Knowledge management for development communities: balancing in the thin divide between tacit and codified knowledge

Abstract

In this paper I review the old divide between codified and tacit knowledge in the field of knowledge management for development with the help of a bibliographic approach. In particular, attention is given to the efforts of knowledge sharing communities to bridge the gap between practitioners and researchers. Journals are taken as the common currency between practice and research for the exchange of knowledge. Through this approach the communities of practice although rich in social interaction, shape not only the ways knowledge is being shared but the content of what is being shared. Disregarding social connotations towards codification, knowledge codification implies a transformation process from where the original idea is less idiosyncratic to the person and becomes more systematic to the group. I illustrate this line of reasoning by using the case of the Knowledge Management for Development Journal (KM4DEV). In making the above-mentioned exercise, I use theories on the divide between tacit and codified knowledge, development studies and context-based knowledge and the method of scientometrics are used.