COVID-19 KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT ON SMES SURVIVAL

Abstract

The novel coronavirus (COVID-19) has adversely affected the global community and like most countries, Kenya has not been spared, Kenya’s international trade performance, its financial and commodity markets, and the entire macroeconomic environment have all been affected (Gui2de EA., 2019).SMEs have been vulnerable to the effects of the covid-19 pandemic as seen in the report by the International Trade Centre, (2020) it was uncovered that two-thirds of these SMEs have had their operations strongly impacted by the pandemic with two-thirds of all businesses claiming that same in Africa. Moreover, informal businesses are at a higher risk of closing down and are more susceptible to the effects of the pandemic due to their reduced ability to access financing. SMEs in Kenya have been facing unprecedented income losses and uncertainties about their future because of business disruptions due to the outbreak of COVID19. Most SMEs do not have financial reserves to meet expenses during emergencies. SMEs need Knowledge management support to access and adopt digital technologies as well as respond to the current pandemic situation and for long-term transformation (Diana, S. et al., 2020). To increase their understanding of consumer needs, the business environment, and the actions of their rivals, SMEs must engage in knowledge acquisition, which is the process of gathering information from a variety of sources (Koohang, et al., 2017). Knowledge management, a process of acquiring, converting, applying, and protecting knowledge assets, is crucial for value creation. The purpose of this paper is to integrate these Knowledge management processes (knowledge acquisition, knowledge conversion, knowledge application, and knowledge protection), into the SMEs to help them adapt and respond to the current pandemic. This paper seeks to discuss some knowledge management initiatives to help SMEs handle these critical issues of the COVID-19 pandemic that will help them to sustain livelihood in the pandemic and eventually encourage knowledge management initiatives such as avoiding misinformation, psych educational, and, developing competencies such as resilience, agility, and ambiguity tolerance in the SMEs that can work to tackle the pandemic crisis.