Trends in Knowledge Management Methods in Small Medium-Sized Enterprises (SMEs)

Abstract

The past two decades have shown significant growth of research in the field of Knowledge Management (KM) in support of Decision making. This review reveals that there has been successful development and implementation of KM Methods in Large organisations and SMEs in advance economies and emerging economies and a low adoption of KM practices in SMEs in resource constrained areas. On the other hand, there has also been significant growth and improvement in affordable and reliable Information and Communication Technology (ICT) infrastructure and platforms in resource constrained areas, creating significant opportunity for Implementation of KM and its benefits. In this review paper, advancements of knowledge Management methods over the years is presented and their adaptability to support Small Scale Enterprises in resource Constrained areas is also examined. The major contribution of this paper is that it presents a Summary and Comparative analysis of the different approaches and to what extent knowledge Management been applied in Large Companies and SME’s in advanced economies and emerging markets, it identifies challenges and makes recommendations for appropriate knowledge management methods for resource Constrained areas. There is a general observation that most methods reviewed are both communications-driven and data driven and require heavy network infrastructure and hence creating resource challenges for organizations. In addition many have been developed with the basic assumption that work flow procedures and guidelines are documented and automated, this creates challenges for adaptability. The paper has 4(four) Main Sections (i) Introduction which presents an overview of the Importance of Knowledge Management to SME’s (ii) Trends in KM in SME’S (iii) The Comparative Analysis of Knowledge Management Methods in SME’s shall be discussed in Chapter 3 (iv) Recommendations of Future Work and Conclusion in Chapters 4.