In my work on expertise within the community environment, I found that by sharing knowledge, an SME not only benefits from having their knowledge confirmed, but also by having their role as an SME acknowledged within the community. Being an SME is always relative to the environment in which that  expertise is demonstrated. Therefore, knowledge management helps SMEs interact with others and thus establish themselves as an SME. In turn, the community benefits from the SME. 

If the community does not make use of that knowledge and acknowledge the SME's benefit to the community, then the knowledge management is not truly working. KM needs to be recognised for how it helps community or organisational knowledge but within that there needs to be recognition of the expertise of the SMEs who contribute. This is all part of lexical peripheral participation and  how good KM allows a group to grow. Remember that KM is a system. If SMEs aren't made part of that system and recognised as such, then it's not good KM.

See my paper " https://www.researchgate.net/publication/268870106_Finding_expertise_using_online_community_dialogue_and_the_Duality_of_Expertise " for more on the Duality of Expertise.

Conference Paper Finding expertise using online community dialogue and the Du...

Dear Michael,

Thank you for your response and for sharing the research paper.

Like you rightly pointed out that SMEs definition is relative to the environment that defines it. SMEs both in manufacturing and service sector in India as per government definition of SMEs are organizations with annual revenue that fall within the stipulated range defined for them by government. And like your said KM is a system and putting a system in place and subsequently operating and maintaining it requires extra expenditure. This is as per the initial one to one discussion I have had with some people in SMEs.

So I want to make a case for SMEs and benefits they can derive from getting KM framework in place.

Best regards,

Rekha Mishra

Apologies for my confusion. It appears that you are meaning Small-Medium Enterprises. I thought you meant Subject Matter Experts. This SME is  the context under which I responded. Unfortunately, you were thinking of SME under a different context.

Such is the wonder of the human language. That is why linguistics is my field :-)

Thank you Michael.

I should have elaborated the abbreviation SMEs.....    :)

SMEs are getting benefited by Knowledge Management in India. However, it is not in a highly structured manner. If you visit clusters of SMEs you will see lot of information is shared among SMEs but in informal ways. The informal exchange results in sharing inventories at all level.

Thank you for your response Sir.

It is true that some amount of informal exchange of information do take place in SMEs in India but there is a need to formalize it to enable them to really benefit from KM, that is from beginning till the end of product life cycle. The informal structure is filled with gaps and does not have a vast reach also it is difficult to assess and quantify how much do SMEs get benefited from the informal structure that is in place currently.

The potential benefits may include:

1) Avoid the repetition of similar mistakes, which are made at the expense of the company. Not to mention the time wasted and the frustration caused too.

2) Better sharing of best practice among the staff, which helps in reducing production costs and improvement in the quality of products/services

3) Better and faster access to the collective knowledge of staff - particularly important to SMEs that provide technical trouble-shooting service. May refer to the case of Xerox and Buckman Lab.

And many more...

My personal experience is that the framework of KM must be established for a SME can gain the benefits as explained above. Business benefits include establishing a foundation for content retention, capability to respond to regulatory authorities and organisational continuity during disasters or brain drain. SMEs should thus be able to enhance their performance and competitive advantage by a more conscious and systematic approach to knowledge management.

While SMEs may not be as rigid in its processes due to size and lack of formality. They may consider the entire KM process an overhead so change management and training is essential for them to see benefits in the implementation. Identifying this risk and working around it by creating roles which maybe accountable specifically in safeguarding company knowledge can create a foundation for the future. Depending upon business growth SMEs maybe poised to become larger organisations. 

Some readings which may help you are:

Anders Haug, (2012),"The implementation of enterprise content management systems in SMEs", Journal of Enterprise Information Management, Vol. 25 Iss 4 pp. 349 - 372

Sari Salojärvi Patrick Furu Karl-Erik Sveiby, (2005),"Knowledge management and growth in Finnish SMEs", Journal of Knowledge Management, Vol. 9 Iss 2 pp. 103 - 122

F. Tunc Bozbura, (2007),"Knowledge management practices in Turkish SMEs", Journal of Enterprise Information Management, Vol. 20 Iss 2 pp. 209 - 221

Kevin C. Desouza, Yukika Awazu, (2006),"Knowledge management at SMEs: five peculiarities", Journal of Knowledge Management, Vol. 10 Iss 1 pp. 32-43 

Kuan Yew Wong, (2005),"Critical success factors for implementing knowledge management in small and

medium enterprises", Industrial Management & Data Systems, Vol. 105 Iss 3 pp. 261-279 

Rodney McAdam, Renee Reid, (2001),"SME and large organisation perceptions of knowledge management: comparisons and contrasts", Journal of Knowledge Management, Vol. 5 Iss 3 pp. 231-241

Rekha, it depend on what you mean by " knowledge management". The KM term generally derives from the "knowledge as a resource"  school of thought and has a dependency on a technical systems approach.

Before SMEs can benefit from KM they need to understand how knowledge can benefit their business and therefore:

what knowledge they have already

What new knowledge to they need to acquire

How can the acquire new knowledge

How will they apply and create value from incorporating the new knowledge within their business.

In Australia, various (state) governments have establish clusters of organizations (both private, public and government) around a business domain (eg healthcare; nanotechnology; agriculture; fishing), with varying degrees of success. For businesses that cannot co-locate, they have established market-places and also virtual Communities of Interest.

Market-places are more traditional but can still provide benefits for SMEs, while Communities of Interest require skilled facilitation and, if virtual, skills in using technology/internet access. 

Hai Chen mentions "sharing of best practice" - a caution here is that SMEs need to understand that local context/culture needs may require adaption of " best practice" to suit local conditions.

Peter 

A colleague of mine has been studied this topic for several years - I will pass your question on. Here are some publications that include answers to your question:

• Ulrike Borchardt: Using Social Media for Knowledge Management in SME. KMIS 2012 : 31-39
• Ulrike Borchardt: Knowledge Management Systems in SME - State of the Art 2012 ILOG
• Ulrike Borchardt: Selecting KMS for SME - A Need for Value-Orientation. BIR Workshops 2011 -ILOG: 26-37
• Ulrike Borchardt: Towards Value-Driven Alignment of KMS for SME. BIS Workshops 2011 - BITA: 220-231
• Ulrike Borchardt: Towards a Value-oriented KMS Recommendation for SME. KMIS 2011: 347-350
• Ulrike Borchardt, Franziska Grap: E-Learning Application Support for SME. BIR 2010: 62-72

Hai Chen, Priya, Peter, Matthias thank you all  for sharing your views, experiences and insights.

There is lot of food for thought now for me so I will get back with my understanding and analysis in a short while.

@Peter you have provided some very good starter questions to explore the current state of KM in the given domain.

@Hai Chen the points you have raised are indeed some of the benefits SMEs can draw upon once they have crossed the implementation hurdles.

Thanks and regards,

Rekha Mishra

Dear Rekha,

I would like to suggest you to use KM maturity models as an academic approach to identify KM benefits.

Please check our last publications about this.

Regards,

Article Construcción de un modelo de madurez de gestión del conocimi...

Article Linking knowledge management maturity and innovation in lead...

Dissertation 10/2016 by Ulrike Borchardt: A Value-Oriented Framework for the Application of Knowledge Management Systems in SME.