Biases and Heuristics in Judgment and Decision Making: The Dark Side of Tacit Knowledge

Abstract

The crux of knowledge management theory is to devise different strategies to capture the tacit knowledge of the people in the organization, to make it explicit and to share it throughout the organization. This paper draws from the literature in cognitive psychology and highlights the limitation of the human mind by observing that knowledge is lost out of memory over time. Judgment and gut feelings are usually associated with different forms of biases and heuristics that may influence decision making negatively by altering the context in which the knowledge has been constructed. The paper argues that the timing and context in which tacit knowledge has been shaped is of immense importance when attempting to capture it. It is suggested that, while striving to capture the tacit knowledge of the individuals, it is important to make sure that it is not under the influence of any bias and its context is accurately perceived and preserved. Biased and incomplete knowledge may do more harm than good and should be avoided.

Intellectual capital in a recession: evidence from UK SMEs

“…There is a level of knowledge that remains tacit within organisations (Shariq and Vendelo, 2010; Maqsood et al , 2004), and many of the respondents were concerned that despite the best forms of codification and documentation all the idiosyncrasies of the jobs that have been learnt through experience will never be fully captured. The respondents highlighted that some employees are reluctant to share all of their knowledge, the knowledge being withheld is seen by the employees as part of their personal assets that will assist them in maintaining their employment as they are in a sense indispensable.…”

The lifecycle of heuristics as managerial proverbs

“…In their review, McClory et al (2017) also use the same framework for conceptualizing the lessons-learned process. Choosing a framework for heuristics from knowledge management is also supported by the work of numerous theorists who link the two literatures (Hazlett et al , 2005; Maqsood et al , 2004). Tsoukas and Vladimirou (2001, as cited in Hazlett et al , 2005) even identify in their definition of the domain the emergence of heuristic knowledge as a key process of knowledge management.…”

“…Not all articulated heuristics have this proverb-like formulation: Intel's rule that Allocation is based on a product's gross margin (Eisenhardt and Sull, 2001) does not rhyme and does not have any humorous twists but is clear and can be easily remembered and communicated. The articulation of heuristics as managerial proverbs facilitates all their important functions as tools for managing knowledge (Maqsood et al , 2004): to capture the tacit knowledge of experienced people in the organization, to make it explicit in a form that is easily remembered by the individual manager herself in order to continuously apply it in her activity, and to make it easy to be shared throughout the organization in formal or informal communication, on account of its proverbial markers.…”

Sustainable challenges and strategies for managing stakeholders in megaprojects: Review of cases from Australia

“…The stakeholder management strategy that was highlighted in a hospital was to use the client relation tool for stakeholder mapping and analysis (Collinge, 2016). Furthermore, Social Network Analysis (SNA) method was widely proposed in determining the indicators of megaprojects with stakeholder perspective (Yang, et al, 2011;Hwang and Ng, 2013), while Maqsood, et al (2004) applied Actor Network Theory (ANT) to observe stakeholder relationships.…”