6 research outputs found
Rethinking Polanyiâs concept of tacit knowledge: From personal knowing to imagined institutions
Half a century after Michael Polanyi conceptualised âthe tacit componentâ in personal knowing, management studies has reinvented âtacit knowledgeââalbeit in ways that squander the advantages of Polanyiâs insights and ignore his faith in âspiritual realityâ. While tacit knowing challenged the absurdities of sheer objectivity, expressed in a âperfect languageâ, it fused rational knowing, based on personal experience, with mystical speculation about an un-experienced âexternal realityâ. Faith alone saved Polanyiâs model from solipsism. But Ernst von Glasersfeldâs radical constructivism provides scope to rethink personal tacit knowing with regard to âother peopleâ and the intersubjectively viable construction of âexperiential realityâ. By separating tacit knowing from Polanyiâs metaphysical realism and drawing on Benedict Andersonâs concept of âimagined communitiesâ, it is possible to conceptualise âimagined institutionsâ as the tacit dimension of power that shapes human interaction. Whereas Douglass North claimed institutions could be reduced to rules, imagined institutions are known in ways we cannot tell