Tacit assumptions of senior managers

Abstract

This thesis documents an investigation into the role that tacit knowledge takes in the mental life of senior managers. The research resulted from the author s work in New South Wales in facilitating assessment and development centres over a five year period, carried out in collaboration with senior managers from several organizations. A frequent comment made by senior managers was that there seemed to be a gulf between the data obtained objectively from behaviourally measured managerial competencies and the senior managers own perceptions of their managerial behaviour. Having earlier researched the role of thought processes out of awareness, the author developed the overall aim of the present study to develop some form of training procedures for senior managers that would enhance the use of tacit processes in their managerial behaviours. The present dissertation begins with a literature review related to the development of understanding of the role of tacit processes in the mental life of senior managers. First a review is presented of investigations of organisational behaviour reported in the literature on tacit knowledge, including issues such as learning, teams, leadership, distributed cognition and culture. Study of the role of tacit knowledge was found to be present in the study of management behaviours and during the process of the present research, related publications increased in frequency. Finally a review is presented of psychological research into the nature of tacit knowledge. This focuses on a range of historical and current views and on the author s own earlier study of implicit learning carried out in the early 1990 s. Study One is focused on examination of the process of coding tacit assumptions. This begins with documentation of the ontology, epistemology and methodology underpinning this research. Grounded theory, a well-recognised method of qualitative analysis, was selected as most appropriate for this study and its philosophy, rationale and methods are presented. The aim of Study One was to examine the effect of repeated interviews on the codifying of tacit assumptions of senior managers. The initial research was with 13 senior managers, who were interviewed either once or on multiple occasions. The initial interviews of two of these senior managers were analysed as pilot studies, and these analyses are presented in the present dissertation. The main body of this research comprises multiple interviews (five each) carried out with two of the original thirteen senior managers. The results confirmed the importance

of the method of investigation but failed to provide any depth of understanding. Apart from consolidating cognitive closure on a set of managerial competencies, attempting to render tacit knowledge explicit (making the tacit conscious) provided no other significant benefit to the senior managers. The extension of some of these previously tacit assumptions into current cognitive functioning, when coded, assisted in the retention of organisational knowledge but offered no real benefit to the senior managers themselves, no depth of self-knowledge. Study Two arose from a more realistic understanding of tacit processes. The aim of Study Two was to find a way of harnessing the influences of tacit assumptions without trying to surface them to make them conscious. This is consistent with the writings of such researchers as Nonaka (1991), Baumard (1999) and Spender (2005). By adapting an existing method focusing on subtle mental processes (developed by Norm Kagan in the context of teaching counselling skills and developed further for research first by Diment, Walker and Hammer and then by Sheehan and McConkey ), the author has further developed a technique (The Explicit/Tacit Interface Technique ET~IT) that accesses the tacit processes in the service of the senior manager s aims. A multiperspective analysis was applied to the feedback interviews of six subjects. This generated a set of characteristics of the ET~IT that hold promise for it to become a useful management development tool. Cohen and Levinthal s (1990) concept of absorptive capacity is discussed as a possible starting point for indicating individual differences in successful interfacing with tacit processes. Finally recommendations for further improvement, consideration of constraints and their minimization and methods for evaluating future research into the tacit assumptions of senior managers are presented. Study Two concludes with discussion of how the results can be used as part of senior management development.