Supervisors’ Reliance on Tacit Knowledge and Barriers to Knowledge Sharing in the Electrical Contracting Industry

Abstract

The shortage of skills together with the knowledge loss due to employee retirements is compelling trade contractors to capture the know-how from retirees to prepare the future workforce. Compared to explicit knowledge, the tacit dimension is relatively unexplored in the construction industry. To capture tacit knowledge, it should be first identified in practice. This research posits an instrument to gauge the reliance of field supervisors on tacit knowledge and identifies barriers to knowledge sharing through case studies involving electrical contractors. Findings reveal that there is a significant relationship between the individual’s experience and reliance on tacit knowledge, especially field supervisors with 20 years of work experience or more. It is also identified that field staff and management have contrasting opinions regarding the ranking of barriers to knowledge sharing. Management prioritized lack of formal processes as the key barrier to knowledge sharing at the site level, whereas for the field team it is the lack of socialization and encouragement. The proposed study will aid trade contractors to strengthen the existing knowledge-harnessing strategies by categorizing the supervisory knowledge into tacit and explicit, simultaneously identifying barriers to its sharing.