Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 1987. Vol 52. No. 6.

1:36-1247

Tacit Knowledge in Everyday Intelligent Behavior

Richard K. Wagner
Florida State University

Two experiments were conducted to examine the scope and structure of tacit knowledge. In Experiment 1, three groups, whose members differed in level of professional advancement in the field of academic psychology, were presented with simulated work-related situations designed to measure their tacit knowledge. Between-group differences in tacit knowledge were found as a function of level of professional advancement, and strong within-group relations were found between tacit knowledge and external criteria such as rate of citation. The scope of tacit knowledge was found to include (a) knowledge useful in managing oneself, others, and one's tasks, (b) knowledge applicable to both short-term and long-term contexts, and (c) knowledge of ideal quality as well as practical reality. The results of testing four classes of alternative models of the structure of tacit knowledge supported a model characterized by a general factor, similar in form to Spearman's # for academic tasks. Experiment 2 replicated and extended these results to the domain of business management.

Many professionals say that much, if not most, of the learning that matters to their careers took place after they completed their formal schooling. Furthermore, it is not uncommon for people who are highly successful in their occupations to have unremarkable academic records and, conversely, for people with histories of distinguished performance in school to be only moderately successful in their occupations. The lack of a strong relation between actual occupational performance and scores on either IQ tests or employment tests suggests that these observations may not be completely unfounded. Although IQ test scores correlate moderately (.4-.7) with various measures of school achievement and performance in occupational training programs, typical correlations between IQ tests or employment tests and actual performance fall at the .2 level (Ghiselli, 1966; Wigdor & Garner, 1982). Correlations of this magnitude indicate that performance on such tests accounts for only small amounts of variance (about 4%) in occupational performance. Neisser (19761 has argued that the tasks found on IQ tests and in school settings measure academic intelligence, which is but one part of intelligence broadly defined. In contrast to academic intelligence, Neisser denned "intelligent performance in natural settings" as "responding appropriately in terms of one's long-range and short-range goals, given the actual facts of the

situation as one discovers them" (p. 137; see also Charlesworth. 1976; Wagner, 1986). Researchers have proposed a number of traditional approaches to measuring competencies required for success in real-world pursuits (see Sternberg & Wagner. 1986). Recently, cognitive psychologists have taken a knowledge-based approach in their study of how "experts" and "novices" differ in their performance on tasks relevant to their domain of expertise. (See Chi, Glaser, & Rees, 1982, for a comprehensive review of this literature.) Although the knowledge-based approach has been applied mostly to academic-intelligence-type tasks, Wagner and Sternberg (1985) used this approach in their investigation of practical tasks faced by business managers and academic psychologists. They proposed that a hallmark of practical intelligence is the acquisition and use of tad! knowledgepractical know-how that usually is not openly expressed or stated and which must be acquired in the absence of direct instruction. (SeePolanyi, 1976, and Schon, 1983, for related conceptions of practical know-how.) If the acquisition of tacit knowledge is indeed a hallmark of practical intelligence, what is the scope and structure of such knowledge?

Scope of Tacit Knowledge

The scope of tacit knowledge refers to the range of situations to which tacit knowledge may be applied. To examine the scope of tacit knowledge I categorized it on the basis of (a) the content

t h i s research was supported in part by Contract MDA90385K.0305 from the Army Research Institute. This article is based on a doctoral dissertation submitted to the faculty of Yale University. I gratefully acknowledge the contributions of my dissertation advisor. Robert J. Sternberg, and the dissertation committee members, Wendell Gamer, Edmond Gordon, Richard Hackman, and Roger Weissberg. I also acknowledge the contributions of members of the Sternberg research group. Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Richard K. Wagner, Department of Psychology, Florida State University. Tallahassee, Florida 32306.

of a situation, that is, whether it primarily involves managing oneself, managing others, or managing one's tasks; (b) the context of a situation, that is, whether it is local (short range, selfcontained) or global (long range, related to the "big picture") in nature; and (c) orientation, that is, whether one's focus is idealistic or pragmatic.

Three Kinds of Content

Tacit knowledge about managing self refers to knowledge about self-motivational and self-organizational aspects of per-

1236

TACIT KNOWLEDGE formance in work-related situations. An example of tacit knowledge about managing self is knowing how best to overcome procrastination. Tacit knowledge about managing tasks refers to knowledge of how to do specific work-related tasks well. An example of tacit knowledge about managing tasks is knowing the value of beginning a manuscript by telling the reader what major points one intends to make. Tacit knowledge about managing others refers to knowledge about managing one's subordinates and one's interactions with one's peers. An example of tacit knowledge about managing others is knowing how to reward subordinates so as to maximize both productivity and job satisfaction. Although some situations primarily involve only one of the three kinds of tacit knowledge (e.g., the problem of procrastination), most require each of the three kinds of tacit knowledge to lesser or greater degrees. For example, chairing a grant review study section is a task that requires considerable tacit knowledge about managing oneself, others, and one's tasks.
\
\ \ \ \

1237

\^

CONTENT

TASKS ORIENTATION IDEALISTIC

Tir

LOCAL GLOBAL CONTEXT

Figure I . The tacit knowledge framework.

Two Contexts
A local context refers to a focus on the short-term accomplishment of the specific task at hand. No consideration is given to one's reputation, career goals, or to the "big picture." A global context refers to a focus on long-range objectives and on how the present situation fits into the bigger picture. Real-world accomplishment requires practical knowledge that can be applied in both local and global contexts. It is not enough to be knowledgeable about selecting tasks that will pay off in the long term (global context) if one lacks the knowledge about how to do well the tasks one has selected (local context). Conversely, being knowledgeable about specific tasks (local context) but not about how they relate to one another (global context) can result in doing very well at what may turn out, in the long run, to be the wrong tasks, or it can result in missing a connection between a problem faced today and one faced last month and thereby failing to discover their root cause.

main positive is a practical idea, but one that happens to be not very good. Conversely, taking one's employees out to dinner individually to convince them that the policy changes will be to everyone's benefit in the long run may be a better idea than the memo just described, but a highly impractical one if there are a large number of employees in one's division.

