Abstract: This paper review ten literatures consist of ten articles on the topic of knowledge management (KM) in small and medium enterprises (SMEs). This paper were highlighted about definition of KM and SMEs, characteristics and roles of SMEs, KM in SMEs, why SMEs need KM, advantages and disadvantages implement KM in SMEs, KM strategies and tools in SMEs, KM issues or challenges in SMEs, recommendations and conclusion.
Keywords: Knowledge management, small and medium enterprises
Introduction
In this era, knowledge management (KM) is one of the most used and at the same time controversial concepts, currently discussed in academia and the business world. Interest in KM stems from the realization that organizational knowledge is a strategic corporate asset that needs to be generated, represented, stored, transferred, transformed and applied to future organisational problems (Schulttze and Stabell, 2004). Large companies and multinationals, such as Honda, Cannon, Matsushita, NEC, Sharp, Kao, Ford, PriceWaterhouseCoopers, Texas Instruments and HP, have long recognised the need for KM in order to respond quickly to customers, create new markets, rapid developing new products and handle emergent technologies (Nonaka, 1991). Consequently, KM practices are now considered as established practice in large organisations (Srikantaiah and Koenig, 2000). However it not happens in small and medium enterprises (SMEs) which KM tends to fall into failure to be practice in organization.
According report that in Small Business Service (2004) found that statistics reveal that 91 per cent of SMEs that registered themselves for VAT in 2000 were still surviving 12 months after they registered. Sixty four per cent of businesses registered in 1998 were still going three years after registration. Hence, organisation sustainability is an issue because 36 per cent of the SMEs perish after three years.
It is further evidenced
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