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involved in some form of shared experiences so that they can derive tacit knowledge
from one another through learning. The second is the explicit to explicit conversion:
this process is called “combination” as it is a process where explicit knowledge held
by different individuals are brought together and combined to form new knowledge.
This type of knowledge creation is fairly common in many kinds of collaborative
work and sometimes, even computers can combine two existing information and
create a new body of information. The third and fourth modes involve the trans-
formation of tacit knowledge to explicit knowledge or “externalization” and that
of explicit knowledge to tacit knowledge or “internalization.” While the former
mode (externalization) requires interactions among individuals to bring forth the
tacit knowledge and externalize it so that other people can acquire such knowledge,
the latter mode (internalization) focuses on individuals receiving explicit knowledge
and integrating it with their own particular experiences, thereby internalizing it (or
converting it into tacit knowledge). These four modes of knowledge conversion are
complementary and together they enable new knowledge creation. As such com-
panies that facilitate all the four knowledge conversions by providing appropriate
technological and organizational infrastructure are more likely to derive the benefits
of such new knowledge creation (Nonaka, 1994).
8.6 A Theoretical Framework of Consumer-Driven Service
Innovation in Health Care
We now apply these two related knowledge management theories in the context of
consumer-driven service innovation (i.e., knowledge sharing and knowledge cre-
ation) in healthcare. Figure 8.1 provides an overview of the theoretical framework.
Online Health Resources
Mode of knowledge
creation
Health Website
Explicit to Tacit
Repository
model
Tacit to Explicit
Access to info.
about services,
treatments, etc.
Online Health
Communities
Explicit to Explicit
Tacit to Tacit
Network model
Allows knowledge
interactions among
consumers
Fig. 8.1
Modes of consumer knowledge co-creation in health care
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