Experts and expertise contribute to consequential organizational decisions from recruitment to CEO succession, but these constructs are inconsistently operationalized and poorly understood. To better explicate how experts and expertise function in organizations, we first conduct an integrative review of the general literature to describe what is known about these phenomena in cognitive science, psychology, and the clinical and technical professions. This review of the general literature indicates that expertise represents domain-specific hierarchical knowledge structures developed by an individual over time. The quality of the individual's domain-related education, training, and opportunities for practice and learning affect the level of expertise acquired. We then review what is known about experts and expertise in organizations. Many organizational studies on expertise focus on an individual's years of experience rather than the nature of that experience or its contribution to expertise. Conflating expertise with years of experience generally leads to less consistent effects on performance than operationalizing expertise in terms of individual cognitive processes, knowledge, and capabilities. Findings from organizational studies that do assess expertise are in line with the general literature, indicating that the quality of practice and learning experiences are particularly important to developing expertise. We then offer ways for scholars to better study how expertise functions in organizations and conclude by developing implications for practice.

中文翻译：

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组织中的专家和专业知识：关于个人专业知识的综合回顾


专家和专业知识有助于从招聘到 CEO 继任的重要组织决策，但这些结构的实施不一致，也知之甚少。为了更好地阐明专家和专业知识在组织中的作用，我们首先对一般文献进行综合回顾，以描述认知科学、心理学以及临床和技术专业中对这些现象的了解。对一般文献的回顾表明，专业知识代表了个人随着时间的推移发展的特定领域的分层知识结构。个人与领域相关的教育、培训以及实践和学习机会的质量会影响所获得的专业知识水平。然后，我们回顾了对组织中专家和专业知识的了解。许多关于专业知识的组织研究侧重于个人的多年经验，而不是该经验的性质或其对专业知识的贡献。将专业知识与多年的经验混为一谈通常会导致对绩效的影响不如在个人认知过程、知识和能力方面实施专业知识的一致性。评估专业知识的组织研究结果与一般文献一致，表明实践和学习经验的质量对于发展专业知识尤为重要。然后，我们为学者提供了更好地研究专业知识如何在组织中发挥作用的方法，并通过发展对实践的启示来结束。