I never hided my own ideas, also as a referee. I say/write what I think!

Lack of loyalty and lack of  trust between co-workers may be considered as important factors.

Interpersonal trust or trust between co-workers have a strong influence over knowledge sharing. Interpersonal trust is known as an individual or a group’s expectancy in the reliability of the promise or actions of other individuals or groups (Politis, 2003). Team members require the existence of trust in order to respond openly and share their knowledge (Gruenfeld et al., 1996).

Politis, J. (2003), ‘‘The connection between trust and knowledge management: what are its implications for team performance’’, Journal of Knowledge Management, Vol. 7 No. 5, pp. 55-66.

Gruenfeld, D.H., Mannix, E.A., Williams, K.Y. and Neale, M.A. (1996), ‘‘Group composition and decision making: how member familiarity and information distribution affect process and performance’’, Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Process, Vol. 67 No. 1, pp. 1-15.

http://ptarpp2.uitm.edu.my/silibus/orgCultre3.pdf

Cheers dear @Kamal, you have earned a down-vote! Unfair and unacceptable behavior! I will post my answer later!

Dear Kamal,

Perhaps loyalty is based in balanced giving and taking? Historical events (e.g. past individual experiences concerning claimed ownerships of ideas) in the organization might influence how knowledge will eventually be shared, or not?

Rivalry might play a part. Lack of time to engage in some activities that are not immediately useful can be another.

Sharing is Caring. Why do We have Barriers in Knowledge Sharing? " Knowledge sharing seems less likely to occur in a highly structured,multi- layered hierarchy as compared to a flat organization structure,or focused on project teams where communication flow is not restricted in one direction!"

http://www.tojdel.net/pdf/v02i02/v02i02-06.pdf

When an employee is not treated well by those who control an organization though the organization needs the employee for the difficult tasks or the "dirty work", when the employee suffers from bias & prejudice because of not belonging to a certain affiliation or to even a particular city, when the organization has unjust system of rewards & facilities giving some & denying some, when the organization's managers have lists of who is to be promoted & who is to be isolated, when the employee is under watching & spying all the time… when all these practices are persistent, then how come the employee will be open in a place in which there is constant effort for crushing & not nurturing or raising him/her?

Two reasons I might say: One reason is to remain vital and more relevant to the organization than others ( the spirit of competitiveness). The second reason might be because of fear of the unknown of the  other side that presumed needs the knowledge. Unless people ask for any thing including knowledge, it is unlikely people will jump and offer the know how as they do not know what the reaction might be. But in an organization where relations are healthy, open and friendly that does work in cooperation to promote the organization and its progress, information and knowledge( tacit or formal ) sharing is imperative and a most priority. 

Agreed Dr. Kamal, Trust is a very important factor.

Some other important  reasons for not sharing the knowledge 

• Fear of losing knowledge power and trade secrets
• Pride in not seeking advice from others
• Unaware the usefulness of particular knowledge
• Lack of time
• Not having good relationship with colleagues

I agree with all the above answers. One more would like to add. The job satisfaction of the employee may also influence their hesitation towards knowledge sharing. How well they are treated by their employers-makes an issue here. This may also be a reason. 

The trust of an employee should be brought by the employer. I strongly believe in good leadership quality to obtain fruitful results rather than blaming the employees.

The question specifically pointed to "tacit knowledge" which is different from explicit knowledge. The latter can be shared, while the former is very difficult to decontextualize, codify and transfer to others. Following Polonyi's "WE KNOW MORE THAN WE CAN TELL", it seems that tacit knowledge can only be shared through training and expérience. For example, the dexterity of an artist has a strong tacit dimension and cannot be shared....

I agree with dears @Kamal and @Behrouz, Lack of loyalty to the organization is the main factor; this happens when the employers are not treated equally and do not feel the benefits they get when the company achieves success.

It's human nature. There are two characteristics of human behaviour: 1) income or wealth maximization and 2) opportunism.

Tacit knowledge, contrary to communicable knowledge, can only be acquired with practice and is personal. At the most, one person may transfer it to another in a very personal way, e.g trainees or apprentices. This was the way professional knowledge was passed on to new generations in the Middle Ages.

Since the rise of big firms and corporations, labour is contracted in the market and may be dismissed anytime. What happens to the worker who transmitted "tacit' knowledge to another within the firm if he gets fired? Tacit knowledge is a personal experience and so should be compensated.It doesn't belong to the firm, but to the worker.