Combining Contents, Contexts, and Orientation in a Tacit Knowledge Framework

The framework that guided evaluation of the scope and structure of tacit knowledge crosses content, context, and orientation, yielding the 12 possible combinations illustrated in Figure 1.

Structure of Tacit Knowledge

Consider the structure of traditional academic abilities. Investigators generally agree that the structure is hierarchical, with at least three levels. At the top is g or a general factor that represents the positive manifold found among correlations for almost all cognitive tasks (Jensen, in press; Spearman, 1927). Positive manifold refers to the fact that the intercorrelations among most cognitive tasks are positive. At the next level are group factors, examples of which include fluid and crystallized intelligence (Cattell, 1963, 1971) and Thurstone's (1938) primary mental abilities of verbal comprehension, verbal fluency, number, space, associative memory, perceptual speed, and general reasoning. At the lowest level are task-specific factors. These factors explain the portion of a task's variance that is unique to the task, and thus they are of no value in accounting for shared variance among tasks. In this study, I examine four classes of models of the structure of tacit knowledge. These models, which derive from analyses of the structure of academic abilities, are presented in Figure 2.

Two Orientations
The comments of respondents in earlier work suggested that there are times when a person's overriding orientation in a given situation is idealistic; that is, it focuses on how good a solution is ideally. There are other times when a person's overriding orientation is pragmatic; that is, it focuses on how workable a potential solution is. Ideal in the present context refers to a judgment about the quality of some course of action without regard to how practical or impractical it might be. For example, the strategy of consulting with each of one's subordinates individually on all decisions that might affect them is perhaps better ideally than it is in actuality. Effective performance requires knowledge relevant to both orientations: Liabilities are associated with being overly pragmatic as well as overly idealistic. Consider the task of maintaining morale in the face of policy changes that employees in your division of the company will find threatening. Writing a memo to these employees stating that you expect their morale to re-

Two-Factor Models
These models get their name from the fact that task performance is explained in terms of a general factor and a task-specific factor for each of the tasks used. The specific factors are unimportant because they do not account for any shared variance. The interpretation of two-factor models when they are applied to the tacit knowledge framework is that individual

1238

RICHARD K. WAGNER The faculty group consisted of 91 faculty members in 26 departments of psychology. This group included 51 members of 11 departments highly rated in terms of the scholarly quality of the departmental faculty (Jones, Lindzey, & Coggeshall, 1982). The mean rating of the scholarly quality of the faculty in these 11 departments was 4.0 on a 5-point scale (0 = low, 5 = high). Also included in the faculty group were 39 members of 15 departments less highly rated in terms of the scholarly quality of
I. TWO-FACTOR MODELS (SPEARMAN, THOMSON)

differences in tacit knowledge will be general to each content, context, and orientation.

Hierarchical Models
Hierarchical models share with the two-factor models the idea that people who are good at one thing tend to be good at everything, but added is the notion of group factors. A group factor is a factor that accounts for shared variance among some but not all tasks. In terms of the tacit knowledge framework, shared variance among tacit knowledge scores would be explained in terms of a general factor, as before, as well as in terms of group factors that might correspond to a local versus a global context or to the contents of managing self, others, and tasks.

SL

OL

TL

SG

OG

TG

Primary Ability Models

According to primary ability models, shared variance among tasks is explained by a set of independent group factors. In terms of the tacit knowledge framework, primary ability models posit that people may be knowledgeable about managing others, for instance, but not about managing themselves or their tasks.

t T t tT t
II. HIERARCHICAL MODELS (CATTELL, VERNON)

Anarchy Model
This model posits that there is no common variance or generality in tacit knowledge. How knowledgeable one is depends entirely on one's specific task. In terms of the tacit knowledge framework, there would be no relations between performance across work-related situations. This model is plausible if it should turn out that what one leams from one's experience is specific to the situation in which it is learned.
SL OL TL SG OG TG

T t t

TT1

Overview of the Present Experiments

I conducted two experiments, one each in the domains of academic psychology and business management. In Experiment 1, a tacit knowledge measure for the domain of academic psychology was administered to three groups of respondents whose members differed in amounts of formal training and experience in the field of academic psychology. Tacit knowledge was compared across groups, and the within-group relations between tacit knowledge and career performance were examined. I assessed the scope of tacit knowledge in terms of the tacit knowledge framework and tested alternative models of the structure of tacit knowledge. In Experiment 2, which served to extend the results of Experiment 1 to a second domain, a tacit knowledge measure for the domain of business management was administered to three groups of individuals whose members differed in amounts of formal training and experience in the profession of business management.
SL OL TL SO OG TG

TTTTTT
III. PRIMARY ABILITY MODELS (THURSTONE)
ss

SL

t 1 t t 1 t
OL TL SG OG

OL

TL

SG

OG

TG

Experiment 1 Method Subjects

There were three groups of subjects, totaling 212 individuals in all, whose members differed in amounts of formal training and experience in the field of academic psychology.

IV. ANARCHY MODEL

SL TG

t t t t t T
Figure 2. Four classes of models of the structure of tacit knowledge (S: self; O = others; T = tasks; L = local; G = global; g = general factor).

TACIT KNOWLEDGE departmental faculty. Their departments received a mean rating of 1.0. One person who did not choose to indicate his or her departmental affiliation was also included in the faculty group. The sample contained 36 full professors, 33 associate professors, and 22 assistant professors. The psychology graduate student group consisted of 61 students from the same departments that were sampled to obtain the faculty group. This group contained 36 graduate students from departments highly rated in terms of the scholarly quality of the faculty and 25 graduate students from departments less highly rated in scholarly quality of the faculty. The sample consisted of I5 first-year students, 15 second-year students, 16 third-year students, 6 fourth-year students, and 9 fifth-year and beyond students. The undergraduate group contained 60 Yale undergraduates who were enrolled in an introductory psychology class and received course credit for their participation. The undergraduates had assorted majors, and many had not yet selected their major area of study.

1239

jects rated both the actual and ideal quality or importance of each response item. In making the actual rating, subjects were told, "The actual rating asks you to rate how important or how good the response alternative actually is given the realities of the academic world as you know it." In making the ideal rating, subjects were told, "The ideal rating asks you to rate how important or how good the response alternative should be; in other words, how important it would be in one's ideal academic world." The actual and ideal ratings served to measure pragmatic and idealistic orientations, respectively.

