Technology in Society 46 (2016) 126e131

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Technology in Society
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/techsoc

Have information technologies evolved towards accommodation of

knowledge management needs in Basque SMEs?
Izaskun Alvarez*, Ibon Zamanillo, Ernesto Cilleruelo
Department of Management and Industrial Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, University of Basque Country, 48013 Bilbao, Spain

a r t i c l e i n f o

a b s t r a c t

Article history:
Received 22 January 2016
Received in revised form
4 April 2016
Accepted 9 April 2016
Available online 11 June 2016

This paper categorizes in terms of size, the behaviour of the Basque small and medium-sized enterprises
(SMEs) in the use of information technology (IT) tools as enablers of knowledge management practices.
As part of this research, this article concludes as well about the suitability of collaborative tools in organic
and exible less informal organizations, such as small enterprises. The evolution of technology trends
towards the use of collaborative platforms to support knowledge capturing and sharing in a less standardized way. Therefore, this characteristic of collaborative tools allows the smallest SMEs to have at
their disposal a exible tool for knowledge sharing.
2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction
Over the past few decades, many areas in the global world have
moved towards a knowledge based economy, in which wealth
creation is associated with the challenge of developing and managing knowledge as a resource [1]. Knowledge has become a strategic factor that allows enterprises to achieve competitive
advantages; in order to create value. In the current competitive
circumstances, knowledge should be managed as an organizational
resource [2]. Thereby, knowledge management (KM) provides
managers with the process to create, acquire, store and share
knowledge, which helps organizations to manage in an increasingly
adverse market and in a highly dynamic environment [3]. In
nowadays business organizations, the relevance of managing information is without a doubt key to rms success and requires of a
mechanism for acquiring knowledge to be set up that will be
marked by the efforts and assets necessary to carry out this step.
According to the resource capability of business, this fact can be
performed by the implementation of activities that facilitate the
capture of external knowledge. Once knowledge is acquired, it
should be converted into organizational knowledge; if knowledge
can be documented it would be stored in knowledge repositories,
where information technologies (ITs) play an important role [4].
Otherwise, all efforts should be focused on sharing the knowledge
and making it available to those who may need it. Is in this phase

* Corresponding author.
E-mail address: izaskun.alvarez@ehu.eus (I. Alvarez).
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.techsoc.2016.04.006
0160-791X/ 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

when, the necessity of person-to-person contact appears and

consequently the socialization process, which will allow to open
new ways of working collaboration. However, the success of this
process depends on enjoying a business culture that promotes
knowledge sharing.
SMEs are a vital part of any regional economy, and due to this,
they are an important source of wealth and employment, specifically, 99.82% of the companies in the Basque Country are SMEs.
According to European Commission [5] that has analyzed SMEs in
the EU in 2012, throughout the downturn, SMEs have retained their
position as the backbone of the European economy, with some 20.7
million rms accounting for more than 98% of all enterprises, of
which the lions share (92.2%) are rms with fewer than ten employees. This gures make necessary, further research to better
understand how SMEs manage knowledge resources [6,7].
Considering the important role that knowledge will play, and is
actually playing, in current competitive context, it is necessary to
admit that the potential held by KM towards the creation of
competitiveness occurs across companies size. However, we can
nd a tendency in the literature to focus research on large business
and neglect SMEs [8]. Previous relevant research suggests that
SMEs are different, not just in size, but in practices around a wide
range of management activities, including in the management of
knowledge [9].
The advancement and growing of information technologies
developed within the past few decades has favoured changes in
SME management through better integration in business process
[10], and furthermore, Kmieciak, Michna, and Meczynska. Kmieciak
et al. [11] have concluded that IT capability has a positive effect on

I. Alvarez et al. / Technology in Society 46 (2016) 126e131

rm performance of SMEs. In this context, one subtle issue worth

mentioning is the evolution and development of IT related to KM.

