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A literature review on

knowledge management in SMEs

Roberto Cerchione*, Emilio Esposito**, Maria Rosaria Spadaro***

Department of Industrial Engineering - University of Naples Federico II

P.le Tecchio, 80 - 80125 Naples - Italy

* roberto.cerchione@unina.it, ** emilio.esposito@unina.it,

*** mariarosaria.spadaro@unina.it

to cite this paper: Cerchione, R., Esposito, E., Spadaro, M.R. A literature

review on knowledge management in SMEs (2016) Knowledge Management

Research and Practice, 14 (2), pp. 169-177.

to link to this paper: doi:10.1057/kmrp.2015.12

9th IFKAD Conference

Matera, Italy, 11-13 June 2014

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Agenda

Background

Literature review:

• Sampling

• Classification

• Analysis

• Gap recognition

• Formulation of the research questions

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A vast literature underlines that in modern industrial environment

SME are playing a crucial role for large companies competitiveness

There is an abdundance of studies describing how large companies

are successfully practising KM but the reasons why small firms show

both poor usage of KM systems and why the benefits of the

adoption of KMS have not been fully exploited by small and medium

sized enterprises are still unclear

Nevertheless

The reality is constantly changing and the ICTs are cutting

human and financial barriers connecting KMSs adoption in SMEs

by offering new tools that are:

Low cost

Ease to use

More effective

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Background (I)

There is a strong need for more research on this

important topic

Background (II)

Recent reviews of the literature stress some evidence concerning the phases

of Knowledge management process (Durst and Edvardsson, 2002).

They highlight that:

•The areas of KM implementation, perception and transfer are well researched

•The areas of knowledge identification, storage and utilisation are rather poor

Our literature review aims to explore the factors affecting (enablers and

barriers), the used systems (practices and tools), and the impact of KM on

firm’s performance

The Research aim

By a review research on KM in SMEs:

To identify gaps in the literature

Future research tracks

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We can identify the three following main steps to get a

systematic study of existing publications adapting Kolbe

and Burnett,1991, approach:

1. sampling

2. classification

3. analysis

The literature review

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Sampling

• The sampling phase is aimed at identifying all relevant papers that cover the topic of knowledge management in small and medium firms

• The search was conducted using the combination of the following keywords: “knowledge management”, “SMEs”, “small business”, “small firms”, “small enterprises”.

• Journal articles, which appeared in the period from 2003 to 2013, were collected. These articles were sourced from Scopus database database and ISI WEB of KNOWLEDGE

Yielded documents: 269 journal articles

Selection criteria: titles, keywords, and abstracts

70 journal articles

Journal title Number

Journal of Knowledge Management 8

African Journal of Business Management 5

International Small Business Journal 4

Knowledge management Research & Practice 4Human Factors and Ergonomics In Manufacturing 3

Business Information Review 2

Industrial Management & Data Systems 2

International Journal of Information Management 2

International Journal of Management and Enterprise Development 2

International Journal of Technology Management 2

Acta Polytechnica Hungarica 1

Actual Problems of Economics 1

Advances in Electrical and Computer Engineering 1

Asian Social Science 1

Contemporary Economics 1

Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management 1

Decision Support Systems 1

Entrepreneurship and Regional Development 1

European Journal of Information Systems 1

Expert Systems with Applications 1

Information Systems Management 1

Information Technology and Management 1

Information Technology and People 1

Innovation Management Policy & Practice 1

International Journal Management and Enterprise Development 1

International Journal of Engineering and Innovative Technology 1

International Journal of Entrepreneurial Behaviour & Research 1

International Journal of Human Resource Management 1

International Journal of Production Research 1

Journal of Applied Sciences 1

Journal of Documentation 1

Journal of Engineering Design 1

Journal of Information & Knowledge Mangement 1

Journal of Information Science 1

Journal of Management & Governance 1

Journal of software: evolution and process 1

Management Decision 1

Management Research News 1

Measuring Business Excellence 1

Prometheus 1

Small Business Economics 1

Research Policy 1

Structural Survey 1

the journal of information and knowledge management systems 1

Total Quality Management and Business Excellence 1

VINE 1

Total 70

Journal ranking

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Classification

Research areas

Multidisciplinary Engineering

Information

System

Computer

Science

Operation Research

and

Management Science

10 7 7 46

10

Classification (I)

0

2

4

6

8

10

12

14

2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013

Nu

mb

ers

of

art

icle

s

Classification (II) by country of author’s

affiliation

Analysis (I): Methodologies

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

35

40

survey case study theoretical work others

Num

ber

of

article

s

Methodologies

13

Unit of investigation: The SME

GAP: How knowledge transfers between small

supplying firms (SMEs sub-group) members has not fully exploited (making reference to channels or component)

