Tacit Knowledge, Expert Work and Sustainable Knowledge Management: Insights from IT Knowledge Workers

In a knowledge-based economy, organizational sustainability is increasingly associated with the ability to identify, preserve, and transfer strategically important knowledge concentrated in knowledge workers. The aim of this article is to examine the relationships among knowledge types, knowledge-worker functions, and knowledge-based work models among IT specialists and, on this basis, to develop a Sustainable Knowledge Management Framework grounded in their professional expertise. The study was conducted using a sequential mixed-methods approach. In the quantitative phase, data from 620 IT specialists employed in Poland were analyzed. The qualitative phase was used to refine constructs and measurement items, whereas the quantitative phase examined relationships among knowledge types, knowledge-worker functions, and knowledge-based work models. The results revealed statistically significant associations between knowledge types, knowledge-worker functions, and knowledge-based work models. In particular, tacit and personalized knowledge were associated with expert-oriented work, whereas explicit knowledge was linked to transaction-oriented work. Knowledge-creation functions were most strongly associated with expert and integration work models. The concentration of tacit and personalized knowledge within expert-oriented work may be associated with knowledge-continuity challenges and increased vulnerability to knowledge loss. These patterns provided the basis for proposing a conceptual Sustainable Knowledge Management Framework linking critical knowledge resources, knowledge continuity mechanisms, organizational resilience, and long-term organizational sustainability. The framework should be understood as a theoretically grounded implication derived from the empirical findings rather than a directly tested sustainability model.