Tacit knowledge sharing in online environments: Locating ‘Ba’ within a platform for public sector professionals

This article presents preliminary findings from a larger doctoral study which investigates tacit knowledge sharing and social media use. The results reported here are from a survey completed by members of an online platform that incorporates social media features and enables knowledge sharing amongst public sector professionals in Scotland. There are two main findings from the study explored in this paper. The first relates to the various roles that an online platform may play in the facilitation of tacit knowledge sharing, apparent around learning processes, expertise sharing, problem solving and innovation. The second relates to how social interactions are supported online, allowing discussions among experts to be initiated, fostering collective intelligence and enabling tacit and personal knowledge to become visible, and accessible, while decreasing the time and the effort required. The outcomes of the research additionally suggest that three aspects of the concept of Ba (or space), as proposed by Nonaka and Konno (1998), can be found in online environments. These aspects are Dialoguing/Interacting Ba, Cyber Ba and Exercising Ba.