So, if you design a "consistent system of economic incentives" in the firm to compensate "tacit knowledge", it will be transferred to the rest of the organization. If you don't, workers will be hesitant to transmit it.

As long as you know and understand the nature of human behaviour, you can design the "safeguards" to eventual hazards. In this case the hazard is opportunism or moral hazard, the worker not willing to share its own experience. Having an adequate economic incentive to compensate him, allows the flow of knowledge. You can establish a protocol within the firm, for older workers to form new ones, with specific programs. This activity could be remunerated separately to the worker transferring knowledge.

If a worker is not paid for his tacit knowledge, he will keep it for himself and have an implicit "monopoly" over it. Will a researcher share his knowledge if he's not properly compensated? Tacit knowledge may compare to knowledge resulting from research. Not only you have to produce it, but then you have to share it, in order to benefit society (value creation for society).

Here is a good resource Difficulties in diffusion of tacit knowledge in organizations! "...Knowledge management needs different forms according to the possibility to code knowledge. Internal individual processes like experience and talent obtain tacit knowledge that is difficult to code. Therefore it cannot be managed and shared as explicit knowledge. To rely on personal tacit knowledge is risky. Conversion of tacit knowledge to explicit or at least ability to share it offers greater value to an organization. But what are the difficulties related to sharing tacit knowledge? Different difficulties are to be found related to perception, language, time, value and distance."

http://www.emeraldinsight.com/doi/abs/10.1108/14691930010359252

Employees hesitate to share their tacit knowledge. That is fact. As dear Kamal said that lack of real loyalty to the organization might be one of the reasons. I would like to add some other reason which relates to feeling insecurity by the employees. 

If employees share their tacit knowledge, most of them will be afraid of terminating their services.

Organizations should encourage and support the creation and exchange of tacit knowledge. There are many approaches to managing tacit knowledge sharing.

One approach to managing tacit knowledge is what is called, communities of practice. The main task of management is the conversion of tacit, human capital into explicit, structural capital. 

In my opinion, Employees share their tacit knowledge but in limited way, due to rivalry and nothing to do with loyalty to the organization, because this situation exists in every place and time.

Dear All, thank you so much for your great inputs. Re if loyalty is a cause among others to share tacit knowledge or not; is it right to say if he/she loyal to the organization he/she works in, then the more he/she will take the initiative to share his/her tacit knowledge in the hope of building a culture of such positive attitudes.   

In reality, employees have to consider their knowledge as valuable. When a person has the idea that his knowledge might be of use to another person, this person will have a motivation to share this knowledge. This belief of knowledge ownership must be triggered by the organization, in order to increase the degree of knowledge sharing. 

in the reward structure; a relative large part of the employees still remains unrewarded for their knowledge sharing efforts and is unsatisfied with this reward structure. Since this ‘organizational knowledge sharing culture’ is a significant factor in organizations, great progress can be made here. Rewards do not have to be expressed in money; the

most important rewards are appreciation for the shared knowledge and a positive note by the supervisor.

M.J. Scholing (2011), The differences in knowledge sharing between profit and nonprofit organizations, ‘An analysis on profit and nonprofit organizations in the Dutch traffic research industry’ , University of Groningen, Faculty of Economics and Business

Just to clarify my answer. The explanation I gave is a brief version of Oliver Williamson's thesis about theoretical assumptions on human behaviour, which he applies to tacit and communicable knowledge (that's his denomination)

For those who do not know who Williamson is: Nobel Laureate in Economics 2009. He is one of the most important authors in New Institutional Economics and the one who gave "organizational economics" its actual theoretical framework.

Why do I know this? Just because I modelled this theoretical framework, as part of a broad model for New Institutional Economics. He has a nano approach to economic organization, via contracting, and so he lists the hazards and proposes safeguards to avoid them happening. His framework is rooted among others in the "Prince" by Machiavelli and "Leviathan" by Hobbes and his premise "homo homini lupus est" drawn from Plautus, a Roman writer.

I personally applied this approach when acting as Secretary for Academics of a School of Economics, and had very good results in making some researchers transfer implicit knowledge (tacit) to trainees via "specific retributions", apart from the stipulated salary.

Regards to all,

PS:

I will list the most important references for those willing to read him:

Williamson, O. 1975. "Market & Hierarchies. Analysis and Antitrust Implications".  The Free Press, New York [very especially chapters I, II, III and IV]

Williamson, O. 1985. "The Economic Institutions of Capitalism", Free Press New York

Williamson, O.  1986. "Economic Organization: firms, markets and policy control" Wheatsheaf Books.