rez-Lo

pez and Alegre [12] reect on the relation between IT
Pe
competency and rm performance, highlighting that this relation is
possible through the mediation of KM. They conclude that IT
competency facilitates the KM process. However, according to
Wong [13], IT is one of the key enablers for implementing KM and IT
functionality can be a good support at search and access certain
information, as well as for encouraging collaboration and
communication between organizational members. But, the technology is the tool that gives advantage to KM and not the solution
to the complex process of managing knowledge [14].
In order to meet the goals set for this research, we will work
with the following research questions:
R1: Is the use of IT tools related to the size of SME according to
the number of employees?
R2: Do the SMEs with less number of employees (<10)
encourage the use of collaborative tools?
This paper is structured in the following manner. Section two
reviews the literature related to the inuence of IT over KM at SMEs.
In section three, it is explained the research methodology. Chapter
4 presents the results, and in the nal section, the conclusions of
the study are enlightened.
2. Information technologies as KM enablers at SMEs
It is possible to identify many frameworks for what constitute
stages in the process of managing knowledge [1,9,15,16]. This paper
groups them into three dimensions: knowledge acquisition, storing, and sharing. In most of the occasions a necessity awakens in a
person the interest to acquire new knowledge. At that moment, the
cycle of knowledge process starts, and KM will act as the agent that
allows delivering the right knowledge to the right person at the
right time [17]. This process can help individuals to take the right
actions, and in turn, it can be conrmed that KM process has a
signicant inuence on both rm nancial and market performance and competitiveness, as it is demonstrated by several
empirical studies [12,18e22]. In order to ensure the success of
bringing in KM, it is crucial to be able to acquire the key enablers to
do so, as to make it possible to effectively utilize limited resources
of an organization, like an SME; Ichijo, Krough, and Nonaka [23]
think that an organization, in order to avoid un-systematic
knowledge development, should provide itself with knowledge
enablers. These enablers are those that form a mechanism that
makes easier the knowledge process, helps overcoming the obstacles that hinder the growth, and encourages individuals to share
their knowledge and experiences [17,24].
A broad range of enablers that impact on the success of KM
implementation has been mentioned in the literature, and they
have been also referred as critical success factors for implementing
KM in many published papers [13,22,25e27]. Yeh, Lai, and Ho [24],
after considering several KM theories, have classied enablers into
four categories: strategy and leadership, corporate culture, people,
and IT. As well, following the same pattern, Ho [17] draws KM enablers into four: strategy and leadership, organizational culture,
organizational incentive system, and IT. Those enablers have been
oriented to enterprises regardless their size; but, the characteristics
and features of SMEs are different from large enterprises [1,27].
Therefore, KM enablers have to be oriented to the needs of SME.
Most of the studies have not considered the differences of business
size, and also, it can be conrmed that there are not many researches related to SME. Wong [13] proposed 11 critical factors for
implementing KM in SMEs, which have been also taken into

127

account in the research study made by Migdadi [28]:













Management leadership and support;

Culture;
IT;
Strategy and purpose;
Measurement;
Organizational infrastructure;
Processes and activities;
Motivational aids;
Resources;
Training and education;
Human resource management (HRM)

IT plays a variety of roles to support an organizations KM process [29e31] and it is considered one of the key enablers for
implementing KM. Information technologies are the infrastructures
that support KM activities associated to search, access and retrieval
of information through knowledge databases and platforms,
among others, and can support collaboration and communications
networks between organizational members [28]. Thereby, IT helps
to distribute structural knowledge vertically and horizontally
[17,24]. Information technologies enable the transference of experience among employees much faster, but it is important not to
forget that, it is only a tool and not an ultimate solution; that is to
say, KM needs all of the enablers or factors for obtaining a good
performance of KM in the organizations.
With the intention of understanding better the knowledge
process that has been studied, it is necessary to explain the existing
types of knowledge, explicit and tacit, dened by Polanyi [32]. The
tacit knowledge is different from explicit, as it can be captured,
acquired and shared at the same time, not being possible its storage; thus, the use of information technologies in the KM process
should be studied taking into account the distinction between
explicit and tacit knowledge [33]. Dealing with explicit knowledge
is relatively easier than what it is like when it comes to manage tacit
knowledge. That might be one of the reasons that has made the IT
tools for KM have an orientation towards documentation management, ignoring the fact that the tacit knowledge is not subject to
be supported over tangible means. Thus, the need to create
collaborative tools arises to promote tacit knowledge sharing.
Focusing on the SME, it is important to consider that many of the
collaborative tools are inexpensive to acquire and operate and dont
require intervention of experts [34,35]. Moreover, several authors
have found in their works other for small businesses. Lindermann
et al. [36] claim that the collaborative networks that have been
facilitate by Web 2.0, can also provide small businesses with a
broader resource to innovate and to be competitive. Ritchie and
Brindley [37] assert that Web 2.0 enables businesses to become part
of a network and enjoy the advantages of that membership with no
geographical restriction. Chui, Miller, and Roberts [38] say that Web
2.0 tools and technologies offer more interactive and participative
methods of collaboration compared to previous technologies such
as customer relationship management that was complex and
expensive. Finally, Adebanjo and Michaelides [39] emphasize that
Web 2.0 is an opportunity for small businesses to identify other
enterprises for collaboration by acting as suppliers or customers
more quickly than using conventional approaches. Therefore, the
collaborative tools are a suitable complement to cover the needs
that small businesses have due to their limited resources.
Forcing people to encode their knowledge in a formal manner is
not easy; when people are socializing, even in a work context, they
are much happier to share their thoughts and their experiences; the
socialization process can be considered a knowledge sharing
mechanism based on personal interaction and a key stage in order

