The Expression And Sharing Of Tacit Knowledge Based On Cognitive Map

In the knowledge economy era, the status of knowledge as a factor of production has been hugely boosted. Era of knowledge economy brought to us a radical change, as one of the most important organization in the economy society, business is aware of this change firstly. Through knowledge, modern enterprises create competitive advantage in the transformation. Enterprises and their managers put more and more emphasis on the role of collaboration and learning in decision-making process. Therefore, how to further comprehend the relationship between decision-making and tacit knowledge to improve decision-making knowledge content, create scientific decision-making, is the issue that all enterprises and their managers are deeply concerned. Based on the status of enterprise’s tacit knowledge and importance of tacit knowledge management, the author proposes a new explicit management method regarded as a series of tools, processes and systems for tacit knowledge-cognitive map.This paper conducted a comprehensive study of domestic and overseas related research, and then summarized the shortcomings of those research as follows:(1) people have unsuccessfully consensus of the terms which are related to tacit knowledge; (2) many people focus on theoretical research and pay little attention to the real cases; (3) people’s research perspectives are general, but the research methods are simplified; (4) there is the lack of the targeted tacit knowledge management program. Hence, the author’s research will focus on the main content identified as a cognitive map-based expression and sharing of tacit knowledge-the so-called cognitive map-based tacit knowledge management is mainly focus on the expression of an individual or organization’s cognitive tacit knowledge sharing, as well as having the multi-level analysis on the carrier of the tacit knowledge from the content and form aspect, with a view to provide a graphic thinking framework integrated with logic and computation for business decision makers and finally to achieve the intuition decision-making support under the general actual situations.In our study, this article follow the principle base on inheritance combined with innovation and theory combined with practice, use the literature research method, comparative analysis method, constructivism and the positivism method, conceptual network analysis method, ANP analysis method, the simulation analysis and a series of quantitative research methods. The whole dissertation contain six chapters except the introduction, the main contents are as follows:Chapter I:Overview of the basic concept and basic theory. This chapter explains the methodology and technical line of this study, clarifies the terminology (organizational tacit knowledge, mental models, cognitive maps), cards a foundation based on three relevant theories-constructivist theory, knowledge organization theory and intuitive decision-making theory; makes an analytic approach for cognitive map in four-dimensions-meaning dimension, domain dimension, approach dimension and analysis dimension. All of above is regarded as the theory in advance and build up the foundation of chapters discussed below.Chapter II:The General management of tacit-knowledge-cognitive-map based on meaning dimension. Regarding maps as General tacit-knowledge management tools, chapter II creatively puts forward the narrow sense cognitive-map and generalized one, points out the background, scope and unified approach of the generalized cognitive map, presents the carriers for academic tacit knowledge-the instances of generalized cognitive maps for scientific community. Then, under the domain dimensions, Chapter II carries out some microcosmic comparison of those cognitive maps from the node&connection metaphor and the real case scenarios. Finally, this chapter summarizes the evolution and development of the narrow cognitive maps in the point of view of disciplines and methodology.Chapter III:The expression of tacit knowledge-cognitive map-based approach dimension. The author have the comprehensive analysis of the structure of the narrow cognitive map from the nodes, metaphor of arrow lines, weights, meaning of loops, etc, and points out the expression perspective of narrow cognitive map. On a multi-disciplinary basis, this chapter summarizes the process of tacit knowledge mining and construction by comparison, analogy, relationship, etc. It is divided into five steps; basing on causal mapping, taking root analysis method, system dynamic methodology, builting a cognitive map-based integreted approach of tacit knowledge mining and construction. Chapter IV:The sharing of tacit knowledge-cognitive map-based domain dimension. Grounding on the perspective of cognitive map-based tacit knowledge sharing, the author proposes that the sharing process is the key by which personal cognitive map changes to the organization cognitive map. In hence, chapter III first introduces the community limits the concept of the individual and the organization, then uses shared mental model to clarify the mechanism of the sharing, and finally reveals how to achieve consistency on the shared mental model in the community: group mapping those qualitative methods for the promotion of dialogue sharing, or math-oriented thechniques for combining and decomposing a cognitive map. In the end of this chapter, the author explores the cognitive map’s significance for tacit knowledge in order to build a connecting link between the preceding and the following.Chapter V:Re-expression and re-sharing of tacit knowledge-cognitive map-based analysis dimension. In this chapter the author introduces the analysis dimension of cognitive map, which is executed as the re-expression and re-sharing of tacit knowledge. After reviewing and comparing the existing different cognitive models, tools and analytical indicators, the author determines that the analytical ideas’ evolution trend is from qualitative analysis to quantitative analysis. As presenting two pairs analysis dimensions(part/overall and logical/computational),we propose the partial analysis method for the content-the concept network analysis and the whole analytical methods for the structure-ANP method and simulation method, which is complied with the transformation from qualitative analysis to quantitative analysis in general.Chapter VI:An empirical Study:building the cognitive map-based management solutions under the enterprise intuitive decision-making situations. During the study, the author sets a specific research context to illustrate a specific goal for the specific research objects, that is Wuhan Iron and Steel Group’s sustainable development issues under the low-carbon economic environment, and then starts to build a cognitive map-based intuitive decision-making case, flexiblely analyzes the cognitive map through multi-level and multi-approach analysis methods. Finally, Chapter VI summarizes the research conclusion and proposes a cognitive map application with difficulties in the actual research, sums up the prospects of cognitive maps’ applications.