A new tool called “ driver” came in. I had my own knowledge about that tool. So I contributed to the wiki to how to use “driver” to make others life easier.

These wikis are open-ended. So when you contribute to these wikis, anybody can see it.

We also found that employees share tacit knowledge to solve internal technical problems. For example, one such example was found in organization C’s support for Mac computers and the Mac platform. Officially, organization C does not endorse Mac computers and platform for inpidual use, so if an employee decides to use Mac officially s/he does not get service from Mac sellers. Still, many employees in organization C use Macs for different official works. So they developed a wiki-based community to share solutions to different problems associated with Macs. A few expert Mac users initiated this community and eventually other employees started to participate. As described by an interviewee from organization C,

Our organization is going to pay for a Mac if you decide to have one. But they tell you that there is not going to be any further service. At first I was a little hesitant but at the same time I wanted to use a Mac. So, I went for it couple of years back and came to know about this community. Since then I have been religiously following this wikiC-based community for Mac users. It was initiated by a few expert Mac users. Now all the Mac users not only get help from it, they share their own experience of troubleshooting in Mac to help others. I have also shared my experience there. Over time it has become so effective that it has become an unofficially “official” support center for Macs in our organization.

Such examples underline the success of web 2.0 based KM in facilitating tacit knowledge sharing among inpiduals in an organization.

Tacit knowledge is an important source of competitive advantage for organizations (Frappaolo & Wilson, 2003). However, defining tacit knowledge is a difficult task as tacit knowledge is deeply rooted in each inpidual’s actions and experiences (DeSouza, 2003).

One of the major challenges for KM is to convert tacit knowledge to explicit knowledge in a way that it can be passed along to others (Carroll et al., 2003) as tacit knowledge exchange

Nath/Journal of Accounting – Business & Management vol. 22 no. 2 (2015) 17

among workers requires a more “people-centric” approach “dialogue” between inpiduals instead of merely distributing and receiving information (DeSouza, 2003). Our results indicate use of web 2.0 at the inpidual level KM has a positive effect on the tacit knowledge sharing by creating an environment of informal interactive information sharing among inpiduals. This finding suggests that web 2.0 based KM at inpidual level can increase sharing of tacit knowledge among employees of an organization. Capturing tacit knowledge is a concern for the management and our findings has implications for management to identify the potential of web 2.0 in promoting tacit knowledge sharing between inpiduals.

Our results also indicate that it might take time for wiki-like web 2.0 technology to flourish and become effective in the facilitation of tacit knowledge sharing. We also found that an initiative from experts within an organization to share their expertise can eventually lead to more participation and tacit knowledge sharing by other inpiduals in that organization. For example, the Mac support group wiki was initially started by few experts, and then other inpiduals contributed knowledge to the wiki. Hence, to promote tacit knowledge sharing among employees, we suggest that management should take a more proactive le in setting up a web 2.0 based platform where inpiduals feel comfortable and motivated to share knowledge.