Design
Independent variables were the (a) three contents (managing self, tasks, and others), (b) two contexts (local and global), and (c) two orientations (pragmatic and idealistic) of tacit knowledge. Content, context, and orientation were "crossed" with one another. The dependent variables consisted of the sets of actual and ideal ratings assigned to response items. Criterion reference measures for the faculty group included (a) whether a subject's department was rated high in scholarly quality of departmental faculty (Jones etal., 1982), (b) number of citations for the years 1982 and 1983 reported in the Social Sciences Citation Index (1982,1983), and (c) number of publications in the years 1982 and 1983 reported in Psychological Abstracts (1982, 1983). Criterion reference measures for the graduate student group included several measures of research productivity and the rated scholarly quality of departmental faculty. This latter measure was included as a criterion reference measure for psychology graduate students on the assumption that the quality of a department's faculty is related to the quality of the graduate students the department attracts. A criterion reference measure for the undergraduate group was verbal reasoning ability as measured by performance on the Verbal Reasoning subtest of the Differential Aptitude Tests, Form T (Bennett, Seashore, & Wesman, 1974), which was used to investigate the relation between tacit knowledge and verbal ability.

Materials
The tacit knowledge measure for academic psychology consisted of 12 work-related situations, each of which was associated with from 9 to 11 response items. Of the 12 work-related situations, 4 were constructed to sample each of the three contents of tacit knowledge (managing self, tasks, and others). Half of the 12 work-related situations were constructed to sample tacit knowledge with a local context; the other half, tacit knowledge with a global context. Thus each work-related situation was constructed to sample one of three contents of tacit knowledge (managing self, tasks, or others) in one of two contexts (local or global). There were 37, 39, and 40 items on the managing self, tasks, and others subscales, respectively, and 59 and 57 on items the local and global context subscales, respectively, for a total of 116 items. An example of a work-related situation sampling tacit knowledge about managing self with a global context follows.1 It is your second year as an assistant professor in a prestigious psychology department. This past year you published two unrelated empirical articles in established journals. You don't, however, believe there is yet a research area that can be identified as your own. You believe yourself to be about as productive as others. The feedback about your first year of teaching has been generally good. You have yet to serve on a university committee. There is one graduate student who has chosen to work with you. You have no external source of funding, nor have you applied for funding. Your goals are to become one of the top people in your area of the field and to get tenure in your department. You believe yourself to be a hard worker but find that you do not have enough time to get the important things done. You believe that you have not given enough thought to the relative importance of the tasks you find yourself engaged in and therefore are developing an agenda of things to do in the next 2 months that will increase the chances of success in your career. The following is a list of things you are considering doing in the next 2 months. You obviously cannot do them all. Rate the importance of each by its priority as a means of reaching your goal: Actual Ideal 1. 2. 9. Improve the quality of your teaching. Write a grant proposal.. . . Begin several short-term research projects, each of which may lead to an empirical article.

Procedure
The tacit knowledge measure was mailed to members of the faculty and graduate student groups, and it was administered in a small-group setting to members of the undergraduate group. The undergraduate group was given, in counterbalanced order, the tacit knowledge measure for academic psychologists as well as the tacit knowledge measure for business executives that was used in Experiment 2.

Results and Discussion Basic Statistics

Return rates. The psychology faculty group returned 90 tacit knowledge measures in time to be included in the study, yielding a return rate of 18%. The difference between the number of respondents from highly rated departments (51) and from the less highly rated departments (39) was not reliable, x 2 U, N = 90) = 1.34, p > .05.1 randomly selected a sample of 40 nonrespondents to compare the rates of publication and citation of respondents and nonrespondents. Faculty who responded were comparable to faculty who did not in terms of number of publications (Afs = 0.8 and 0.5 for respondents and nonrespondents, respectively), (106) = -1.63, p > .05, and number of citations

Subjects read a given work-related situation and then rated each response alternative on a 7-point scale by either its quality (1 = extremely bad, 4 = neither good nor bad, and 7 = extremely good} or its importance (1 = extremely unimportant, 4 = somewhat important, and 7 = extremely important), depending on the particular response item. Sub-

1 Additional examples of work-related situations used in Experiments 1 and 2 are available from the author.

1240
Table 1

RICHARD K. WAGNER ject's publications that appeared in journals covered by Psychological Abstracts. The mean number of total publications for the psychology faculty based on their self-report was 3.1 for the last academic year. Classification of materials by independent judges. Two independent judges, a first-year graduate student and a postdoctorate student from the psychology department at Yale University, were given definitions for each content (managing self, tasks,

Basic Statistics for Reference Measures: Psychology Faculty, Graduate Students, and Undergraduates Criterion reference measure

M
Faculty

Median

SD

Range

No. citations (19821983) No. publications' Rated scholarly quality of departmental faculty No. papers presented % of time spent in Teaching Research Administrative duties Age

68 68

44.9

0.8

7 0

79.6

0-361

and others) and context (local and global) of tacit knowledge and then were asked to determine which content of tacit knowledge and which context were being sampled by the 12 workrelated situations. For Judge A, agreement with intended content and context was 12 out of 12 for content of tacit knowledge and 10 out of 12 for context. These levels of agreement yielded kappa values (Cohen, 1960), which is an estimate of the proportion of nonchance agreement, of 1.00 (p < .01) and .75 (p < .01), respectively. For Judge B, agreement with intended content and context was 10 out of 12 for content of tacit knowledge and 12 out of 12 for context, yielding kappa values of .75 (p < .01) and 1.00 (p < .01), respectively. Characteristics of the raw ratings on the psychology tacit

1.2

0^1

88 91 89 89 89 91

2.7 2.1
26.7 31.7 19.4 44.9

3.8 2 30 30 10 42

1.5 2.2
15.1 18.6 18.1 11.1

0.4-4.4 0-10
0-60 0-80 0-97 29-77

Graduate students No. publications No. papers presented Rated scholarly quality of departmental faculty No. years completed % of time spent in Teaching Research Age No. research projects completed

