Using knowledge within small and medium‐sized firms: A systematic review of the evidence

Abstract

This paper provides a systematic review of the literature on how small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) use and acquire knowledge. The review was undertaken as part of the Economic and Social Research Council's Evolution of Business Knowledge Programme. The paper describes the systematic review protocol and provides a detailed explanation of the methods used. From the review, it is evident that SME knowledge research concentrates primarily on the acquisition and use of knowledge, treating it as an asset that is transferred by routines. The findings suggest that research is focused in three main areas. First, on the influence and abilities of the entrepreneur to extract, use and develop knowledge resources. Secondly, on firm-wide systems and the social capital that facilitates knowledge exploration and exploitation. Thirdly, on the provision of knowledge and learning experiences through government policy. From a practical perspective, the review concludes that policies encouraging entrepreneurship and economic regeneration need to be more flexible and sensitive to the often complex contexts within which knowledge is used by SMEs. From a research perspective, and given the flexible, opportunity-oriented and often novel nature of SMEs identified in these studies, there is a need to consider the relational and embedded qualities of knowledge by which these characteristics are framed; qualities that resist conceptualization as some form of separable, material asset.

Absorptive capacity and knowledge management in small and medium enterprises

“…It has been amply acknowledged that it is hugely important for SMEs to have access to knowledge produced by others, which often demands an interaction between the parties (Egbu et al, 2005;Thorpe et al, 2005;Chen et al, 2006;Desouza & Awazu, 2006;Durst & Edvardsson, 2012). But our understanding on the matter of knowledge management and relationships in SMEs is not enough to give us a whole, detailed picture of this connection, and to clearly bring out the differences between SMEs and larger-scale enterprises.…”

“…This is the impression that we get from the literature reviews conducted on knowledge management in SMEs. Thorpe et al (2005) provide a systematic review of the literature on how SMEs use knowledge, selecting 69 articles published up until 2004. Some of these articles correlate the use of knowledge with its acquisition by means of relationships with parties outside the enterprise.…”

“…The review conducted by Cerchione et al in this special issue outlines the state of the art on knowledge management in SMEs from an outlook complementary to the works of Thorpe et al (2005), and Durst & Edvardsson (2012), focusing on:…”

Trust, control and knowledge transfer in small business networks

“…Similarly, know how can be easily transferred among firm's staff in informal way. However, acquiring, generating and sharing knowledge with others (outside of the firm) are viewed as primary processes in organizational evolution (Thorpe et al 2005). Learning from others' experience through a process of knowledge transfer is a key way to foster a firm's competitive advantage (Hutzschenreuter and Horstkotte 2010).…”

A Review of Behavioral Decision Making in the Newsvendor Problem

“…In this paper, we provide a review of peer-reviewed articles published in leading journals from 2000 to 2017. The systematic literature review methodology presented in this paper is based on the seminal works of Tranfield et al (2003), Thorpe et al (2005), Matthews and Marzec (2012). The review process consists of four stages and the flow is shown in …”