Purpose – The aim of this paper is to review research on knowledge management in small and medium‐sized enterprises to identify gaps in the current body of knowledge, which justify future research directions.Design/methodology/approach – The study consists of a systematic review of 36‐refereed empirical articles on knowledge management and small and medium‐sized enterprises.Findings – The areas of knowledge management implementation, knowledge management perception, and knowledge transfer are relatively well researched topics; whereas those of knowledge identification, knowledge storage/retention and knowledge utilisation are poorly understood. Given the prevalence of small and medium‐sized enterprises there is a strong need for more research on this important topic. The future research directions proposed by the authors may help to develop a greater understanding of knowledge management in small and medium‐sized enterprises.Research limitations/implications – By only using the ProQuest database this stud...

Knowledge management in SMEs : A literature review

This article examines how knowledge management (KM) affects innovation performance within biotechnology firms. This is an industry in which small- and medium-sized biotech enterprises live together with the biotech divisions of large pharmaceutical firms. We conceptualize KM as a set of practices and dynamic capabilities, and hypothesize that KM dynamic capabilities act as a mediating variable between KM practices and innovation performance. We use structural equation modelling to test the hypotheses on a data set from the biotechnology industry. The results support our conceptualization and demonstrate its utility in explaining differences in innovation performance across firms. Findings have important implications regarding KM and innovation in high-tech small- and medium-sized enterprises.

Knowledge management and innovation performance in a high-tech SMEs industry

This paper seeks to stimulate debate on the agendas, methodologies and methods used in the field of small business and entrepreneurship. The paper raises questions regarding the research agendas pursued and provides some pointers for the direction of future research. Integral to this is the argument that there is a need to reflect on the condition of small-business research and to raise the quality of research by employing robust research methods. This may involve questioning the role of small firms and entrepreneurship in society rather than merely advocating them and the policy measures taken when supporting and/or developing the small business sector. The dominance of specific viewpoints, the methodologies used in small business studies, and the consequences of these in relation to the development of a coherent scientific field of small business studies are also discussed. Examples of research activity are discussed to illustrate these themes. Overall, the paper argues that entrepreneurship and small business is a lucrative area for research. However, if the field of inquiry is to flourish, it needs to be approached from a more critical perspective, instead of merely accepting normative, or even strongly ideologically driven, standpoints now dominant in so many studies. This has implications for research agendas, methodologies and ultimately research methods training.

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/j.1468-2370.2008.00254.x

Researching small firms and entrepreneurship: Past, present and future

Knowledge is a key source of sustainable competitive advantage. In response to increasingly drastic and competitive environments, many organizations wish to better utilize and manage knowledge for business success. For the purpose to execute formal knowledge management (KM) effectively, some works have suggested several critical factors of KM implementations. However, in a strategic view, such a list of critical factors must be further honed to increase practical usefulness, as not all critical factors necessarily share the same importance. Moreover, assessing the importance of critical factors inevitably involves the vagueness of human judgment. Hence, this study presents a favorable method combining fuzzy set theory and the Decision Making Trial and Evaluation Laboratory (DEMATEL) method to segment the critical factors for successful KM implementations. Also, an empirical study is presented to illustrate the proposed method and to demonstrate its usefulness.

Segmenting critical factors for successful knowledge management implementation using the fuzzy DEMATEL method

Knowledge Management Capabilities and Organizational Risk-Taking for Business Model Innovation in SMEs

Recent studies of knowledge management indicate that the growth of interest in this area is primarily focused on the larger organization. Not only do large firms feature in the majority of published case studies but also their employees are regular contributors to conference proceedings.This article addresses the comparatively under-researched issue of knowledge and its management in small businesses. Looking beyond formal Knowledge Management (KM) initiatives and structures, emphasis is placed upon the importance of informal knowledge processes.Two related propositions are made: first, knowledge is managed by organizations without use of the language and concepts of KM and accompanying formal KM structures, and that this behaviour might uncontroversially be called `informal' knowledge management, and secondly, small firms are more likely to adopt such informal processes to manage knowledge.These propositions are explored within the context of small firms and the research revealed that small firms do indeed manage knowledge informally as part of their normal activities, without the use of the terminology and concepts of KM. However, contrary to expectations, on occasion some also engage in formal KM.

Vicky Hutchinson

Papers

Do SMEs do Knowledge Management? Or Simply Manage what they Know?