61 61

1.1 1.1

0 0

1.7 1.6

0-10

0-6

knowledge measure. I found a moderate range on the raw ratings obtained for the response items. No obvious ceiling or floor effects were apparent. One question of interest was whether differences in actual

61 61 60 60 61 61

2.8 2.8
10.7 37.8 27.2

3.9 3 7.5
38.5

1.6 1.5
14.3 24.2

0.4-4.4 1-6
0-75 0-99 22-39 0-15

and ideal ratings would diminish with increasing levels of professional advancement, owing either to a change of values over the span of one's career or simply becoming more pragmatic and less idealistic with age. Totaled across items, the actualideal squared deviations averaged 339.4, 412.8, and 428.S for the psychology faculty, graduate student, and undergraduate student groups, respectively. This linear decreasing trend was reliable, F(\, 207) = 4.67, p < .05, and a follow-up analysis (Newman-Keuls) indicated that the means of the graduate and undergraduate student groups differed from that of the faculty group but not from each other. Thus, compared with the student groups, there was more congruence between the psychology faculty's actual and ideal responses.

26 4

4.2 3.0

4.2

Undergraduates Verbal reasoning"

1

60

45.0

46

4.1

32-50

This represents only the portion of a subject's publications appearing in journals covered by Psychological Abstracts. b The theoretical range of this variable was 0 to 50.

(Ms = 44.9 and 48.2 for respondents and nonrespondents, respectively), (90) = 0.19, p > .05. The psychology graduate student group returned 61 tacit knowledge measures in time to be included in the study, yielding a return rate of 31%. The difference between the number of graduate student respondents from highly rated departments (36) and from less highly rated departments (25) was not reliable, x 2 (l, AT- 61) = 1.64, p > .05. Sample characteristics: criterion reference measures. Descriptive statistics for measures of criterion performance are presented in Table 1. The only surprising result in Table 1 is the large mean number of citations for the psychology faculty (M= 44.9). As is suggested by the much lower median number of citations (median = 7), the distribution of citations was highly skewed because the work of a small number of subjects was widely cited. Consequently, I based subsequent analyses on a log transformation of the citations variable. At first glance, the average number of publications (.8) seemed low for a 2-year period. This figure, however, represents only the portion of a sub-

Scope of Tacit Knowledge

Quantification of tacit knowledge. Tacit knowledge was quantified by comparing a subject's response item ratings to a prototype derived from the mean response-item ratings of an expert group. The expert group consisted of the 11 faculty members from psychology departments that received scholarly quality ratings equal to or greater than 4.2 on a 5-point scale and who were highly competent in their profession.2 I calculated tacit knowledge scores by summing the squared deviations of a subject's ratings from the prototype (i.e., the mean ratings of the expert group for each item) for response items associated with each of the 12 work-related situations. This yielded 12 scores. I obtained subscale scores for the three contents of tacit

2 Analyses were carried out using several alternative sets of criteria for selecting an expert group. The pattern of results was remarkably consistent regardless of the specific set of criteria used.

TACIT KNOWLEDGE knowledge (managing self, tasks, and others) and the two contexts (local and global) by summing the appropriate scores. Separate scoring was done for the actual and the ideal ratings, yielding actual and ideal scale scores. After conducting preliminary analyses, I made one minor modification in the scoring procedures. It became apparent that the tendency to use the entire scale when responding, as subjects were instructed, rather than to use only the intermediate ratings, was an individual difference that, although unrelated to criterion measures of performance, affected tacit knowledge scores generated by the prototype method.3 Consequently, the ratings were transformed so that the standard deviation of ratings across items was equal for everyone. All subsequent analyses are based on these transformed ratings, which had a standard deviation of 1.5. Expert-novice differences in tacit knowledge. If the tacit knowledge instrument sampled tacit knowledge acquired as a result of formal training and experience, there should be a decreasing trend in average scores across groups with increasing levels of professional development. Note that scores are expected to decrease rather than increase with advancing level of experience because these scores represent deviation from the expert prototype. Thus the closer the pattern of responses to the expert prototype, the lower the score. The expected decrease was found in tacit knowledge scores across groups with increasing amounts of training and experience in the field of academic psychology. For the actual ratings, mean total scores were 215.9,243.8, and 311.6 for the psychology faculty, graduate student, and undergraduate student groups, respectively. This linear trend in the expected direction was reliable, f[\, 196) = 51.1, p < .001. Follow-up analysis (Newman-Keuls) showed that all means differed reliably at the .01 level. For the ideal ratings, mean total scores were 195.1, 205.7, and 294.7 for the psychology faculty, graduate student, and undergraduate student groups, respectively. This linear trend in the expected direction was reliable, F(l, 196) = 53.4, p < .001. The mean of the faculty group differed from that of the undergraduate group at the .01 level, and the mean for the graduate student group differed from that of the undergraduate group at the .01 level, but the means for the faculty and graduate student groups were not reliably different. Determining whether there were group differences for each of the tacit knowledge subscales was accomplished by using Timm's (1975) procedure. The effect of group was significant beyond the .001 level for each content and context of tacit knowledge, for both the actual and ideal ratings. Tacit knowledge and criterion performance in academic psychology. I calculated internal consistency reliabilities (coefficient alphas) for the tacit knowledge scales separately for the psychology faculty, graduate student, and undergraduate student groups. Reliabilities for the total score ranged from .74 to .90, with a median of .82. The reliabilities of the individual tacit knowledge subscales were somewhat lower and more variable, ranging from .48 to .90, with a median of .69. Subscale scores were highly intercorrelated for both the actual and ideal ratings. The correlations between local and global context were .65 (p < .001) for the actual ratings and .79 (p < .001) for the ideal ratings. The median correlations among the Rated scholarly quality of departmental faculty No. citations No. publications % of time spent in Teaching Research Administrative duties No. papers presented Age Faculty Table 2 Correlation Coefficients

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Between Tacit Knowledge Scores and

Criterion Reference Measures for Academic Psychology Tacit knowledge score Criterion reference measure Actual total Ideal total

