Combination (Explicit → Explicit)

A mode of knowledge conversion that reconfigures existing explicit knowledge through sorting, adding, recategorizing, and recontextualizing.

This is where information systems excel. Modern computer systems provide examples: databases combine and reformat existing knowledge; reports aggregate and synthesize explicit data from multiple sources; documentation recategorizes and recontextualizes known procedures.

The process involves:

• Sorting explicit knowledge from inside and outside the organization
• Adding new elements to existing bodies of knowledge
• Combining different data sets to create new information
• Recontextualizing to make knowledge applicable to new situations

Combination creates systemic knowledge (comprehensive frameworks, manuals, databases. It’s essential for spreading knowledge across organizational boundaries.

The limitation: pure combination operates only on what has already been articulated. It processes but does not originate. The explicit knowledge that combination works with must first be created through externalization.

Related: 06-molecule—seci-framework, 06-atom—explicit-knowledge-definition, 06-atom—internalization-mode