Williamson, O. 1989. "Transaction Cost Economics" in Handbook of Industrial Organization Chapter 3. Edited Richard Schmalensee & Robert Willig. Elsevier Science Publishers BV.

Williamson, O. 1996. "Industrial Organization" Elgar Pub

Williamson, O. 1996. "The Mechanisms of Governance"1996. Oxford University Press

Employee needs to get some of appreciation for sharing his knowledge, either by offering financial or moral rewards. By which, the organization will turn the rivalry from negative to positive practices.

People do share their Tacit knowledge only after developing fait . With collogues and trust with organization. Hence moto should be  developing trust in employees. Thanks.

Tacit knowledge can be defined as an unwritten and hidden storehouse of knowledge held by individuals, based on his or her experiences, intuition, and observations.

In fact, understanding the different forms of knowledge and being able to distinguish between them, is an essential step for knowledge management.

 I agree with both Kamal and Behrouz. In fact lack of trust among co-workers is one of the most important reasons for not sharing tacit knowledge like business secret. Even if an organisation which objectively evaluate workers performance may take an incorrect decision as a worker who got tacit knowledge from a senior may get promoted, if he performed his work with more dedication than the person from which the junior has learnt.  

May be because of cut throat competition in industry and uncertainty of jobs.

Since I did not know the term "tacit knowledge" I search and I found:

Tacit Knowledge: Tacit knowledge (as opposed to formal, codified or explicit knowledge) is the kind of knowledge that is difficult to transfer to another person by means of writing it down or verbalizing it.

The term “tacit knowing” or “tacit knowledge” was first introduced into philosophy by Michael Polanyi in 1958 in his magnum opus Personal Knowledge. He famously summarizes the idea in his later work The Tacit Dimension with the assertion that “we can know more than we can tell.”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tacit_knowledge

MICHAEL POLANYI PERSONAL KNOWLEDGE

Towards a Post-Critical Philosophy, Routledge & Kegan Paul Ltd, 1958,1962

If this is so then employees hesitate to share their tacit knowledge, since it is difficult to transfer to another person by means of writing it down or verbalizing it.

Dear Dr. Ra'ed, My answer to your question on page 3 (is it right to say if he/she loyal to the organization he/she works in, then the more he/she will take the initiative to share his/her tacit knowledge?) is that loyalty is of 2 types: i) loyalty to persons. ii) loyalty to the organization. In some countries, the "boss" seeks loyalty for his/her person & if an employee rejects that then the boss's servants will spread rumors that the employee lacks loyalty to the organization. As if the "boss" & the "organization" are 2 faces of the same coin. When an employee is persecuted by the "boss" & his/her lodge, then it is great if the employee does the duty of the job honestly without extra effort or devotion since by the end of the day, the "glory" will be claimed by the "suppressors" !

Thank you Dr. Nizar

Dear Costas,

Very interesting information about the meaning of "tacit knowledge", and that " we can know more than we can tell".

I do appreciate your answers so much. Thank you all dears.

Lack of satisfaction and loyalties. 

I think it is related the charater of knowledge. For tacit knowledge,it is difficult to transfer, while explicit knowledge is more easy.

Tacit knowledge management is part of knowledge Management processes. There are many factors that affect the knowledge transfer from employee to employee in the same organization.

 These factors may include the Characteristics and nature of knowledge, knowledge transfer channels, and also cultural environment.

The attached article explores the impact of affect-based and cognition-based trust of co-workers on the willingness of professionals to share and use tacit knowledge.

The results indicate that both distinct types of trust are involved in decisions affecting transfer and use of tacit knowledge.

Tacit knowledge is rooted in an individual’s experience and values (Nonaka and Konno, 1998). This type of knowledge may play an important role in the strategic planning performance of managers and professional staff .

https://ai.wu.ac.at/~kaiser/literatur/Wissensmanagement-2/trust-and-tacit-knowledge-sharing.pdf

Dear Behrouz,

I completely agree with you regarding the impact of affect-based and cognition-based trust of co-workers on the willingness of professionals to share and use tacit knowledge.

In fact, trust is related to having confidence and faith in others when dealing with them. It includes some individual differences which may be due to the knowledge of person about trustee's personality and ethics, as well as to the trustee's behavior and interactions with others.

Lack of effective communication among superiors and subordinates within the organization leads to mistrust. Trust enhances the process of exchanging ideas and opinions between managers and subordinates which would positively affect the rationality of decision making.

