Do we tell more than we know? Examining the value of novelty in advancing the concept of tacit knowledge

Despite the ongoing interest in the concept of tacit knowledge and the continual conceptual development of the idea, little attention has been paid to whether this ongoing novelty has done much to advance the concept. This development paper seeks to examine the value of developing new conceptual ideas in advancing the concept of tacit knowledge within knowledge management discourse. It does so by looking at the development of the tacit knowledge idea within knowledge management through the lens of social science and management literature on business concepts. The paper argues that whilst conceptual novelty has done much to draw attention to hitherto ignored aspects of tacit knowledge without simply repackaging old ideas, it has done so at the expense of giving tacit knowledge a faddish quality at the expense of a firm grounding in its philosophical roots.