Customer knowledge management in SMEs: Review and research agenda

Abstract

Customer knowledge is one of the most noteworthy assets for firms to manage in order to improve their products and gain competitive advantage while meeting the customer needs. Customer knowledge management (CKM) arises when firms see the significance of customers as a source of firm's knowledge. More importantly, customers alter from passive product receiver into active knowledge partners and generate co‐created knowledge with firms. However, despite the popularity of promoting entrepreneurship and small and medium enterprises (SMEs) for economic development, research studies, examining CKM in the context of SMEs, are relatively small and diverse. In this paper, the authors discuss the concept of CKM from a comprehensive literature review as well as other related concepts that are anticipated to have relationships with CKM in SMEs, namely knowledge‐oriented leadership (KOL), trust in management, and firm performance. A thorough analysis of past research confirms that the existing literature in this area is highly fragmented. By integrating the main findings of relevant research streams, a detailed overview of the literature on CKM in the context of SMEs is established, and a research agenda is set up.