<p>Generally,
the trade supervisors are seen swapping stories about how they have done things
differently in their previous projects that had resulted in saving man-hours and
resources. Since most of them are doing repetitive tasks for years, they rely
mainly on their judgments and intuition while making decisions and have
developed a plethora of knowledge throughout their experience. They often find
it difficult to articulate the knowledge they have acquired most of which is
tacit. There is a need to identify this tacit dimension of knowledge to harness
it effectively as tacit knowledge is one of the factors determining the
competitiveness of a construction firm. The skills shortage in the industry is
further aggravated by the growing workforce. Employee retirements and knowledge
loss are compelling the specialty contracting firms to capture this tacit
knowledge to prepare the future workforce. This study posits an instrument to
gauge the reliance of the field supervisors on tacit knowledge and identifies
barriers to knowledge sharing through case studies involving electrical
contracting firms. The findings of this research clearly show that the
experience level of an individual is related to the reliance on tacit
knowledge. Most of the experienced field supervisors rely on the tacit
dimension of knowledge to perform the major day-to-day routine tasks at the
construction site. The education level of an individual seems to have no
significant relation with the acquisition and usage of tacit knowledge.
Findings also suggest that the viewpoint of the management and the field team
are disparate regarding the barriers to knowledge sharing. Management feels
that lack of formal processes prevents the trade professionals from sharing
their knowledge among themselves whereas according to the field team lack of
socialization is identified as the key barrier. Similarly, managers' resistance
to change is identified by management as the key barrier that prevents
supervisors or managers from sharing their knowledge with the subordinates
whereas, for the field team it is the lack of encouragement from the
management. Moreover, according to management, lack of formal processes is the
key barrier at the organizational level but for the field team, it’s the silo
mentality of the managers. The organizations must incorporate the feedback from
the field team into the decision making related to knowledge management (KM).
The developed framework will benefit the trade contractors to identify on what
type of knowledge the field supervisors are relying to perform a particular
task and eventually categorizing knowledge into explicit and tacit.</p>
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:purdue.edu/oai:figshare.com:article/12118929 |
| Date | 17 April 2020 |
| Creators | Priyansh Dogra (8689728) |
| Source Sets | Purdue University |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Text, Thesis |
| Rights | CC BY 4.0 |
| Relation | https://figshare.com/articles/Reliance_Of_The_Field_Supervisors_On_Experience-Based_Tacit_Knowledge_And_Barriers_To_Knowledge_Sharing/12118929 |
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