Patrick Fong

Patrick Fong, PhD, MRICS, MHKIS, is an Associate Professor in the School of Engineering and Built Environment at Griffith University, Australia, and Program Director of the Bachelor of Construction Management (Honors). He writes about tacit knowledge, organizational learning, knowledge management, project learning, and the human side of expertise in modern workplaces.

With more than three decades of academic, professional and industry experience across Australia, Hong Kong and the United Kingdom, Patrick’s work explores how people and organizations create, share and use knowledge to improve performance, innovation, resilience and decision-making. His particular interest is in tacit knowledge: the hard-to-capture know-how people develop through experience, judgment, practice, reflection, stories, and relationships.

Before joining Griffith University, Patrick spent many years at The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, where he served as Associate Professor and Associate Director of the Knowledge Management and Innovation Research Centre. He also served as Vice President of the Hong Kong Knowledge Management Society. In addition to his academic career, Patrick has worked in the construction industries in the United Kingdom and Hong Kong, and he is a professional member of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors and the Hong Kong Institute of Surveyors.

Patrick has published widely on knowledge management, organizational learning, value management, construction management, project-based learning, and innovation. He co-edited Management of Knowledge in Project Environments, a widely cited book on how knowledge is created, shared, and applied in project-based work. His research and speaking engagements have addressed topics including tacit knowledge capture, lessons learned, storytelling, knowledge sharing, project learning, organizational capability, and the role of emerging technologies in making experience-based knowledge more visible and useful.

Patrick has been recognized among Stanford’s World’s Top 2% Scientists and named one of the Top 50 Most Influential People in Tacit Knowledge Management. He is also active in international knowledge management communities, including the Global Think-Tank of Organizational Tacit Knowledge Management. His work bridges research and practice, helping leaders understand that knowledge is not only stored in systems, documents and databases, but also carried in people’s experience, relationships, judgment and ways of working.

Based on Australia’s Gold Coast, Patrick writes with a practical and human lens on how organizations can learn from what their people know before that knowledge walks out the door.