77 59 59 79 79 79 80 80
Graduate students

-.48*** -.44*** -.28*

.26* -.41*** .19* -.21* .22

-.42*** -.43*** -.03

.09 -.34** .16 -.03 .06

Rated scholarly quality of program faculty No. publications No. papers presented % of time spent in Teaching Research No. research projects completed No. years completed

61 59 80 79 79 61 61

-.46*** -.25* -.12

-.24* -.16 -.11

.15 -.48***
-.24* -.07

.14
-.13 -.15 -.16

*p<.05.**p<.01.***p<.001.

managing self, tasks, and others contents of tacit knowledge were .54 (p < .001) for the actual ratings and .67 (p < .001) for the ideal ratings. Finally, the correlation between total score for the actual ratings and total score for the ideal ratings was .61 (p<.001). Correlations between criterion measures and total tacit knowledge scores for the actual and ideal ratings are presented in Table 2 for the faculty and graduate student groups. Total score, a measure of overall deviation from the expert prototype, negatively correlated with the following criterion measures: (a) rated scholarly quality of departmental faculty, (b) extent to which a subject's work is cited (often considered a better measure of the quality of a person's work than sheer quantity of

Individual differences in subjects' use of the entire scale when responding, a frequent finding in rating studies, would have affected scores based on the prototype method because scores were based on deviation from a prototype, which would vary with the extent to which a subject used the entire rating scale. This possibility was confirmed by the strengthening of relations between tacit knowledge scores based on the prototype method when ratings were transformed to hold constant individual differences in subjects' use of the entire scale when responding. The transformation was done by standardizing the standard deviation of ratings across response items for subjects to the common value of 1.5.

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RICHARD K. WAGNER

Table 3 Correlations Among the Six Kinds of Tacit Knowledge for Psychology Faculty: Observed (Below Diagonal) and Disattenuated for Reliability (Above Diagonal)
Tacit knowledge type 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. Self-local Self-global Tasks-local Tasks-global Others-local Others-global 1 2 .38*** 3

.07
.59***

.20*

.04
.25*

.12
.21*

.37*** .28** .30** .36***

.30** .33*** .27**

.47*** .49*** .48***

.34*** .37***

.23* .53*** .53*" .77***

.39***

.99 .99 .99 .99 .99

" The disattenuated correlation was greater than 1.00. *p<.05. **p<.01. ***;>< .001.

publications), (c) number of publications, (d) percentage of time spent in research, and (e) number of conference papers presented. Total score was positively correlated with percentage of time spent in teaching and percentage of time spent in administrative duties. Total score did not vary reliably as a linear function of academic rank. For the actual ratings, means of 218.2, 224.1, and 204.3 were obtained for the assistant professor, associate professor, and full professor groups, respectively, fU, 74) = 0.59, p > .05. For the ideal ratings, means of 212.9, 191.4, and 191.5 were obtained for the assistant professor, associate professor, and full professor groups, respectively, yielding anF(\,14)= 1.14,/.05. For psychology graduate students, total score was strongly and negatively related to criterion measures such as (a) rated scholarly quality of departmental faculty, (b) number of publications, (c) number of conference papers presented, (d) percentage of time spent in research, and (e) number of research projects completed. Correlations between total score and percentage of time spent in teaching and number of years of graduate study did not differ reliably from zero, but most were in the appropriate direction. For undergraduates, the correlation between verbal aptitude and total score on the tacit knowledge inventory was .30 (p<.05). Correlations with criterion measures for the individual subtests, which are not reported because of their high degree of intercorrelation, were similar in magnitude and pattern to those obtained for total score. Structure of Tacit Knowledge Alternative models of the structure of tacit knowledge were fitted to the matrix of correlations between scores representing the six combinations of content and context. These correlations, as well as the same correlations after disattenuating for unreliability, are presented in Table 3. Two kinds of analysesprincipal-components analysis and confirmatory factor analysiswere carried out, and each supported the two-factor model that explains shared variance in terms of a single general factor. The first principal component accounted for 40% of the total variance, a figure typical of that found for traditional academic aptitude tests. After the first principal component was ex-

tracted, the residual matrix was not significant, x 2 ('4, N = 90) = 3.66. For the disattenuated correlations, the first principal component accounted for 72% of the total variance. Confirmatory factor analysis can be used to test the hypothesis that a given model did not generate the observed correlations or covariances. Essentially, this is a test of the significance of the discrepancy between predicted and observed correlations or covariances, and support for the model is found if the test is nonsignificant. This test was not significant, x2(9, N = 90) = 5.40, p> .05. Support for the model was also provided by a root mean squared residual of only .04. Hierarchical models with correlated group factors, that is, models proposing group factors in addition to the general factor, yielded similarly good fits, but the parameter estimate for the correlations between group factors equaled or exceeded one. This indicates that all the variance accounted for by the group factors was accounted for by a single general factor. Hierarchical models with orthogonal group factors did not fit the obtained correlations. Thus the results support models that posit a single general factor. To extend the results to another domain, I conducted a second experiment to replicate Experiment 1 in the field of business management. Experiment 2 Method Subjects
There were three groups of subjects, totaling 149 people in all, whose members differed in amounts of formal training and experience in the field of business management The business professional group consisted of 64 managers (63 men, 1 woman) from a nationwide sample of 31 companies. This group contained 26 managers whose companies rank among the top 40 on the Fortune 500 list, 33 managers whose companies are not on the Fortune 500 list, and 5 individuals who chose not to reveal their company affiliation. The business graduate student group consisted of 25 graduate students (20 men, 5 women) from seven business schools. There were 9 first-year students, 14 second-year students, and 2 third-year students. The group contained 15 graduate students whose schools are among the highest ranked in the nation (The Cartter Report, 1977) and lOstudents whose schools are not among the higher ranked business schools.

