The Role of Knowledge Management in Enhancing the Competitiveness of Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises (SMEs)

Knowledge is one of the enterprise’s most important assets that influence its competitiveness. One way to capture an enterprise’s knowledge and make it available to all its members is through the use of knowledge management practices. This paper discusses the importance of knowledge management (KM) in Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and presents a framework to deal with knowledge management in order to enhance their competitiveness. Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are known for too much implicit knowledge, limited resources, insufficiently shared between managers and other employees. So, in the context of SMEs, KM can be used to capture knowledge and experience generated during their operations, activities, and processes. This research paper addresses a new way of thinking about the role of KM in SMEs through developing a framework that combines five phases of the KM lifecycle (capture, creation, codification, communication, and capitalization). This framework is called “A Five C’s Knowledge Management Framework”. The application of this framework will improve the success rate and competitiveness of SMEs.