Knowledge management in small and medium‐sized companies: knowledge management for entrepreneurs

Abstract

This article deals with a field which gets little or no attention in the research done into knowledge management: small and medium‐sized companies. In the first part of this article a conceptual model will be developed. This model can be used to analyse the most important knowledge management processes in companies. In the second part of the article our model is used to analyse 12 innovative companies from the industrial and business service sector. Knowledge management appears in small and medium‐sized companies to get its form especially at an operational level. A total of 79 instruments were found with which knowledge is organised in practice: 18 instruments for determining the knowledge gap and for evaluating knowledge; 41 instruments for acquiring and developing knowledge; 20 instruments for knowledge sharing. On a strategic and tactical level there are provisions for knowledge management but they have not been developed as such.