Knowledge and Enterprises in Developing Countries: Evidences from Chile
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Knowledge and Enterprises in Developing Countries: Evidences from Chile Maria Obeso 1 & Maria Sarabia 1
Received: 23 July 2015 / Accepted: 8 March 2016 # Springer Science+Business Media New York 2016
Abstract Knowledge management is a fundamental tool in order to obtain competitive advantages in organizations. In this paper, we present an interesting study about how enterprises in a developing country like Chile manage their knowledge by using variables linked with three interesting concepts related to knowledge: innovation, learning, and knowledge sharing. From this information, six clusters of enterprises and two special cases with different behaviors in knowledge management and different results are identified. From this information, some conclusions are extracted: (1) clusters 4 and 5 are the best in knowledge management (best results) and, thus, other enterprises should replicate their behaviors; (2) the Government of Chile should promote more knowledge management in order to improve the country’s performance; (3) chemical industry is highlighted like one of the most important one related to knowledge; and finally, (4) enterprises with a high investment in knowledge are also enterprises with high results. These results are very interesting in order to understand the knowledge activity in a developing country like Chile. Keywords Knowledge management . Chile . Enterprises . KM strategy . Cluster analysis
Introduction At present time, knowledge is considered a key resource for countries and organizations. Specifically, knowledge management is considered as an essential tool in order to obtain competitive advantages in organizations (Nonaka and Takeuchi 1995;
* Maria Obeso [email protected] Maria Sarabia [email protected]
1
Department of Business Administration, University of Cantabria, Av/ Los Castros, 56, 39005 Santander, Cantabria, Spain
J Knowl Econ
Davenport and Prusak 1998; Drucker 1998; Davel and Snyman 2007; Ajmal et al. 2010); therefore, the process is important to all governments, but with special emphasis in developing countries because it is the real key to create value. However, the intangible character of knowledge linked to the heterogeneity of firms hinders contributions related to knowledge management. In this way, despite the numerous studies which have been undertaken in recent years, there is currently no commonly accepted model by all stakeholders that helps to manage knowledge in enterprises (Choi and Jong 2010). Besides this information, a gap in the literature is identified: Research in knowledge management area is essential in order to support decision making process in organizations by using knowledge, and this topic is still under discussion because there is not an agreement about it. In this context, an interesting analysis is presented showing how enterprises in a developing country with a growing benefit manage their knowledge in order to identify if this process should be replicated in other countries following its example. This is very important because there is
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