Inter‐organizational knowledge transfer needs among small and medium enterprises

Abstract

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to build upon Chen et al.'s work by investigating inter‐organizational knowledge transfer needs and practices among small and medium enterprises (SMEs) which have received relatively little research attention to date.Design/methodology/approachA questionnaire survey was conducted on SMEs which have been accorded the Multimedia Super Corridor Malaysia status. Data were analyzed using Statistical Package for the Social Sciences.FindingsIn total, nine important areas have been the focus of this study, i.e. the importance of external knowledge; the extent to which external knowledge is more important than internal knowledge to organizational success; areas in which insufficient knowledge contributes to costly errors or mistakes in the SMEs; SMEs' involvement in knowledge transfer activities; number of social networks involved; SMEs' perceptions about networks; use of tools and technologies to transfer inter‐organizational knowledge; constraints of inter‐organizational knowledge transfer; and SMEs' effectiveness in leveraging knowledge. The data collected from 70 owners/managers of SMEs suggest that to some extent external knowledge is believed to be an important need by the enterprises.Research limitations/implicationsThe small sample size raises the question of generalizability of the findings.Practical implicationsOverall, the empirical findings point to the need for the SMEs to pursue inter‐organizational knowledge transfer practices.Originality/valueThis paper is one of the first to address the inter‐organizational knowledge transfer needs in Malaysian SMEs.