To cope and compete in this rapidly-changing world, organisations need to access and apply new knowledge. While explicit knowledge is important, what is often critical is an organisation’s ability to create, access, share and apply the tacit or un-codified knowledge that exists among its members, its network and the wider innovation system of which it is a part.
This UNU-MERIT discussion paper explores the role of tacit knowledge in livestock sector innovation capacity through the case of Visakha Dairy, one of the most progressive producer-owned milk marketing companies in India. Analysis of two episodes in Visakha’s evolution clearly illustrates how it used tacit
knowledge to innovate around challenges.
The paper concludes that while tacit knowledge is clearly a major resource that organisations rely on to cope with change, it does not follow that knowledge management approaches that rely on codifying this knowledge are the way forward.
Instead, what it does suggest is that better management of the learning processes, through which tacit knowledge is generated, would be a more useful contribution to innovation and innovation capacity — in other words, a shift from knowledge management to learning management.
More on innovation in rural development
Fodder innovation project at ILRI
ILRI Clippings 
Happy New Year! I had already read with interest this UNU-MERIT paper. Thank you Peter for posting it! I would not agree more with the first conclusion of the paper. The importance in organisations in setting up a solid learning process to strengthen capacities, includng innovation capacity. This is also my professional lifetime conclusion!
Yet I do not agree at all with the final conclusion on “leaning management” This is a bit OTP, if not decisively wierd. One thing is managing the process of learning another is managing learning. It is the journey that counts not the destination, which by the way in the case of learning, it is never there. The crack of the matter is to start the debate on how to organise then the journey of learning in projects, especiallly with the many around us who want to arrive without travelling.
🙂