The term "knowledge" is frequently used in both daily and professional contexts. Knowledge refers to the information and skills we acquire theoretically or practically through experience or education. While "knowledge" is a broad concept, it can be categorized into different types. Understanding the distinctions between these knowledge types is valuable for collecting and processing information effectively. For instance, when developing a knowledge management strategy for your company, familiarity with different types of knowledge can be advantageous. If you're unfamiliar with these knowledge types, don't worry – we've got you covered!

In this article, we will explore what knowledge is and the different types of knowledge.

Ready? Let's dive in!

TL; DR

  • Knowledge is the skills, facts, and information that a person acquires about a subject or topic through education, experience, observation, and reasoning.
  • Businesses use different channels to collect information, such as customer reviews, feedback, and customer service chat logs.
  • Businesses can leverage the knowledge they collect to generate insights that enhance employee productivity and increase overall company profitability.
  • Although knowledge is collected as raw data on its own, you can turn it into information and produce useful outputs.
  • The 5 most common types of knowledge used by businesses are: explicit, implicit, tacit, declarative, and procedural.
  • If you want to take your knowledge management game to the next level, TextCortex is the AI co-pilot designed for you.

What is Knowledge?

Simply put, knowledge is the totality of information, facts, skills, and understandings about a subject that a person has acquired through education, experience, observation, and reasoning. This knowledge can be processed and used for various purposes. Knowledge can be collected in many ways, such as perception, experience, education, etc. Furthermore, the knowledge that a person and an institution collect has different channels and methods.

How Do Businesses Collect Knowledge?

Businesses can use knowledge to increase employee productivity or customer satisfaction. A business can collect knowledge from different channels, such as customer sources, feedback, and product or service reviews. A business can collect knowledge from different methods, from customer service chat history to customer shopping habits. After a business collects knowledge about its employees, customers, and competitors, it processes it into quantitative and qualitative information.

How Do Businesses Use Knowledge?

Once a business collects information, it can turn it into information such as customer behavior, predictive analytics, and SWOT. For example, companies can process information about their customers to study their purchasing behavior and use it for effective personalized advertising. Collecting and using information about a customer base means dealing with a large amount of data.

When it comes to processing large amounts of data, machine learning algorithms like ZenoChat and AI assistants with natural language processing capabilities are ideal solutions to lighten your workload and turn knowledge into information. AI assistants can analyze large amounts of data to generate error-free outputs, and the entire process is completed in a much shorter time compared to the human workforce.

Knowledge vs Information: What is the Difference?

Knowledge can be defined as the accumulation of data collected through various channels about a subject or topic. However, information is the process of processing this data set and turning it into useful and insightful outputs. In other words, while knowledge alone consists of a data set, information refers to the processing of this data by adapting it to specific purposes.

The 5 Types of Knowledge for Businesses

Now that we are familiar with the term knowledge, we can examine it more closely and explore different types of knowledge. Learning and understanding types of knowledge is critical for both businesses and individuals. In this way, you can categorize the knowledge you collect in your daily or professional life and turn it into useful information.

Types of Knowledge

1-) Explicit Knowledge

Explicit knowledge is the easiest type of knowledge to collect and convert into information. Explicit knowledge is knowledge covering topics that are easy to document systematically. Explicit knowledge can be categorized under different tags and for specific purposes because it usually contains quantitative data and can be stored for later use. Explicit knowledge is the most basic type of knowledge a business can use to grow and increase its productivity. By collecting explicit knowledge, you can produce inferences that will increase customer satisfaction, boost your employees' productivity, and skyrocket your company's profitability.

Explicit Knowledge

You can also use the explicit knowledge your company collects while creating a knowledge management strategy, store it in knowledge bases, and process it with the help of AI. Using the information you obtain with explicit knowledge for decision-making will also increase your company's efficiency.

2-) Implicit Knowledge

Implicit knowledge is learned skills or implementation of raw data. Implicit knowledge is obtained by taking explicit knowledge and applying it to different cases. For example, while explicit knowledge is asking questions about a product or service to customers, analyzing these questions and creating a frequently asked questions (FAQs) page is implicit knowledge.

Implicit Knowledge

Implicit knowledge is created when you learn the best way to perform something. When you can take experience and synthesize it with other things you have learned and reach a conclusion that will solve a problem, this result is called implicit knowledge. Implicit knowledge is necessary for businesses to grow and increase their profitability, which is why it is the most valuable type of knowledge.

3-) Tacit Knowledge

Tacit knowledge is a type of knowledge that is difficult to explain and teach in a straightforward way and is mostly cultural and personal. The knowledge that employees of a business share among themselves, such as words or phrases, is tacit knowledge. An employee can only learn tacit knowledge through experience, and tacit knowledge is difficult to document, requiring a lot of footnotes and explanations. Employees learn tacit knowledge over time and begin to use it for specific cases.

The experience a salesperson uses to figure out the timing of their pitches, understand social cues, read the situation, and analyze the emotions of the participants is tacit knowledge, which is exceedingly difficult to teach. Since tacit knowledge is learned through experience, companies may try to train their employees in different ways.

4-) Declarative Knowledge

Declarative knowledge, also called "know-what," is the understanding of concepts, truths, and static information that can be easily accessed and retrieved. Declarative knowledge is essential for roles that require a strong grasp of specific concepts. Companies can use declarative knowledge in areas where information can be analyzed and explained, such as new employee onboarding and training processes and research. For example, detailed information about a company's products, features, and benefits is considered declarative knowledge.

5-) Procedural Knowledge

Procedural knowledge focuses on how to perform specific tasks or processes through a series of steps to complete something. Procedural knowledge allows a task to be completed efficiently and correctly according to a logical order. The most common cases where companies use procedural knowledge include guidance content such as standard operating procedures (SOPs), guides, and handbooks.

TextCortex – Manage Your Knowledge

If you are looking for an AI assistant to help you manage and process your entire data pool, from explicit knowledge to procedural knowledge, then TextCortex is designed for you. With its multiple LLMs, natural language processing capabilities, retrieval-augmented generation (RAG), data analysis, web search, and knowledge bases, TextCortex is ideal for processing any type of knowledge and turning it into information.

With TextCortex’s knowledge bases, you can integrate all your internal data into TextCortex and manage, analyze, and turn this data into useful outputs such as SOP, FAQs, customer behavior documents or SWOT with ZenoChat. With TextCortex knowledge bases, you can increase the overall productivity of your employees and boost your company’s profitability. See the results from one of our case studies:

  • TextCortex was implemented for Kemény Boehme Consultants as a solution to tackle these challenges and today employees report increased efficiency and productivity (saving 3 work days a month per employee on average).
  • AICX, an ecosystem partner of TextCortex, was integral to the onboarding and helped achieve a 70% activation rate of the team within the first weeks.
  • Employee confidence in using and working with AI increased by 60%.‍
  • The implementation results in a 28x return on investment (ROI).

Sounds exciting?

Click here to create your free TextCortex account and discover its advantages.