TACIT KNOWLEDGE The undergraduate group consisted of the same 60 Yale undergraduates who participated in Experiment 1. Table 4 Basic Statistics for Reference Measures: Business Professionals, Graduate Students, and Undergraduates

1243

Materials
A business management tacit knowledge measure was constructed to be theoretically isomorphic to the academic psychology tacit knowledge measure and was identical in format. The content of the work-related situations and response items, however, reflected the domain of business management. There were 39, 40, and 41 items on the managing self, tasks, and others subscales, respectively, and 60 and 60 on the local and global orientation subscales, respectively, for a total of 120 items. An example of a work-related situation that sampled managing others with a global context follows: You have been asked to take over another department. You have a reputation not only for getting the most from your employees, but for getting along with them as well. You were asked to take on this new job because of rather serious personnel-related problems in the new department. Morale in the new department is low. The department is divided into those who are sorry the former head was asked to leave and those who are sorry the former head was not asked to leave sooner. Performance ratings for the department have been below expectations. The problems have been around for some time, and you realize that solving them won't happen overnight. You also believe this to be a chance to show your superiors what you can do in a tough situation, and you hope that by doing well you will improve your opportunities for advancement. Rate the quality of the following actions you are considering taking in your new role: Actual Ideal 1. Follow the advice of your new superior by announcing a major reorganization of the department that includes getting rid of individuals whom you believe to be "dead wood." Give your superiors frequent progress reports on the situation.. . . Be sure your superiors are aware of how bad the situation really was so they will appreciate even modest improvement.

Reference measure

M
Professionals

Median

SD

Range

Salary (n = 61)' Years management experience

85-95
20.9

100+ 22.5

20 8.9 0.5 2.1 9.4

20-100+
0-45

(n = 62)
Level of company ( = 59)b Years of formal schooling (post-high school) (n - 63) Age(n = 61)

0.4 4.6
50.1

0 4 52

0-1 0-8 23-63

Graduate students (n = 25) Level of school' Years completed Years management experience Employed at present 0.6 1.7 2.6 0.5 1 2 2 0
0.5 0.6 2.6 0.5 0-1 1-3 0-9 0-1

Undergraduates (n = 60) Verbal reasoning

45.0
46

4.1

32-50

* Numbers represent thousands of dollars. " This is an indication of whether subject's company is listed among the

top Fortune 500 companies.

c

This is an indication of whether subject's business school is among those ranked highest in the nation by The Carrier Report (1977).

Results and Discussion Basic Statistics

Return rates. The business professional group returned 64 tacit knowledge measures in time to be included in this study, yielding a return rate of 13%. The difference between the number of respondents from companies on the Fortune 500 list (26) and those from companies not on the list (33) was not reliable, X 2 (l, N = 59) = 0.61, p > .05. The business graduate student group returned 25 tacit knowledge measures in time to be included in the study, yielding an identical return rate of 13%. The difference between the number of respondents from highly ranked business schools (15) and those from unranked business schools (10) was not reliable, x2( 1, N = 25) = 0.64, p > .05. Sample characteristics: criterion reference measures. Descriptive statistics for the criterion measures of performance are presented for the business samples in Table 4. The business professional group was both highly experienced and well compensated. The median number of years of management experience was 22.5, and the median salary was $ 100,000 or more. Slightly fewer than half of the group was employed by companies high on the Fortune 500 list. One difference between the business graduate student group and the psychology graduate student group in Experiment 1 was that the former group already had some experience in their ultimate careers: The business graduate student group had on average 2 years of management experience, and about half were currently employed. Classification of materials by independent judges For both judges, agreement with intended content was 12 out of 12 and

2.

10.

Design
The design of this experiment was identical to that of Experiment 1 with the following exceptions. Criterion reference measures for the business professional group included (a) salary, (b) years of management experience, (c) level of company, which was an indication of whether subject's company was among the top companies in the Fortune 500 list, (d) years of formal schooling beyond high school, and (e) age. Criterion reference measures for the business graduate student group included (a) years of business school completed, (b) whether a subject's school was among the top-rated group of business schools, (c) years of management experience, and (d) whether currently employed.

Procedure
The tacit knowledge measure was mailed to members of the business professional and graduate student groups, and it was administered in a small-group setting to undergraduate group members. Members of the undergraduate group were administered, in counterbalanced order, both the business and academic psychology tacit knowledge measures.

1244

RICHARD K. WAGNER Table 5

agreement with intended context was 10 out of 12. These levels of agreement yielded kappa values of 1.00 (p < .01) and .66 (p < .01), respectively. Characteristics of the raw ratings on the business tacit knowledge measure. Examination of the raw ratings suggested no obvious ceiling or floor effects. 1 compared average actual-ideal squared deviations across groups for evidence of a linear decreasing trend similar to that found for academic psychologists. Average total squared deviations were 243.6,340.1, and 416.7 for the business professional, business graduate student, and undergraduate student groups, respectively. This trend was reliable, F( 1,145) = 21.2, p< .001, as were differences between each of the means. Thus increasing professional advancement was related to congruence in tacit knowledge about actual and ideal quality.

Correlation Coefficients Between Tacit Knowledge Scores and Criterion Reference Measures for Business Management
Tacit knowledge score Actual total Ideal total

Criterion reference measure Professionals Salary (n = 48) Years management experience (n = 49) Level of company (n = 46)' Yeais schooling (post-high school) (n = 50) Age(n = 50)

-.32* -.30* -.05 -.27* -.12

.12 -.12

Graduate students (n = 25)

