Supervisors’ Reliance on Tacit Knowledge and Barriers to Knowledge Sharing in the Electrical Contracting Industry
Publication: Journal of Construction Engineering and Management
Volume 147, Issue 5
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.
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Data Availability Statement
Some or all data, models, or code that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request (qualtrics survey format, data collected, analysis results, transcriptions). Some or all data and the instrument used during the study are available in a repository or M.S. thesis (Dogra 2020) or online in accordance with funder data retention policies https://doi.org/10.25394/PGS.12118929.v1.
Acknowledgments
The researchers would like to express their deepest gratitude to ELECTRI International for funding this research. The authors would also like to thank several NECA chapters and the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) Joint Apprenticeship and Training Centers (JATC) for supporting this research.
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Journal of Construction Engineering and Management
Volume 147 • Issue 5 • May 2021
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© 2021 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: Jun 2, 2020
Accepted: Nov 30, 2020
Published online: Feb 23, 2021
Published in print: May 1, 2021
Discussion open until: Jul 23, 2021
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