A Framework for Understanding Practical Knowledge

Abstract

This paper explains the key dimensions of practical knowledge. It is argued that practical knowledge and practice are two sides of the same phenomenon and possess objective and subjective dimensions. The development of this paper involved an in-depth review of the workplace learning, cognitive education and practice-based management literatures supported by Giddens and Habermas' insights on action. The proposed framework complements practice-oriented management research. This paper integrates parallel literatures from different theoretical backgrounds in order to explain the main dimensions of practical knowledge. It is argued that PK is constituted by a knowledge dimension and a practice dimension, each of which can, in turn, have explicit and tacit features. By taking a dynamic perspective, this paper suggests an ever-evolving composition of practice and PK, in which explicit and tacit procedural knowledge, together with varied forms of explicit and tacit practice, acquire different configurations depending on embodied capacities, such as skills, tacit understandings, dispositions and the specific space-time and resource limitations. The proposed framework might assist in the task of selecting appropriated learning mechanism for different types of practices, since it recognises different configurations of practice and their associated PK.