PA
PERS
Examples of collaborative information and communication technologies
are project management systems (e.g.,
scheduling software, tracking system);
online spreadsheet; client portals—
software that allows teams to interact,
share files, discuss, chat, plan, organize,
and manage tasks and events in a private online environment (Neely, 2014);
and project extranet—a website that
allows monitored access to partners,
vendors, suppliers, and other participants in a project (Wilkinson, 2005).
With an ever abundance of these
technologies, oil and gas companies
have embraced GDPTs. For example,
Kvaerner structured its oil and gas
design project in a way that the engineers located in Oslo, Abu Dhabi,
Singapore, Korea, Monaco, Perth, and
Fremantle could collaborate and work
together (Munkvold, 2005).
Describing Tacit Knowledge
Previous attempts to provide a uniformly acceptable definition of knowledge have not been successful (Bhatt,
2000; Yih-Tong Sun & Scott, 2005).
Knowledge has been defined variously
by many researchers; one such definition is provided by Propp (1999, p. 227),
who defines this concept as the “content
and structure of the individual’s cognitive system.” Cognitive system is a
mixture of “beliefs, attitudes, values,
opinions, presumptions, and memories” used to create a meaning to a
situation (Yih-Tong Sun & Scott, 2005,
p. 75). A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK ®
Guide) – Fifth Edition, identifies the
application of knowledge as the bedrock of project management practice
(Project Management Institute, 2013).
Being knowledge-intensive, availability
and implementation or transfer of
knowledge such as lessons learned,
completed schedules, and earned value
data from previous projects are crucial
to the successful implementation of any
oil and gas project (Garcia, Lessard,
& Singh, 2014; Project Management
Institute, 2013).
Knowledge is regarded as the
most valuable asset for oil and gas
projects (Edmundson, 2001; McKenna,
Wilczynski, & VanderSchee, 2006). In
most cases, project management offices
(PMOs) are responsible for managing
knowledge across teams (Julian, 2008).
The importance of knowledge has
been demonstrated with organizations
reported to be spending, at any given
time, an average of a trillion dollars
annually to manage and a significant
amount of time to build their knowledge
resources and repository, respectively
(Lohr, 2002). In recent years, companies
have been spending money on project
management software systems such as
Primavera to create solid knowledge
repository. It is debatable, however, if
these software programs are appropriate for capturing tacit knowledge that
has been described as elusive.
Two common forms of knowledge
have been discussed in the literature:
explicit and tacit. For many years, the
focus of research was on explicit knowl-
edge (Zhang, Ordonez de Pablos, &
Zhang, 2012); however, in recent years,
attention to tacit knowledge has been
gaining momentum (Venkitachalam &
Busch, 2012). Tacit knowledge was first
presented in 1958 by Michael Polanyi
(Panahi, Watson, & Partridge, 2013).
Unlike explicit knowledge that can be
easily codified and conveyed in the
forms of written documents such as
reports, technical drawings, manuals,
and operating procedures (Reychav &
Weisberg, 2009; Wei Choo, 2000), tacit
knowledge is different. Tacit knowledge
is individualistic in nature and cannot
be possibly reduced to written docu-
ments (Goffin & Koners, 2011; Nonaka,
1994; Polanyi, 1967; Rosenberg, 1982).
Such knowledge can be gained through
learning by doing, as it is hard to com-
municate. Lam (1997, p. 976) depicts
tacit knowledge with the following state-
ment: “It is indeed a typical situation in
our daily lives that a person can do some-
thing and yet is unable to explain how it
is done. Tacit knowledge begins with
an individual. For instance, a geologist
may develop a unique understanding
that helps create a better process for
undertaking oil field investigation in a
project. Such knowledge is transformed
into project experience that cuts across
and creates value for the project. Table 1
presents an overview of the various
descriptions of tacit knowledge from
some selected previous studies.
There are several examples of tacit
knowledge in the literature—these
include personal technical know-how
or skill, insight, tricks of the trade, and
interpersonal and negotiation skills,
among others (Panahi et al., 2013; Smith,
2001; Tsoukas, 2011). These examples
can fit into two dimensions of tacit
knowledge proposed by Polanyi (1967)
and illustrated further in Nonaka and
Takeuchi (1995): technical and cognitive. The cognitive dimension of tacit
knowledge includes beliefs, values, ideals, vision, goal, schemata, and mental
models (Gore & Gore, 1999; Polanyi,
1997). Cognitive elements of tacit knowledge are embedded in us and we often
do not know how to articulate them;
however, this dimension of tacit knowledge molds our worldview (Lee, 2012).
On the other hand, elements included
in the technical aspect of tacit knowledge are informal personal expertise or
know-how, problem-solving capability,
and knowing-in-action, among others
(Easterby-Smith & Lyles, 2011; Nonaka,
1994). Figure 1 indicates the distribution of examples of tacit knowledge
across the two dimensions.
Tacit Knowledge Sharing
The descriptions of tacit knowledge in
the last subsection have given weight
to the potential significance of sharing this form of knowledge in highly
specialized and complex oil and gas
projects. Knowledge sharing is “the provision of task information and know-how to help others and to collaborate
with others to solve problems, develop
new ideas, or implement policies and
procedures” (Wang & Noe, 2010, p. 117).
The sharing of tacit knowledge is a
practical means of translating specific
