Digital Transformation and the Erosion of Tacit Knowledge Transfer in Manufacturing Organizations: A Conceptual Analysis

This paper has argued that digital transformation in manufacturing organizations carries significant, often unexamined, implications for the informal social mechanisms through which tacit knowledge has traditionally been generated and transferred. Enterprise digital systems, automation, remote work arrangements, and AI-based knowledge repositories each alter the conditions of proximity, observation, and interaction on which tacit knowledge transfer depends. Rather than treating digitalization and experiential knowledge preservation as competing priorities, organizations should consciously design digital transformation initiatives that account for their social and pedagogical consequences. Future empirical research could examine how specific digital interventions affect measurable knowledge-transfer outcomes across different manufacturing contexts, and how hybrid models combining digital efficiency with deliberate human interaction perform relative to purely digital or purely traditional approaches.

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