Transfer of Tacit Knowledge to Organizational Routines: Practical Case of the Vale Project Area

Abstract

In a resource-constrained scenario where the “mantra” is to do more with less, it is mandatory to continually seek best practices, especially when it comes to investments in projects. One usual gap identified by organizations is how to transfer tacit knowledge into corporate routines. In the context of Vale, a methodology was deployed in order to collect, in a structured manner, the experiences with the intention of extracting recommendations that could be incorporated by the organization. The basis of this methodology is structured interviews for the conversion of tacit into explicit knowledge. As a result of this methodology, it was possible to capture and incorporate into a single project 84 recommendations for future projects of the company. The main contribution of this report is to present a semi-structured interview methodology as an efficient way to transfer tacit knowledge from individuals to organizations. We also combined knowledge objects, which proved to be efficient for capturing tacit knowledge that were incorporated into procedures and routines, aiming to extend the performance of future projects.