Scope of Tacit Knowledge

Quantification of tacit knowledge. The expert group, whose average ratings constituted the prototype to which the ratings of others were compared, consisted of 13 executives who (a) were employed by companies on the Fortune 500 list, (b) had titles higher in status and responsibility than vice-president (e.g., executive vice-president, chairman, president), and (c) reported annual salaries of $100,000 or more. Expert-novice differences in tacit knowledge. Mean total scores on the actual ratings were 254.2,296.8, and 363.6 for the business professional, business graduate student, and undergraduate student groups, respectively. This linear trend in the expected direction was reliable, P(l, 132) = 31.9, p < .001. A Newman-Keuls follow-up showed all differences among means to be significant at the .01 level. Mean total scores for the ideal ratings were 305.6, 346.5, and 438.8 for the business professional, business graduate student, and undergraduate student groups, respectively. This linear trend in the expected direction was reliable, F(l, 132) = 38.6, p < .001, and all differences among means were significant at the .01 level. Also, for both actual and ideal ratings, group differences significant at the .001 level were found for each content and context of tacit knowledge. Tacit knowledge and career performance in business management. I calculated internal consistency reliabilities (coefficient alphas) for the tacit knowledge scores separately for the business professional, graduate student, and undergraduate student groups. Reliabilities for total score ranged from .79 to .89, with a median of .83. The reliabilities of the individual tacit knowledge subscales were somewhat lower and more variable, ranging from .48 to .83, with a median of .67. Subscale scores were moderately to highly intercorrelated for both the actual and ideal ratings, with the magnitude of the intercorrelations comparable across the actual and ideal ratings. The correlations between local and global context were .73 (p < .001) for both the actual and ideal ratings. The median correlations among the contents of managing self, tasks, and others were .63 (p< .001) for the actual ratings and .61 (p < .001) for the ideal ratings. Finally, the correlation between total score for the actual and ideal ratings was .71 (p < .001). Correlations between criterion measures and total tacit knowledge scores for the actual and ideal ratings appear in Table 5. For the business professional group, overall tacit knowledge was related to salary and to years of management experience. For the business graduate student group, overall tacit knowledge was related to level of school. The only puzzling correlation was that between years of schooling completed and total score for the ideal scale. The correlation was expected to be negative, indicating that increasing years of schooling were associated with decreasing deviation from the expert prototype. The observed correlation was positive and would have been significant had two-tailed tests been used, but it was in the opposite direction predicted for the one-tailed tests. What this result means, if anything, is unclear. For the undergraduates, tacit knowledge scores were not related to verbal reasoning ability (r = -. 12, p > .05). The correlations between criterion measures and the individual subtest scores were similar in magnitude and pattern to those obtained for total score. Level of school" Years completed Years management experience Employed at present
-.34*
.09

-.14 -.24

-.43* .32 .10 -.11

This is an indication of whether subject's company is listed among the top Fortune 500 companies. b This is an indication of whether subject's business school is among those ranked highest in the nation by TTie Cartter Report (1977). *p<.05.

Structure of Tacit Knowledge

Alternative models of the structure of tacit knowledge were fitted to the matrix of correlations between scores representing the six combinations of content and context. These correlations, as well as the same correlations after disattenuating for unreliability, are presented in Table 6. As in Experiment 1, the results supported the class of models positing a single general factor and no group factors. The first principal component accounted for 44% of the total variance,

TACIT KNOWLEDGE Table 6 Correlations Among the Six Kinds of Tad! Knowledge for Business Professionals: Observed (Below Diagonal) and Disattenuated for Reliability (Above Diagonal) Tacit knowledge type 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. Self-local Self-global Tasks-local Tasks-global Others-local Others-global 1 _ .38** .14 .25* .37" .38** 2 .49***
.24*

1245

3
.25* .52"*
.52"* .44"*

4 .52*** .30* .99' .43*** .36"

.74*" .55"* .92*" .75*"

.17 .33**
.35"

.33"

.99' .90*" .69*** .97"* .83*"

.21

The disattenuated correlation was greater than 1.00. */><.05.p<.01.*"p<.001.

and the residual matrix was not significant, x 2 ('4, JV = 64) = 5.66. For the disattenuated correlations, the first principal component accounted for 76% of the total variance. Confirmatory factor analysis also supported a single general factor. A model with a general factor and no group factors yieldedagoodfit,x 2 (9,W=64) = 12.13, p>. 05. The root mean squared residual was .08. Hierarchical models with correlated group factors yielded similarly good fits, but the parameter estimates for the correlations between group factors equaled or exceeded one. Hierarchical models with orthogonal group factors did not fit the obtained correlations. Between-domain generality of tacit knowledge. The undergraduate group was given both the psychology and business tacit knowledge measures in counterbalanced order. It was possible to examine the generality of tacit knowledge, at least for the undergraduate group, by examining correlations across the two tacit knowledge measures. As a prerequisite to examining these correlations, it was necessary to rule out order effects on the covariance structure of the interrelations among question scores. Finding order effects on the covariance structure of interrelations among question scores would indicate that the nature of what was being measured had changed upon administration of a second tacit knowledge instrument. (Although finding no order effects on mean scores was not a prerequisite for examining the between-scales correlations, there were no order effects on mean subscale scores.) For the psychology tacit knowledge measure, a LISREL analysis of the fit to the data of a model that constrained the covariances of the tacit knowledge measures to be equal across order of administration was not significant, x2(21, N = 60) = 19.7, p = .54. This suggests no reliable order effect on the covariance structure of the psychology tacit knowledge measure. For the business tacit knowledge measure, analysis of the fit of the same model also was not significant, x2(21, N = 60) = 23.6, p = .32, which, again, suggests no reliable order effect on the covariance structure of the business tacit knowledge measure. The generality of tacit knowledge was supported by the correlations obtained between scores on the psychology and business tacit knowledge measures: total score (r = .58, p < .001), local orientation (r = .54, p < .001), global orientation (r = .50, p < .001), managing self (r = .52, p < .001), managing tasks (r = .47, p < .001), and managing others (r = .52, p < .001). Correlations of this magnitude indicate that the two measures shared

approximately 25 to 35% of the total variance in tacit knowledge scores.

General Discussion
The extent to which the results of the two present experiments were similar to each other and to previous work was surprising. The pattern of results was nearly identical for Experiments 1 and 2, which were carried out in different domains. These results provide clear support for two previous findings and partial support for a third. First, in both experiments, I found reliable differences in tacit knowledge across groups whose members differed in level of professional advancement. The responses of academic psychologists were closer to the expert prototype than were those of graduate students in psychology, whose responses were closer to the expert prototype than those of the undergraduates. Identical findings were obtained for business professionals, business graduate students, and undergraduates. Second, in both experiments, within-group individual differences in tacit knowledge were related to criterion measures of performance appropriate to each of the groups, with some correlations of a magnitude (.3-.5) IVi to 2V4 times that of correlations typically found between performance on ability tests and job performance. The resultant values of r2 (proportion of variance accounted for) were 2 to 5 times larger. Third, in Experiment 2, tacit knowledge was unrelated to verbal aptitude. However, performance on the academic psychology measure used in Experiment 1 was related to verbal aptitude. Previously, no reliable relations were found for undergraduates between tacit knowledge and verbal aptitude as traditionally measured (Wagner & Steinberg, 1985). One difference between these and previous experiments is that the present experiments were more sensitive in detecting weak relations between tacit knowledge and verbal intelligence because of a larger undergraduate sample and more reliable tacit knowledge measures. Why there should be a relation with verbal aptitude for the academic psychology measure and not the business measure remains unclear. These differences cannot be due to differences in subjects because I used the same group of undergraduates in both experiments. An adequate determination of the true degree of relation between tacit knowledge and verbal aptitude

