IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/exp/bsness/v5y2017i2p51-60.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Knowledge Sharing as a Value-Adding Initiative for South African SMME Sustainability: A Literature Review

Author

Listed:
  • Visvanathan NAICKER

    (Cape Peninsula University of Technology, South Africa)

  • Suzaan LE ROUX

    (Cape Peninsula University of Technology, South Africa)

  • Juan BRUWER

    (Independent Researcher)

  • Juan-Pierré BRUWER

    (Cape Peninsula University of Technology, South Africa)

Abstract

Knowledge management is deemed as an important tool for an array of firms across the globe to fortify their overall sustainability. In particular, the proper management of knowledge inside a firm should allow for better efficiency and effectiveness. One of the facets of knowledge management is that of knowledge sharing; better understood as the dissemination of knowledge (insight) to such an extent, and in such a manner, that it assists with the solving of problems and/or the creation of solutions within a firm. Albeit the aforementioned, is appears that small businesses (SMMEs) in South Africa do not make use of sound knowledge sharing initiatives as they have one of the worst sustainability rates in the world. Through the conduct of non-empirical research, this matter was theoretically investigated where it was found that the lack of knowledge sharing as a value-adding initiative within South African SMMEs is assumed to have a theoretically adverse influence on the effectiveness, efficiency and sustainability in these firms. Taking into account the findings, it was concluded that ultimately, the knowledge sharing initiatives in South African SMMEs are incomprehensive in their coverage to provide general guidance as to how these firms can share knowledge as to provide reasonable assurance surrounding their effectiveness, efficiency and sustainability in the foreseeable future. Moreover, relevant hypotheses were developed as avenues for further empirical research.

