Mechanisms for effective tacit knowledge transfer in university laboratory: An agent-based approach

Source, recipient, and knowledge characteristic play an important role towards tacit knowledge transfer effectiveness. Moreover, to foster the transmission of tacit knowledge, it is required to define the mechanism, whether it is a formal or informal mechanism. Therefore, the effect of transfer mechanism together with the source, recipient, and knowledge characteristic towards tacit knowledge transfer effectiveness should be properly examined. Since knowledge transfer is considered as a complex system, the usage of agent-based approach is perfectly qualified. The purpose of this study is to examine tacit knowledge transfer effectiveness by generating all possible scenarios based on source, recipient, and knowledge characteristic in formal and informal transfer mechanism using agent-based modeling and simulation approach. The result of this study found that the developed model has successfully generated the knowledge transfer effectiveness score by the error of 5%. The informal mechanism for some activities is the better strategy for transfer mechanism.