The purpose of conducting this qualitative, case study was to explore what strategies six local government leaders in the Midwest United States used to retain tacit knowledge of baby boomer employees. I developed the central research question to guide my understanding of the different perspectives of leaders, and the strategies used to retain tacit knowledge from baby boomers. I collected data using purposeful selection of the participants who answered open-ended interview questions. I recorded, transcribed, and analyzed all questions. Coding revealed the results of the study, and obtaining common themes identified during the analysis process.
I used the organization’s website to review the history of the organization, leaders and their biographies, and collected artifacts from the participants that included
organizational charts, displaying the hierarchy of the departments, and posters with detailed artwork depicting decades of progress, and generations of former leaders. One participant pointed out a poster of generations of former leaders portraying the legacy of the agency, and used this poster to tell the story of former leaders and their
accomplishments to younger employees.
The central research question of the study was, What strategies do local
government leaders need to retain tacit knowledge from retiring baby boomers? From the central research question of inquiry, the focus for the interview questions was as follows: 1. What is your perception of how the exodus of baby boomers may affect your
2. What is your perspective of the strategies your organization uses to capture tacit knowledge from baby boomers?
3. What is your experience retaining tacit knowledge from a person reporting to you?
4. What obstacles, if any, obstruct your attempts to retain tacit knowledge of baby boomers?
5. How, if at all, are you addressing these obstacles?
6. What tacit knowledge transfer strategies will you share with colleagues before you retire?
7. What tacit information within the workplace holds value?
8. How do you determine what tacit knowledge holds a specific value? 9. What methods, if any, do leaders use to store and retain tacit knowledge
retrieved from exiting baby boomers?
10. How do personnel share tacit knowledge in your organization?
11. What additional information can you provide to help me understand how your organization gathers and retains tacit knowledge?
The findings of the study revealed three distinct themes regarding strategies to retain tacit knowledge from baby boomers: (a) mentoring, (b) generational differences, and (c) lack of structured systems. From the data collected and analyzed, I found the first theme, mentoring, was the most common way to share tacit knowledge from baby
knowledge, not all baby boomers were willing to share knowledge, and some baby boomers were reluctant to share any knowledge unless strongly encouraged by a leader.
Participants mentioned passing work experiences down to young or new employees, and that there were three common techniques used to mentor younger employees that included: (a) informal water cooler meetings, (b) war stories, and (c) cross-training opportunities. The second theme participants mentioned was generational differences within the organization, and because the value some generations placed on culture, employees would not interfere with a higher ranking official when they thought they were “going down a bad path” because of the chain of command (P4). The
participants mentioned how keeping younger generations on the job was a challenge, and younger employees did not have the work ethic or loyalty, of the baby boomer
generation. Younger generations were less likely to stay in the position for the long term, and were willing to leave the organization for a better opportunity. A lack of structured systems to collect and retain tacit knowledge was the third theme. Leaders shared data through email and meetings.
One participant stated, “knowledge was power, and some employees are perceived as being so valuable to the agency that you could not get rid of them” (P5). Artifacts included organizational charts and posters with detailed documentation of the leadership hierarchy. Another participant pointed to a poster of generations of former leaders portraying the legacy of the agency, and used this poster to tell the story of former leaders and their successes to younger employees.
Presentation of the Findings
In this study I addressed the research question and the reasons and influences in relation to sharing tacit knowledge. I organized the collected data into themes. The evolved themes from participant interviews, documentation, and artifacts are as follows: (a) mentoring, (b) generational differences, and (c) lack of structured systems.
The purpose of the study was to explore what strategies government leaders used to retain tacit knowledge of baby boomer employees. The participants and supporting documents provided rich perspectives on strategies to retain tacit knowledge from baby boomers. Exploring leader strategies to retain tacit knowledge from retiring baby boomers was a prominent aspect to the research study. The following subsections are descriptions of the participant sample, each of the three themes, how these data supported the central research question, alignment with existing research, and validated the choices of: (a) systems theory, (b) transformational leadership theory, and (c) knowledge
management theory as the conceptual frameworks for this research.
The research consisted of six face-to-face, semistructured interviews with 11 predetermined questions, presented to participants from a government agency in the Midwest United States, to determine strategies to retain tacit knowledge from retiring baby boomers. The participants interviewed were government leaders possessing at least one year of experience as a leader with at least one person directly reporting to them. By selecting six participants, the researcher could accurately identify the perceptions of primary leaders about strategies to retain tacit knowledge from baby boomers throughout the agency.