Towards a conceptual framework for exploring how individuals within organisations share practical knowledge

Abstract

Practical knowledge is key to the success of most organisations, because as part of intellectual capital, it can contribute to sustained competitive advantage. In a context of an aging workforce in many countries, the sharing of practical knowledge is therefore critical prior to the departure of skilled older workers. However, this area remains under-researched. Informed by the literature, this paper therefore develops a conceptual framework of the practical knowledge sharing process. Using the developed conceptual framework is argued to assist researchers in two ways: (1) providing an insight about what to look for during the research and (2) providing an insight into categorising the collected data.