Characterizing knowledge management in the small business environment | Semantic Scholar (2024)

This paper presents an empirically validated I-KMF to establish a solid foundation for evolving KM into sustained SME organizational best practices over time and discusses the problems of the current KM practices in SME compared with large organizations.

The results of four case studies conducted in UK SMEs to examine their KM implementation effort were presented and a new integrated framework developed by the authors was evaluated to determine its applicability in this business sector.

It is easy to find small companies adopting an emergent approach to KM: in the analysed cases there were no formal KM plans, despite the fact that they have all introduced various KM practices, which shows that there can be the need to define KM approaches that better fit smaller companies.

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This paper investigates the extent to which six factors drawn from the theory and practice of knowledge management can be applied in small organisations and three cases demonstrate that the fundamental concepts and principles ofknowledge management are similar for small and large organisations.

With knowledge as the major driving force behind the “economics of ideas”, the authors can expect that the emphasis on knowledge creation, development, organization and leverage will continue to be the prime focus for improving society.

Knowledge management provides private-sector and government organizations alike with the ability to anticipate and adapt to unpredictable change quickly and appropriately, and supports organizational risk-mitigation initiatives.

The findings indicate that, for a firm to reap long‐term strategic benefit from OKMS, it should adapt the broader socio‐technical view when developing, implementing and managing its OKMS.

The results indicate that KM is understanding and implementation is developing in the large organisation sector and knowledge is recognised as having both scientific and social elements, however, the SME sector was less advanced with a mechanistic approach to knowledge and a lack of investment in KM approaches and systems.

Consultants and managers should ask themselves strategic, organisational and instrumental questions regarding knowledge management to stay competitive in a highly dynamic and changing world.

This paper will combine RBV theory with characteristics of knowledge to show that organizational knowledge is a strategic asset and explain practical considerations for implementation of knowledge management principles.

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