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I. Alvarez et al. / Technology in Society 46 (2016) 126e131

to exchange tacit knowledge. Therefore, the management models

need adaptation to new scenarios that promote the exchange of
knowledge by creating the appropriate environment, abandoning
hierarchical structures and giving exibility to the organizations. As

enz, Aramburu, and Blanco [40] show in their study, knowledge
Sa
sharing initiatives based on information technologies are effective
in order to foster the generation of new ideas and its success is
linked to the degree of formality with which the initiative for
knowledge sharing takes place.
3. Research method
This paper is the result of the research work focused on the use
of information technologies for KM process in the SMEs of the
Basque Country. The Basque Country is a region located in northern
Spain and it shows a relatively high level of specialization in
manufacturing. Furthermore, the report made by European Commission related to Innovation Union Scoreboard 2013 highlights
that the Basque Country remains close to the group of countries
with high innovation, but 0.06 points below the EU-27 average [41].
In connection with information technologies, the statistical study
made by EUROSTAT concludes that, in 2012, 97% of European SMEs
had access to Internet, 77% had a website and one in two enterprises provides staff with portable devices for mobile Internet
connection [42]. In the Basque Country this study has been conducted among enterprises without distinction of their size, and it
concludes that, in 2012, 89.7% of Basque enterprises had access to
Internet, 51.7% had a website and 51.9% use mobile devices to
connect to Internet [43].
In order to explore the use of information technologies in Basque SMEs, a survey was conducted to gather empirical data. The
research was guided by the following considerations. Most of the
existing empirical papers on KM process and its relation with information technologies were reviewed to collect data and dene
the survey contents, keeping in mind the aim of the study.
The data for present study was collected through a standardized
questionnaire that was sent to the top managers of 523 Basque
SMEs. We obtained a response rate of 12.5% (65 responded questionnaires were received) from which a control sample of 22 rms
was created following the restrictions imposed by the stratication
variables (industrial cluster, number of employees) and the limited
because of they can only be considered the nished surveys, caused
partly by the current economic situation, in particular small businesses situation. These 22 questionnaires represent rms from all
the Industrial Clusters that we intended to control in this small
sample case study of enterprises in a unique region of Spain. Unfortunately, some of the clusters were over represented in the responses received whereas others were underrepresented. The
survey sample has been designed to lend statistical meaning to the
results at different levels, basically considering the size of the rm.
The study targeted a group that comprises 22 SMEs (Table 1)
headquartered in the Basque Country that are associated with any
of the following industrial clusters: Machine- Tools, Automotive,
Electronics, Computing and Telecommunications, Energy, Aeronautics and Space. The reason why these activities have been
selected for this study is that the sectors in which they operate have
a high index of industrial production and have a high level of diversity in terms of their level of technology. Moreover, the clusters
are a key element in competitiveness in the Basque Country and
have become the backbone of Basque economic structure, and have
encouraged the ow of knowledge and innovation and learning,
thanks to the geographical concentration of its enterprises
activities.
Below is presented the denition of SME made by European
Commission [44] The category of micro, small and medium-sized

