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Knowledge is what a knower knows with experiences, values, information in the context, and insights (Davenport & Prusak, 1998). It can be classified into two types: tacit knowledge and explicit knowledge. Tacit knowledge means the knowledge that is in the mind of the knower. In this study, the tacit knowledge of the universities' internal stakeholders, viz., professors, senior lecturers, academic managers, non-academic managers, and students (hereafter referred to as internal stakeholders). Tacit knowledge is made of two components, cognitive knowledge and technically associated knowledge. Cognitive knowledge relates to what is in the mind of the knower. It exists as a mental model of the knower. Because of the unstructured nature of cognitive knowledge, it cannot be used directly in an organized manner. On the other hand, explicit knowledge is structured and can be readily used.
The explicit and tacit knowledge of the university and the internal stakeholders are critical to organizational knowledge creation (Jennex, 2006). There are two views of organizational knowledge creation, the organizational learning view and the knowledge creation view
According to the organizational learning view, members and the organization learn dynamics in the environment for acquisition, distribution, and sharing the knowledge. The organization's future success depends on new knowledge created to meet new dynamics in the environment (Campanella et al., 2019). Organizational learning decodes the tacit knowledge of members of the organization (internal stakeholders) into organizational knowledge (Nonaka & von Krogh, 2009). In this process, universities and their internal stakeholders, as members of the organization, are active and purposive learners of new dynamics in the environment (Argyris & Schon, 1978). Nonaka et al. (2001) point out that active and purposive learning is confined to solving and improving existing problems.
The contemporary problem is why universities do not explicitly produce the knowledge needed for sustainable development in their mainstream knowledge production process. Sustainable development means knowledge that can address complex social problems codified as the 17 Sustainable Development Goals. A few of them are poverty, hunger, clean water, and global warming (hereafter referred to as green knowledge).
The underlying reason is that universities are isomorphic not because of the effectiveness of their processes but because their legitimacy is assigned by institutional logic. Namely, the conventional role of universities is to produce disciplinary knowledge in their discrete disciplines. As a result, the explicit knowledge produced at universities is increasingly inadequate for sustainable development.
However, the United Nations 2030 Agenda for 17 SDGs, the Paris Climate Agreement, and King IV: Code of Corporate Governance have conferred a new mandate. Accordingly, universities are supposed to produce green knowledge. It is interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary.
Despite the fact that the universities do not explicitly produce green knowledge in their mainstream knowledge production process, the internal stakeholders create green knowledge not in the mainstream but by sub-streams such as sustainability research, conference papers, guest lecturers, and renewable energy projects. It indicates that internal stakeholders' tacit knowledge is green, but universities' explicit knowledge is not green.
The gap mentioned above is inconsistent with the evolving higher education knowledge. The evolution can be noticed in two remarkable respects. One of them is the advocacy of Gibbons et al. (1994). They argue that the conventional production of knowledge with basic research labeled the Mode 1 innovation model is not adequate to resolve complex social problems in society. They propose producing interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary knowledge called the Mode 2 innovation model (Etzkowitz & Leydesdorff, 2000). One of the fundamental differences between the Mode 1 innovation model and the Mode 2 innovation model is the delay in applying the knowledge produced with the basic research.
On the other hand, basic research is conducted within discrete disciplines. Mode 2 research is interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary. It is critical to resolving complex social problems. Furthermore, the Mode 3 innovation model (Carayannis & Campbell, 2009) advocates pluralism and diversity of knowledge and innovation by coexistence and coevolution with different modes of knowledge and innovation.