Managing knowledge and going global at FragraAroma

Abstract

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to help students understand how companies combine and leverage their existing knowledge capabilities in order to build strategic advantage for the company. The case also throws some light on the opportunities and challenges faced by SME's of emerging markets in going international in turbulent macroeconomic scenarios. Design/methodology/approach – The case has been written for the purpose of teaching and class discussion. Interviews with protagonist provided the primary data and published reports and archives of the company provided the secondary data for the case. Findings – After the class discussion, students will be able to figure out how SME's can best leverage their existing knowledge base, efficiently manage that knowledge base and accurately assess the impact of these knowledge management activities for international expansion. Originality/value – This is among the first few cases in the area of knowledge management from the perspective of SME's in emerging markets in the fragrance and other allied industries.

The Spread of Knowledge Management in SMEs: A Scenario in Evolution

“…In detail: three out of 17 papers [101][102][103] indicate that KM supports all five performances; four contributions show that KM positively affects four performance types [17,[104][105][106], two papers point out that KM positively influences three performances [107,108], whereas one paper highlights two performances [109], and seven papers show only one performance [110][111][112][113][114][115][116]. This seems to highlight that KM contributes to an overall growth of SMEs by simultaneously enhancing more performance.…”

Knowledge Management and Organizational Effectiveness as a Successful Path to Globalization for Small and Medium Enterprises

“…Knowledge management is fundamentally the management of corporate knowledge and intellectual assets that can improve a range of organizational performance characteristics and add value by enabling an enterprise to act more intelligently (Gupta et al, 2002).…”

“…This enables effective and efficient problem solving, dynamic learning, strategic planning and decision making. Knowledge management focuses on identifying knowledge, explicating it in a way so that it can be shared in a formal manner, and thus reusing it (Gupta. et al, 2002).…”