The barriers to tacit knowledge sharing in franchise organizations

Contemporary discourse among knowledge management and franchising scholars points to five key barriers that obstruct franchisors and franchisees from leveraging tacit knowledge as a resource for competitive advantage. Cumberland & Githens (2010, 2012), in their seminal works, identified these as Trust, Maturation, Communication, Competition and Culture. Usually, these barriers have been considered holistically as influencers of tacit knowledge transfer. Thus there has been limited debate on the individual influence of each factor and scant robust testing of these barriers to determine whether they are indeed distinct factors. This paper revisits the ideas that have led to the identification and justification of these barriers, and explores the complex relationships that often exist between franchisors and franchisees, and also between franchisees themselves. Finally, this paper will offer some novel ideas on how these barriers could be mitigated, and tacit knowledge transferred, through better structuring of vertical and horizontal information flows.