Suggested Citation

  • Visvanathan NAICKER & Suzaan LE ROUX & Juan BRUWER & Juan-Pierré BRUWER, 2017. "Knowledge Sharing as a Value-Adding Initiative for South African SMME Sustainability: A Literature Review," Expert Journal of Business and Management, Sprint Investify, vol. 5(2), pages 51-60.
    • Handle: RePEc:exp:bsness:v:5:y:2017:i:2:p:51-60
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://business.expertjournals.com/wp-content/uploads/EJBM_505naicker51-60.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: http://business.expertjournals.com/23446781-505/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Mauro Romani, 2017. "Lessons Learnt Support System," Knowledge Management and Organizational Learning, in: Meliha Handzic & Antonio Bassi (ed.), Knowledge and Project Management, pages 95-129, Springer.
    2. Jonathon N. Cummings, 2004. "Work Groups, Structural Diversity, and Knowledge Sharing in a Global Organization," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 50(3), pages 352-364, March.
    3. Hanan Alhaddi, 2015. "Triple Bottom Line and Sustainability: A Literature Review," Business and Management Studies, Redfame publishing, vol. 1(2), pages 6-10, September.
    4. Juan-Pierré BRUWER & André VAN DEN BERG, 2017. "The conduciveness of the South African economic environment and Small, Medium and Micro Enterprise sustainability: A literature review," Expert Journal of Business and Management, Sprint Investify, vol. 5(1), pages 1-12.
    5. Gonzalo Maldonado-Guzmán & Gabriela Citlalli Lopez-Torres & Jose Arturo Garza-Reyes & Vikas Kumar & Juan Luis Martinez-Covarrubias, 2016. "Knowledge management as intellectual property," Management Research Review, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 39(7), pages 830-850, July.
    6. Geoffrey J. D. Hewings & Michael Sonis & David Boyce (ed.), 2002. "Trade, Networks and Hierarchies," Advances in Spatial Science, Springer, number 978-3-662-04786-6.
    7. Feser, Daniel & Proeger, Till, 2015. "Knowledge-intensive business services as credence goods: A demand-side approach," University of Göttingen Working Papers in Economics 232, University of Goettingen, Department of Economics.
    8. Peter Forte & Farnaz Afshar Hoojaghan & Javad Khazaei Pool, 2016. "Investigating the effect of organisational culture on knowledge management and performance: an empirical study in knowledge-based companies using the balanced scorecard," International Journal of Management and Decision Making, Inderscience Enterprises Ltd, vol. 15(2), pages 167-183.
    9. Guilhoto, Joaquim José Martins & Marjotta-Maistro, Marta C. & Hewings, Geoffrey J. D., 2002. "Economic landscapes, what are they? An application to the Brazilian economy and to sugar cane complex," MPRA Paper 54229, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    10. Joaquim J. M. Guilhoto & Marta C. Marjotta-Maistro & Geoffrey J. D. Hewings, 2002. "Economic Landscapes: An Application to the Brazilian Economy and to the Sugar Cane Complex," Advances in Spatial Science, in: Geoffrey J. D. Hewings & Michael Sonis & David Boyce (ed.), Trade, Networks and Hierarchies, chapter 6, pages 99-118, Springer.
    11. John Seely Brown & Paul Duguid, 1991. "Organizational Learning and Communities-of-Practice: Toward a Unified View of Working, Learning, and Innovation," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 2(1), pages 40-57, February.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Van Rensburg, Nickey Janse & Telukdarie, Arnesh & Dhamija, Pavitra, 2019. "Society 4.0 applied in Africa: Advancing the social impact of technology," Technology in Society, Elsevier, vol. 59(C).
    2. Bruce MASAMA & Juan-Pierré BRUWER, 2018. "Revisiting the Economic Factors which Influence Fast Food South African Small, Medium and Micro Enterprise Sustainability," Expert Journal of Business and Management, Sprint Investify, vol. 6(1), pages 19-28.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Juan-Pierré BRUWER & André VAN DEN BERG, 2017. "The conduciveness of the South African economic environment and Small, Medium and Micro Enterprise sustainability: A literature review," Expert Journal of Business and Management, Sprint Investify, vol. 5(1), pages 1-12.
    2. Juan-Pierré BRUWER & Luyolo SIWANGAZA & Yolandé SMIT, 2018. "Loss Control and Loss Control Strategies in SMMEs Operating in a Developing Country: A Literature Review," Expert Journal of Business and Management, Sprint Investify, vol. 6(1), pages 1-11.
    3. Juan-Pierré BRUWER & Luyolo SIWANGAZA, 2016. "Is the Control Environment a Basis for Customised Risk Management Initiatives in South African Small, Medium and Micro Enterprises?," Expert Journal of Business and Management, Sprint Investify, vol. 4(2), pages 105-117.
    4. Renzl, Birgit, 2008. "Trust in management and knowledge sharing: The mediating effects of fear and knowledge documentation," Omega, Elsevier, vol. 36(2), pages 206-220, April.
    5. Pëdro Sáenz Muñoz, 2008. "Gestión del conocimiento en PYME's: Qué aspectos cuentan?," Investigación & Desarrollo, Universidad Privada Boliviana, vol. 1(1), pages 1-73–90.
    6. Pranpreya Sriwannawit & Ulf Sandström, 2015. "Large-scale bibliometric review of diffusion research," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 102(2), pages 1615-1645, February.
    7. Ashwin Petersen & Juan-Pierré Bruwer & Suzaan Le Roux, 2018. "Occupational Fraud Risk, Internal Control Initiatives and the Sustainability of Small, Medium and Micro Enterprises in a Developing Country: a Literature Review," Acta Universitatis Danubius. OEconomica, Danubius University of Galati, issue 14(4), pages 567-580, AUGUST.
    8. Sesso Filho, Umberto Antonio & Guilhoto, Joaquim José Martins, 2009. "Estrutura produtiva do Pará: Uma análise de insumo-produto [Production structure of Para: An Analysis of input-output]," MPRA Paper 30732, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    9. Syed Talib Hussain & Jaffar Abbas & Shen Lei & Muhammad Jamal Haider & Tayyaba Akram, 2017. "Transactional leadership and organizational creativity: Examining the mediating role of knowledge sharing behavior," Cogent Business & Management, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 4(1), pages 1361663-136, January.
    10. Rodrigues, Rossana Lott & Moretto, Antonio Carlos & Sesso Filho, Umberto Antonio & Guilhoto, Joaquim José Martins, 2008. "Sistema inter-regional sul-restante do Brasil: composição do efeito multiplicador de produção e emprego [Inter-regional system of the of south rest of Brazil: composition of production's and employ," MPRA Paper 31408, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    11. Prithwiraj Choudhury & Martine R. Haas, 2018. "Scope versus speed: Team diversity, leader experience, and patenting outcomes for firms," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 39(4), pages 977-1002, April.
    12. Sriwannawit, Pranpreya & Sandström, Ulf, 2013. "Review of Diffusion Research," INDEK Working Paper Series 2013/1, Royal Institute of Technology, Department of Industrial Economics and Management.
    13. Brett Anitra Gilbert & Yuanyuan Li & Andres Velez-Calle & Marcus Crews, 2020. "A theoretical model of values and behaviors that shape technology region emergence in developing contexts," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 55(1), pages 179-191, June.
    14. Linda Argote & Ella Miron-Spektor, 2011. "Organizational Learning: From Experience to Knowledge," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 22(5), pages 1123-1137, October.
    15. Michael Kaethler, 2019. "Curating creative communities of practice: the role of ambiguity," Journal of Organization Design, Springer;Organizational Design Community, vol. 8(1), pages 1-17, December.
    16. Verena Brinks, 2016. "Situated affect and collective meaning: A community perspective on processes of value creation and commercialization in enthusiast-driven fields," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 48(6), pages 1152-1169, June.
    17. Francesco Rullani, 2005. "The Debate and the Community. “Reflexive Identity” in the FLOSS Community," LEM Papers Series 2005/18, Laboratory of Economics and Management (LEM), Sant'Anna School of Advanced Studies, Pisa, Italy.
    18. Manuel E. Sosa & Steven D. Eppinger & Craig M. Rowles, 2004. "The Misalignment of Product Architecture and Organizational Structure in Complex Product Development," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 50(12), pages 1674-1689, December.
    19. Duniesky Feitó Madrigal & Alejandro Mungaray Lagarda & Michelle Texis Flores, 2016. "Factors associated with learning management in Mexican micro-entrepreneurs," Estudios Gerenciales, Universidad Icesi, vol. 32(141), pages 381-386, December.
    20. Guido Fioretti, 2007. "A connectionist model of the organizational learning curve," Computational and Mathematical Organization Theory, Springer, vol. 13(1), pages 1-16, March.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    knowledge; Knowledge sharing; management; SMMEs; South Africa; sustainability;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D80 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - General
    • J50 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Labor-Management Relations, Trade Unions, and Collective Bargaining - - - General
    • M12 - Business Administration and Business Economics; Marketing; Accounting; Personnel Economics - - Business Administration - - - Personnel Management; Executives; Executive Compensation

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:exp:bsness:v:5:y:2017:i:2:p:51-60. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Alin Opreana (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://business.expertjournals.com/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.