An Investigation of the Acquisition and Sharing of Tacit Knowledge in Software Development Teams

Knowledge in general, and tacit knowledge in particular, has been hailed as an important factor for successful performance in knowledge-worker teams. Despite claim s of the importance o f tacit knowledge, few researchers have studied the concept em pirically, due in part to the confusion surrounding its conceptualisation. The present study examined the acquisition and sharing o f tacit knowledge and the consequent effect on team performance, through social interaction and the development o f a transactive memory system (TM S). TM Ss are important for the acquisition and sharing o f tacit knowledge, since they enact ‘collective m inds’ o f teams, and are also a factor in successful team performance. In order to conduct this research, a team-level operational definition o f tacit knowledge was forwarded and a direct measure o f tacit knowledge for software development teams, called the Team Tacit Knowledge Measure (T T K M ) was developed and validated. To investigate the main premise o f this research an em pirical survey study was conducted w hich involved 48 software development teams (n = 181 individuals), from Ireland and the U K . Software developers were chosen as the example o f knowledge-worker teams because they work with intangible cognitive processes. It was concluded that tacit knowledge was acquired and shared directly through good quality social interactions and through the development o f a TM S. Q uality o f social interaction was found to be a more important route through w hich teams can learn and share tacit knowledge, than was transactive memory. However, transactive memory was not a mediator between social interaction and team tacit knowledge, indicating that both provided separate contributions. Team tacit knowledge was found to predict team performance above and beyond transactive memory, though both were significant. Based on these findings recommendations were made for the management o f software development teams and for future research directions.