Tacit Knowledge in Organizations

Front Cover
SAGE, Jul 28, 1999 - Business & Economics - 264 pages
`Philippe Baumard has observed that strategic success seems to lie more in top managers' ability to use tacit knowledge than in their gaining or updating explicit knowledge' - William H Starbuck, New York University

`This important new book effectively illustrates how, in conditions of ambiguity, managers `over-manage', i.e. rely too much on explicit plans and interpretations. Here, Philippe Baumard develops an alternative analysis and with it a new approach to management' - Frank Blackler, Lancaster University

This landmark book delves below the surface of organizations in order to understand the complex processes of top managers' decision making.

Philippe

 

Contents

Knowledge within Organizations
27
Tormented Knowledge
34
From Tacit to Explicit the Conjectural Patterns of Knowing
52
Investigating the NonExpressed
87
Qantas or Collective Wisdom
119
Indigo or Navigating in the Tacit
139
Indosuez or Elusive Knowhow
155
Pechiney in a Too Explicit World
176
The Tacit Foundations of Organizations
197
Conclusion
224
Bibliography
231
92
235
117
241
Case Study References
249
Index
255
Copyright

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About the author (1999)

Philippe Baumard is Professor of Strategic Management, Innovation & Regulation Chair, at the Ecole Polytechnique in Paris. His research addresses the collective use of tacit knowledge by executives in times of crisis. He authored nine books, ranging from economics to strategic management, long-range forecasting, and expert systems applied to strategy implementation. A fellow of the Oxford-Sorbonne Chancellors grant, Dr. Baumard has been a visiting faculty member at New York University, Lund University (Sweden), University of Technology, Sydney, University of California, Berkeley, and Stanford University.

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