ITPEC FE Morning October 2020 Question 68

Tacit vs. Explicit Knowledge — identify which type of knowledge cannot be easily documented.

Tacit knowledge is personal, experience-based knowledge that is difficult to formalize or transfer through documentation. It is acquired through practice and intuition (e.g., riding a bicycle, negotiating skills, design intuition).

Explicit knowledge, by contrast, can be clearly articulated, codified, and shared through documents, databases, or manuals.

Riding a bicycle requires physical coordination and balance learned through practice — it cannot be fully conveyed by written instructions alone.

Why not others:
- (a) A list of countries and capitals is structured factual data — clearly explicit knowledge
- (b) An inventory of assets is a documented record — explicit knowledge
- (c) A washing machine manual is a written set of instructions — explicit knowledge

Key rule: If knowledge can be written down and transferred as-is, it is explicit; if it requires personal experience to acquire, it is tacit.

AI-generated — may contain errors