Role of Visualization in a Knowledge Transfer Process

Background: Efficient management of the knowledge requires implementation of new tools and refinement of the old ones - one of them is visualization. As visualization turns out to be an efficient tool for transfer of acquired knowledge, understanding of the influence of visualization techniques on the process of knowledge sharing is a necessity. Objectives: The main objective of the paper is to deepen the understanding of the relation of visualization to other knowledge sharing paths. The supplementary goal is a discussion of constraints on visualization styles in relation to readability and efficiency. Methods/Approach: Due to the ambiguous nature of the problem, case analysis was selected as a research method. Two research papers have been selected for that. The first one focused on agrotourism, introduces a general use theoretical tool suitable for various purposes, such as consumer sentiment analysis. The second one evaluates possibilities of revealing an implicit organizational structure of an organization by means of visual analysis using interaction graphs. Results: Visualization is an important part of data analysis and knowledge transfer process. Hybrid visualization styles enhance information density but may decrease clarity. Conclusions: In order to maximise the role of visualization in a knowledg tranfer process, the special care must be devoted to clarity, the optimal level of details and information density in order to avoid obfuscation.