Applying Positive Psychology to Knowledge Management

Positive psychology is a relatively new field that is viewed as a movement to restore psychology's mission of finding human talent and making life worthwhile. Its main focus is on the average person's mental functioning and well-being. Latest research reveals the importance of positive emotions on motivation, achievement, mental/physical health, and performance in settings like school and work. This paper proposes that the identification and consideration of positive cognitions among group members as tacit knowledge types enhances the tacit knowledge transformation among the members and promotes the application of positive psychology in group-work. Such a process leads to more efficient, more satisfied and more accomplished individuals and consequently more efficient group work. The process followed in applying positive psychology includes methods of learning how to transfer tacit positive thoughts and attitudes into more practical explicit knowledge through based on Nonaka's and knowledge-management process (Nonaka 1998). In addition, components that attemptto enhance physical health, knowledge, achievement and motivation among group members are suggested based on the assumption that a "relaxed" members engages more positively in the group work and in the knowledge capture and transformation process. The application will have a program which targets individuals working in small groups and the efficacy of such an intervention will be based on observations and group-progress-reports based experiment.