What does this research mean for the field?

Tacit ignorance is a structural barrier that prevents the effective institutionalization of organizational knowledge across different levels. Novelty: ClaimNovelty.NOVEL_FINDING. Consensus alignment: ConsensusAlignment.CHALLENGES_CONSENSUS.

What question did this study set out to answer?

The research aims to explain the limits of team cognition scaling due to tacit ignorance and propose a solution.

February 24, 2026Open Access

Tacit Ignorance: Designing Friction for Organizational Knowledge Institutionalization

Key Points

The research aims to explain the limits of team cognition scaling due to tacit ignorance and propose a solution.
Theoretical analysis of established constructs in team cognition.
Examination of Polanyi's concept of tacit knowledge.
Proposing a design principle—friction-triggered pinpoint socialization to address scaling issues.
Identified tacit ignorance as a root cause for knowledge institutionalization failures.
Proposed mechanisms of comprehension and operational failure to reveal tacit knowledge gaps.
Suggested using friction points to ensure awareness of tacit knowledge in organizations.

Abstract

Shared Mental Models (SMM) and Transactive Memory Systems (TMS) are among the mostvalidated constructs in team cognition, yet persistently fail to scale beyond small teams.Nonaka and Takeuchi's SECI model addresses knowledge creation but relies on prolongedsocialization that scales poorly. This paper argues that these scaling failures share a commonroot: tacit ignorance—the structural invisibility of tacit knowledge to those who lack it.Where Polanyi's tacit knowledge concerns what the knower cannot articulate, tacit ignoranceconcerns what non-knowers cannot perceive. Building on Sandberg and Tsoukas's (2020)phenomenological approach to sensemaking, we theorize the epistemic condition of thoseoutside a practice world: tacit knowledge casts a "shadow" in which non-knowers cannot seethat knowledge exists, who holds it, or that they need it. This shadow explains why cross-levelinstitutionalization (Ocasio, 2023) fails in the knowledge domain: the very interactionsthrough which institutionalization occurs are blocked by mutual invisibility.We propose Designed Friction as an alternative to both prolonged socialization andcomprehensive documentation. Friction surfaces tacit ignorance through two mechanisms:comprehension failure ("I don't understand") reveals missing premises proactively, whileoperational failure ("It didn't work") reveals missing boundary conditions reactively. Ratherthan attempting to externalize all tacit knowledge in advance, organizations design frictionpoints—onboarding, decision records, pair work, incident retrospectives—that trigger pinpointsocialization when ignorance becomes visible. Documentation becomes minimal (only whatfriction reveals) yet maximally traceable, anchored to entry points that newcomers necessarilytraverse.The contribution is threefold: a Polanyian concept (tacit ignorance) that explains teamcognition's scaling limits by theorizing from the non-knower's perspective; a mechanism forcross-level institutionalization failure that extends current debates in this journal; and a designprinciple (friction-triggered pinpoint socialization) that enables organizational-scaleknowledge institutionalization without leader-dependent bottlenecks. Together, thesecontributions resolve ten long-standing puzzles in organizational knowledge research.

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