit knowledge in work performance

The article aims at the question if performance advantages of experts do relate to certain properties of their implicit and explicit knowledge. An overview on features of explicit and implicit knowledge shows divergent results from different research perspectives. Moreover, current research paradigms do not allow a direct comparison of explicit and implicit knowledge in a real world domain. A new approach to facilitate such a comparison is presented. A sample of fifteen nurses completed an interview on explicit professional knowledge. These nurses had to act in a critical nursing situation and their action-guiding implicit knowledge was explicated. Groups of successful and unsuccessful performers were established. Results from the professional knowledge test and the method for explication were compared by means of the Formal Concept Analysis regarding content and structure of explicit and implicit knowledge in the two performance groups. Several differences between good and poor performers were found. For example, poor performers revealed more emotional contents in their explicit knowledge than good performers meanwhile good performers had more flexible implicit knowledge than poor performers. The results are discussed in relation to methodological issues and practical consequences for knowledge management.