The learning curve for implementing effective reforms is steep. To better understand one of the important dimensions of organizational learning, we find the distinction between tacit and codified knowledge to be a useful one. Codified knowledge is explicit knowledge that has been articulated and stored in certain media, such as books, manuals, documents, procedures, stories, etc. Codified knowledge is not necessarily good, not is it by itself superior to tacit knowledge. It is readily made accessible, however, and opens to review for further improvement. Tacit knowledge is that aspect of knowledge that cannot or has not yet been codified. It is based on personal experience and can only be transmitted through personal mentoring, coaching, or training. Organizational learning requires codification and continuing engagement with leaders who hold and develop tacit knowledge and experience.
Ready made blueprints codified knowledge for reform in the form of easily translated best practices only exist in a few select areas and anti corruption and pro integrity reforms.
All too frequently attempts to replicate ready made solutions from distant contexts and countries have failed or faltered. Most valuable reform experiences still exist principally as tacit knowledge and the particular institutional constraints and historical contingencies are frequently poorly understood.
Fostering critical knowledge transfer between relevant institutions and reform leaders is therefore a prerequisite to success anti corruption enforcement and implementation. Only a handful of institutions currently participate in this transfer and dissemination of critical analysis, development of case material, and adaptation of experiences into codified knowledge. Most of the codified knowledge on reform is produced by a handful of institutions and overwhelmingly in English.
Education raises capacities in a manner that is both adaptive and responsive to the challenges of reform is through facilitating a series of processes that generate and disseminate high quality knowledge to support reforms. What has been a characteristic of the pro integrity? movement is single loop learning. This is exemplified by the attempt to formalize, codify and roll out best practice in an increasingly complex and sophisticated set of policy initiatives. This approach is characteristic of the second stage of recent anti corruption reform, that of international standards and best practice. This approach is not well suited to the challenges of implementation, as exemplified by the high levels of reform failure.
If reform is to be successfully implemented reformers have to be able to learn from the environment they are addressing, and to adapt accordingly. This is the essence of double loop learning which suggests as an approach to making reform more effective.
It is also the approach adopted by the educational organizations that addresses the central contemporary problem of reform, that of identifying and transferring the skills and knowledge required implement reforms successfully. The unique knowledge generated by education is developed, managed, retained, and renewed within the network:
• It is developed by local nongovernmental organizations and university partners the more actors we engage with, the richer the network becomes.
• It is done in a distributive fashion by local partners take the initiative and responsibility to operate in a local setting, thereby creating bilateral, regional, linguistic links within education.
• It is retained within the network tacit knowledge is developed as the capacity of individual academics and trainers is built up through comparative experience, scholarships and tailored advice. This knowledge is then codified (through policy papers, an online forum, a university course curriculum), which strengthens the resilience and sustainability of the network outputs.
• It is renewed within the network does not seek to create a bank of central expertise, but rather to ensure that ali partners contribute to critical knowledge generation. Thus, the partners role is not confined to advising new partners on their development processes, but to exchange and transfer knowledge with them, and then use the new knowledge gathered from that experience to contribute to the pool of knowledge within the network.
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