Key to both formal and informal tacit knowledge transfer is the willingness and capacity of individuals to share what they know and to use what they learn

Barriers may arise that limit the transfer of tacit knowledge (Lucas, 2005). These include:

• Coworker willingness to share and/or use tacit knowledge,
• Difficulty in expressing tacit knowledge that is tied to mental and/or physical action, and
• Difficulty of applying context-specific tacit knowledge in other contexts

Sharing tacit knowledge may involve risks to an individual, such as loss of competitive advantage over peers .

Holste, J. S., & Fields, D. (2010). Trust and tacit knowledge sharing and use. Journal of knowledge management, 14(1), 128-140.

Lack of loyalty, lack of interest, lack of trust, lack of commitment, lack of citizenship behavior, etc are some important factors of employees hesitation to share their tacit knowledge. If shared, it will increase cooperation among employees, efficiency and effectiveness of employees, productivity, and firm performance.

Alejandro,

I understand your query in philosophy of language. Certainly, tacit knowledge of using complex equipment, instruments, machinery is not known explicitly, therefore, difficult or almost impossible to communicate as there is no manual because tacit knowledge cannot be explicitly written.

I know a person who used to work in a workshop in Riyadh where German made-buses are repaired under the supervision of German engineers. But, that illiterate Indian mechanics used to repair the buses within an hour, while the problem could take hours for engineers to understand it. German engineers impressed by him offered him to get training and a Diploma from Germany so that he could be promoted, but being illiterate he could go. His was tacit knowledge written in no manual.

In our country, we have tradition of guru-chela (master- apprentice) tradition from the antiquity and is still preserved in some occupations today. Only observing guru to work on different problems of the profession, practising himself under the observation of the guru as well as oneself with time the chela (apprentice) becomes master himself. If a senior let a junior work with him, with times the tacit knowledge will get transferred.

There are many ways of providing people of ordinary means with the opportunity of reaping the fruits of their own labor and initiative. Worker capitalism means giving workers greater control of the way they do their jobs and higher compensation for excellent performance. It means providing adequate training, on an ongoing basis,  to workers to enable them to compete effectively in the global marketplace. And it means the continuing transformation of the workplace, enabling employees to increase earnings and profit more fully. People work harder and smarter if they know their labors will benefit them and those they care most deeply about. And the higher the compensation, the greater the incentive for productivity. If they sense that they are stuck in a given position without opportunity of advancement, particularly in lower-paying jobs, creativity wanes, interest lessens and effectiveness diminishes.

http://www.pedz.uni-mannheim.de/daten/edz-mr/pbs/00/globalisation_and_social_gov_en.pdf

Competition among peers is the main reason for not sharing the knowledge. But, this kind of attitude doesn't sustain because anyone who is holding some knowledge and is not sharing with anyone who wants to learn it, end up being a victim of timidity. The knowledge is prevalent in this universe. One just can't stop another from learning something. There are plenty of people out there who are ready share their knowledge through various mechanisms. This was the reason open source culture evolved and thanks to Richard Stallman for promoting open source culture.

Thank you all for your valuable comments. I got so much benefits from them.

Also, I applied that in real life.  

Lack of confidence, trust, and  loyalty to the organization may be some factors for employees not to share their tacit knowledge.

I think loyalty is a crucial factor to be considered. Thank you dear sir Subhash.

Conversation matters! Dear @Ra'ed. Transferring Expertise: The Best Way to Move Tacit Knowledge is fine blog about. See, Do, Teach! "See, Do, Teach is a knowledge transfer process designed to incorporate the needed learning elements to quickly develop expertise through an intensive, immersive period of learning over a month or more...See Do Teach is a three part series of engagements between an Expert and a Learner. The See Do Teach process transfers tacit knowledge more effectively than written documents because the learner repeatedly observes the behavior he or she is expected to emulate..."

http://www.nancydixonblog.com/sharing-tacit-knowledge/

Because by definition it cannot be shared. And experience counts. There are some aspects of learning that can only be achieved and internalized if experienced personally. This is also where "sharing" of tacit knowledge becomes "unsolicited advice."

We had the same problem when initiating the Self Managed Team intervention. Then we diagnosed to find the real issues, it was then we identified

were more prominent (missing links) in the system. Articulating with various individuals, departments, supervisors, managers etc., it was found that MISTRUST was the key turning point. Then we created transparency in the system through Citizenship Charter in letter and spirit, which saw the emergence and development of tacit knowledge repository. So, building trust is important for KM initiatives.

Why employees hesitate to share their tacit knowledge?

Following can be some of the reasons: