Level of Adoption and Use of Knowledge Management Practices in Supply Chains

Abstract

Business competition nowadays involves entire supply chains (SCs) rather than individual firms, and companies, with appropriate ways, need to coordinate and co-manage knowledge resources, activities, and innovative efforts in collaboration with their partners for improved competitiveness. Knowledge management (KM) practices and their adoption in single firms to manage inter-firm relationships can be of great help, but the current studies on this aspect are very fragmented. There is still insufficient knowledge of what practices are adopted to manage knowledge and how intensely these are used in inter-firm relationships and especially in supply chains. This study contributes to filling this gap by measuring the level of adoption and intensity of use of KM practices in companies. Also, it provides a comparison between their use at the intra- and inter-firm level. A survey of a sample of European large- and medium-sized manufacturing firms was used. A descriptive statistical analysis and a correlation analysis were performed. The study confirms that KM practices are used in companies, but with a varied level of adoption and intensity of use among firms. Especially, it resulted that KM is less used at an inter-firm level, and there is a relatively higher variation among firms in the inter-firm use rather than the internal context. On the other hand, the correlation analysis revealed that the more intensely firms used KM internally, the more likely they will intensely employ them to manage knowledge in SC relationships. The usefulness of the study lies in the fact that improving the awareness of business managers and consultants, both at firm and inter-firm, can facilitate introduction and development of KM programs.