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Identification of tacit knowledge associated with experience: a Chinese software industry study

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conference contribution
posted on 2015-02-17, 11:51 authored by Hui Chen, Gillian Ragsdell, Ann O'Brien
This paper reports on a research project that aimed at identifying the professional and personal experience from individuals in the SMEs in the Software (SW) industry sector in China. This study employed an inductive qualitative approach based on a single case study and grounded theory (GT) data analysis. The SW company is a SME that specialises in multimedia SW research and development and is located in Xiamen City (Fujian Province, South of China). Six participants, selected on the basis of their role in SW design and development, were interviewed using a semi‐structured interview script. These in‐depth interviews ranged from 100 to 120 minutes in length. After completing the open coding of the six interview transcripts, the researcher obtained 121 codes and 215 quotations from the interview data. These codes were grouped and organized into a category hierarchy that included 6 main structured categories as the result of axial coding. The results of the study enabled the development of a taxonomy and classification of tacit knowledge related to experience in the different stages of the SW development process. The study also showed that each identified category of tacit knowledge is not necessarily confined to one specific SW development stage or even to a specific role in the process. This emergent theory challenges traditional perceptions that each stage requires very precise types of skills, experience and even types of individuals.

History

School

  • Business and Economics

Department

  • Business

Published in

15th European Conference on Knowledge Management, Proceedings of 15th European Conference on Knowledge Management, Polytechnic Institute of Santarém, Portugal

Pages

1147 - 1155 (9)

Citation

CHEN, H. ... et al, 2014. Identification of tacit knowledge associated with experience: a Chinese software industry study. IN: Proceedings of 15th European Conference on Knowledge Management, Polytechnic Institute of Santarém, Portugal, 4th-5th September 2014, pp.1147-1155.

Publisher

Academic Conferences and Publishing International Limited

Version

  • VoR (Version of Record)

Publisher statement

This work is made available according to the conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0) licence. Full details of this licence are available at: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/

Publication date

2014

Notes

This is a conference paper.

ISBN

9781910309346

Language

  • en

Location

Santarem, Portugal