SME

SMEs’ network

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Classification by object areas

object areas

Factors

affecting

KM in

SMEs

KM and firm

performance KM SYSTEMS

47% (33) 17% (12) 36% (25)

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Subject area (I): Factors affecting KM in

SMEs

Factors affecting KM in SMEs (33papers)

Internal factors

(23 papers)

Managerial influence

Resource influence

Culture Technical

infrastructure

Contingency factors

(6 papers)

Barriers (4 papers)

Internal factors

Authors

Managerial influence Human resource Culture Technical infrastructure

Leadership Measurement Organizational aspects Training Motivation Trust, collaboration Information

technology

Wong (2005)

Wong and Aspinwall

(2005)

Tan and Hung. (2006)

Deng (2008)

Migdadi (2008)

Pillania (2008)

Cantù et al (2009)

Gholipour et al. (2010)

Jones et al. (2010)

Valmohammadi (2010)

Hussain et al. (2011)

Lee and Lan (2011)

Boden et al. (2012)

Tseng et al. (2012)

De Saá-Pérez(2012)

Chen et al. (2012)

Chen et al. (2013)

Patalas-Maliszewska

and Hochmeister

(2011)

Costa and Jimenez

(2009)

Bocquet and Mothe

(2010)

Montequin et al (2006)

Eze, (2013)

Wee (2013

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Subject area (I): some evidence

• The first well researched area concerns internal factors for KM

• Very little attention has given to the barriers (5%) connecting to KMSs implementation which seem to belong more to cultural area rather than technological one

GAP: there is a lack of a detailed analysis on the

barriers preventing the adoption of KM approach

Subject area(II): KM in SMEs and firm

performance

Organization oriented performance analysis

(12 papers)

Human performance (creativity, staff performance,

increasing employees

number)

Financial performance (profit, sales growth, return

to investment)

Technical performance (innovation, product quality,

productivity, efficiency)

Market performance (market share increase, service quality, market flexibility, reputation,

customer satisfaction)

Managerial performance

Papers dealing with the impact of knowledge

management on performance by author/s

Financial

performance

Market

performance

Technical

performance

Human

performance

Managerial

performance

Total

Alegre et al.

(2011)

1

Bagnoli and

Vedovato (2012)

2

Daud and Yusoff

(2011)

4

Delen et al.

(2013)

3

Egbu et al.(2005)

4

Filippini et al.

(2012)

1

Gholami et al.

(2013)

5

Liu and Abdalla

(2013)

5

Salojärvi et al.

(2004)

1

Soon and Zaino

(2011)

4

Talebi and

Tajeddin (2011)

2

Wei et al.

(2011)

5

Total 8 7 11 6 5

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Subject area (II): some evidence

The articles belonging to the second cluster deal with the improvement

for SMEs in terms of components of firm performance thanks to KM

adoption

Gap: Further empirical evidence could strengthen

this analysis and confirm that the impact of

KM on firms’ performance is extremely wide

affecting several performance indicators

simultaneously

Subject area(III): KM systems in SMEs

KM SYSTEMS

KM practices (17 papers): communities of practice, job rotation,

coaching, mentoring, storytelling, status meeting

KM tools (8 papers): blogs,

information portals, wikis

Subject area (III): some evidence

• KMSs are based mostly on human oriented practices

rather than on KM tools, it is in accordance with

Durst’recognition concerning knowledge identification

lack in literature

• The used KM tools are simple and old while more

sophisticated technoligies are rarely used

GAP: There is a clear need for a deeper analysis of the

KMSs used by SMEs.

Rising GAPS

Object

area

Gaps

Internal

factor

Contingency

factor

Barriers KM

and firm

performance

Km

practices

Km

tools

GAPs

SMEs 1 GAP GAP GAP

GAPs

Network

SMEs 2 GAP

GAP

GAP

GAP

GAP

GAP

Research questions

The above literature analysis allows us to

formulate the following 9 research questions:

• RQ1: What are the main KMSs adopted by SMEs?

• RQ2: What are the major barriers hindering the adoption of KMSs in these firms?

• RQ3: What is the impact of knowledge management on firm performance?

• RQ4: What are the triggers, barriers, practices, tools and the impact of KM on firm’s performance according to SMEs’network viewpoint?

Research design

Literature review

Gaps recognition

RQs

Methodologies

Empirical study

Finding

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Roberto Cerchione

University of Naples, Federico II 30 - 10th Doctoral Workshop on Purchasing and Supply Management, Bologna 15 October 2014

Roberto Cerchione

ROBERTO CERCHIONE

University of Naples Federico II

E-mail: roberto.cerchione@unina.it

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to cite this paper: Cerchione, R., Esposito, E., Spadaro, M.R. A

literature review on knowledge management in SMEs (2016)

Knowledge Management Research and Practice, 14 (2), pp. 169-177.

to link to this paper: doi:10.1057/kmrp.2015.12

A literature review on

knowledge management in SMEs