1246

RICHARD K. WAGNER structure of tacit knowledge, the generality of tacit knowledge is supported by (a) the intercorrelations (.5-.8) among the scales constructed to measure distinct contents and contexts of tacit knowledge; (b) the correlations (.7-.8) between performance for the actual and ideal ratings; (c) the correlation (.6) found for members of the undergraduate group between performance on the tacit knowledge measures for academic psychology and business management; and (d) the highly similar patterns of correlations with external criterion measures across domains, across actual and ideal responses, and across the contents and contexts of tacit knowledge. The fact that a generalized ability accounts for much of the variance in performance on academic-type tasks might make a similar finding for more practical tasks less surprising. But note that the evidence for a general ability in the domain of social intelligence has, at best, been mixed (see, e.g., Ford & Tisak, 1983;Keating, 1978; Sternberg& Smith, 1985; Walker &Foley, 1973). There may, however, be problems with social intelligence measures because except for Hogan's (1969) Empathy Scale and Ford and Tisak's (1983) behaviorally derived measure, social intelligence measures have been unrelated to the measures they should be related to, including other social intelligence measures. The present results are consistent with two recent large-scale studies of social competence. In a cross-cultural study involving hundreds of Anglo, Chicano, and Mexican children, Mercer, Gomez-Palacio, and Padilla (1986) found intercorrelations among subscales of a measure of adaptive behavior to exceed those of the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for ChildrenRevised, which was given to the same samples. More important, the correlation between performance on the adaptive behavior scale and performance on the IQ test was not significantly different from zero. Ford and Tisak (1983) reported evidence for a social competence factor that was general to several measures of social competence yet distinct from measures of academic competence. There are two obvious sources of a general factor for tacit knowledge, which not surprisingly are two possible sources of the general factor for psychometric aptitude tests. The general factor may be a manifestation of something inside the head, such as a general ability to acquire tacit knowledge. Alternatively, the general factor may reflect the nature of learning experiences: Experience in a given situation may inform one's understanding of the management of self, others, and tasks. Thus the fact that a person is relatively knowledgeable about each kind of tacit knowledge might merely reflect greater experience in situations that provide general knowledge. A number of limitations of the present studies qualify the conclusion that the structure of tacit knowledge is characterized by a general factor. First, the results are based on studies conducted in two professional domains. Moving beyond professional and managerial domains, or perhaps moving to managerial and professional domains other than academic psychology and business management, may yield a different picture of the structure of tacit knowledge. Second, the results are specific to the particular measures used in the present studies. The results might have been different had I measured other kinds of tacit knowledge. Third, the generality may reflect something the measures have in common in addition to tacit knowledge, such

will require giving a tacit knowledge measure and an IQ test to large groups of professionals as opposed to undergraduates.

Scope of Tacit Knowledge

The most important finding to emerge from the present experiments concerns the breadth of tacit knowledge. Tacit knowledge is not simply "careerism," that is, knowing how to promote one's career, nor is it simply formal knowledge about such things as the names of one's tools. Whereas Hunter (1983) has reported relations between formal knowledge and performance for occupations such as medical technician, the present results imply that such relations between knowledge and performance extend to the informal knowledge of people in managerial and professional careers. The between-group differences in tacit-knowledge across groups whose members differed in level of professional advancement and the within-group correlations with criterion reference measures were similar for tacit knowledge useful in the short-term accomplishment of a variety of tasks, as well as in tacit knowledge useful in attaining one's long-range objectives. These results extended across work-related situations that required skill at managing oneself, one's tasks, and others. Furthermore, these differences encompassed judgments about the ideal quality as well as the practicality of possible responses to work-related situations. An interesting finding for both experiments was that increasing level of professional advancement was associated with increasing congruence between judged ideal quality (ideal ratings) and practicality (actual ratings). There are a number of possible explanations for this result. Perhaps because what counts in academic psychology and business is actual accomplishment, whether in terms of publications and student evaluations of one's teaching or in terms of gross earnings for one's division, people in these career pursuits come to weigh practicality heavily in their judgments about the quality of possible responses to work-related situations. Alternatively, it may be that people generally become less idealistic with age or that their values change over time regardless of the reward structure of their occupations.

Structure of Tacit Knowledge

The results of both experiments support a model of the structure of tacit knowledge characterized by a substantial general factor. Thus, for the present, individual differences in tacit knowledge are best described in terms of a general ability or fund of knowledge, as opposed to a collection of independent abilities or funds of knowledge. The various kinds of tacit knowledge should be viewed as facets of a general ability or fund of knowledge as opposed to psychological factors in their own right. In practical terms, people who are highly knowledgeable about managing themselves tend to be quite knowledgeable about managing others and managing their tasks. Such people can be expected to be knowledgeable about both short-term and long-term aspects of work-related situations and about ideal quality as well as practicality. In addition to the outcome of testing alternative models of the

TACIT KNOWLEDGE as response format. However, note that a common response format has not been sufficient to yield a general factor in previous studies of social intelligence. Obviously, it takes more than tacit knowledge to succeed in an occupational setting. Motivation, academic ability, leadership, chance, and other still undetermined elements undoubtedly play important roles. The importance of the present experiments is to suggest that in addition to these other elements, tacit knowledge plays a nontrivial role in work-related practical judgment and decision-making. In the minds of laypersons and experts alike, intelligence includes more than the competencies required to succeed in the circumscribed, although admittedly important, environment of formal classroom settings (Sternberg, Conway, Ketron, & Bernstein, 1981). Our understanding of intelligence will continue to be limited, at best, until the breadth of domains in which we study intelligence becomes a closer approximation of the breadth of domains in which intelligence is manifested.

1247

References
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