Tacit Knowledge Collectivized in Teams

Abstract

This paper reports and discusses the action research project undertaken by MBA students with respect to actively embodied team learning. The teams undertook a number of consultancy projects for local companies. A range of tools and techniques were employed to promote corporate vision, reflective learning-in-action and to access tacit knowledge. It was seen that the successful teams evolved into micro learning organisations through a staged process of transformation. These stages - based upon models of individual and group development- were related to each other as entwining spirals that complemented, responded to and extended upon each other. We were concerned particularly to map individual and personal development aspects. This model can be employed to improve corporate training and development by inverting the traditional H.E. “pyramid” (of theory first, then knowhow and lastly personal qualities and attitudes). This process is in accord with other recent research concerning management development such as the report of the Torino group, 1998,”Re-designing Management Development in the New Europe.”