Tacit knowledge Management System Practices in Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) in Developing Economies: A Systematic literature Review

There is increasing departure of academic staff from higher education institutions. These staff members are key to knowledge creation, innovation and survival of the institution in an increasingly competitive environment. Their departure axiomatically leads to departure of tacit knowledge from the institution if such knowledge is not documented. Tacit knowledge loss results into a number of undesirable effects like the costs involved to recruit new staff and injuring innovation capacity of the institution. The loss of tacit knowledge in HEIs in low developed economies is attributed to several causes which include death, burnout, uncertainty and mistrust in the institution, early retirement and flaws in extant tacit knowledge management systems and processes.  Various frameworks addressing tacit knowledge management in various contexts have been tried, though few have specifically addressed higher education institutions. This study sought to investigate the factors that influenced tacit knowledge retention and management in higher education institutions in developing economies as well as the extant tacit knowledge management systems applied/used in higher education institutions in developing economies. A systematic protocol was followed to select and retrieve relevant scholarly literature published between January 2012 and August 2022. The penultimate aim of this research was to serve as an affirmative study whose findings shall serve as input to developing a model for tacit knowledge management in HEIs. Papers were searched from   Elsevier, Emerald Insight and ProQuest databases. The term ‘tacit knowledge’ generated 41,810 articles. Only 24 articles fitted the inclusion criteria, indicating an area which was under-researched. The findings noted factors essential for TKM in HEIs: individual/personal factors, institutional environment factors, institutional management practice factors; and factors relating to institutional culture. Systems that were employed to manage tacit knowledge in HEIs were found to be piecemeal. This study recommends developing a benchmark model for tacit knowledge management in HEIs. 

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

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The datasets used in this study are openly available at [repository link] and the source code is available on GitHub at [GitHub link].

This work did not receive any external funding.