TACIT KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT IN SMES IN KENYA

Author: Julius Otundo

ABSTRACT

According to Michael Polyani (2002), a Hungarian-British polymath, Tacit knowledge is bi-structured with conscious and unconscious propositions. He emphasized that all employees needed a combination of theoretical and formal knowledge and experience, intuition, and spontaneous information. In SMEs, tacit knowledge is in the structure and relationship of people. This mixture allows them to know and act within the rules of the organization, and cope with changing conditions flexibly. Going by the established relationship between organizational competitive advantage and tacit knowledge, it is important to understand the tacit knowledge management strategies of the SME sector, which has been confirmed to be a major economic support for nations, irrespective of the development level. In developing countries such as Kenya, SMEs play a significant role in practically all economies, especially, with challenges relating to employment and income distribution (Ozkan et al., 2019, p. 1). In particular, the ability of SMEs in Kenya to compete is crucial to their economic success. Managing tacit knowledge will reduce the negative consequences of losing employees, preserve organizational memory, ensure continuity of performance, and reduce organizational knowledge gaps. These will, in turn, aid organizational competitive advantage (Adesina, A. O & Ochola., 2020).

With the above in mind, this paper discusses how SMEs in Kenya presently manage their tacit knowledge focusing on people and processes in order to develop a framework that will support tacit knowledge management. It looks deeper at SMEs as a key component of knowledge management and a matter of management philosophy about knowledge.

Keywords: Tacit Knowledge, tacit knowledge management, SMEs.

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