enterprises (SMEs) is made up of enterprises which employ fewer

than 250 persons and which have an annual turnover not
exceeding 50 million euro, and/or an annual balance sheet total not
exceeding 43 million euro. In particular, the research study has
explored KM related to the number of employees, taking into account the following categorization associated with the headcount:
medium-sized (<250 employees); small (<50 employees); micro
(<10 employees).
In the last decades, IT tools (Table 2) have been developed in
order to allow the access and management of a large amount of
existing information to individuals and organizations, both at micro
and macro levels; and, in turn, they have facilitate the conversion of
the information into knowledge in those persons who have interacted with the KM process, fundamentally explicit knowledge.
4. Results
This research work has been designed to meet two research
questions. On the one hand, to know what is the use of information
technologies for KM and its tendency considering the size of SME,
on the basis that the chosen tools (see Table 2) are fundamental to
the evolution of information technologies. On the other hand, this
paper investigates the technological progress occurred in the pursuit of opening doors to the creation of collaborative work environments in order to share tacit knowledge. Good examples of this
are the groupware systems and the collaborative platforms, and the
relation that exists between the use of these collaborative tools and
the size of SME.
In the study, two actions were held on to conrm the rst
research question. The rst action is taken to analyze the use of IT
tools in a quantitative manner, by assigning value 1 to the responses
given when the SME is using that tools and value 0 when is not. This
is shown in Table 3.
The second action is a statistical analysis of the categorical
variables (IT tools and size of the SME) carried out to determine the
degree of association between the two variables. In order to achieve
it, a test of independence between two categorical variables is
performed by chi-square test that allows to contrast the independence hypothesis. As shown in Table 4, the statistics of Pearsons
chi-square (X2), with two degrees of freedom, has associated a
probability (Asym. Signicance) higher than 0.05; hence, the data is
compatible with the independence hypothesis. But, when the expected frequency is lower than 5 and the percentage that the expected frequency represents exceeds 20%, this statistics should be
interpreted with caution.
These results help us to quantify the degree of relation between
the variables by removing the effects of the sample size through the
association analysis between the variables. To achieve this, the
analysis of nominal data is completed in order to inform us about
the association degree, but not about the direction of the relation.
In particular, it is analyzed the contingency coefcient based on chisquare (Table 5). Knowing that the coefcient 0 denote independence and coefcient 1, represents perfect association, the level of
association observed is weak. As shown in Table 5, the strongest
relationship occurs between the Intranet and Extranet Systems
tools and the size of the SME.
Therefore, and according to the statistical results the rst
research question (R1) is accepted, not forgetting that the relation
between the variables is indicated as a rather weak relation. But, in
order to know the direction of the relation between the variables, it
is necessary the analysis of ordinal data. This analysis will help us to
conrm the second research question (R2). As it is shown in Table 6
and taking into account the weakness of the relation, Document
Management Systems, Computer Search Engines, Intranet Systems
and Extranet Systems have a positive relation, that is, the higher the

I. Alvarez et al. / Technology in Society 46 (2016) 126e131

129

Table 1
Breakdown of the 22 SMEs by industrial cluster and number of employees.
Industrial cluster

Number of employees

Numbers

Machine-tools

1e9
10e49
50e249
1e9
10e49
50e249
1e9
10e49
50e249
1e9
10e49
50e249
1e9
10e49
50e249

0
3
2
0
3
1
2
4
2
1
1
1
1
1
0

Automotive

Electronics, Computing and Telecommunications

Energy

Aeronautics and Space

Table 2
IT tools.
IT tools
Document Management Systems
Computer Search Engines
Intranet Systems
Extranet Systems
Groupware Systems (including workow)
Collaborative Platforms (social networks software)

Table 3
Quantication of the use of the IT tools by size (number of employees).
Technological tools for KM

Between 1 and 9

Between 10 and 49

Between 50 and 249

Document Management System

Computer Search Engines
Intranet System
Extranet System
Groupware system (including workow)
Collaborative Platforms (social networking software)

0.25
0.5
0.5
0.25
0.75
0.75

0.67
0.5
0.67
0.42
0.33
0.5

0.5
0.67
1
0.83
0.5
0.67

Quantication of the use of the tools by size (total base 6 points)

3.09

4.17

Table 4
Independence analysis of the categorical variables.

Document Management System

Computer Search Engines
Intranet Systems
Extranet Systems
Groupware system (including workow)
Collaborative Platforms (social networking software)
a
b

Value

Degrees of freedom

Chi-square test (asymptotic signicance)

2.169a
0.489a
3.514b
4.000a
2.169a
0.972b

2
2
2
2
2
2

0.338
0.783
0.173
0.135
0.338
0.615

66.7% of the total boxes have an expected frequency below 5.

83.3% of the total boxes have an expected frequency below 5.

Table 5
Association analysis of categorical variables: Nominal data.
Association analysis
Categorical variables

Nominal data: degree of association

Document Management System

Computer Search Engines
Intranet Systems
Extranet Systems
Groupware System (including workow)
Collaborative Platforms (social networking software)

Nominal
Nominal
Nominal
Nominal
Nominal
Nominal

by
by
by
by
by
by

nominal
nominal
nominal
nominal
nominal
nominal

Phi
Phi
Phi
Phi
Phi
Phi

Value

Sig. approximate

0.314
0.149
0.400
0.426
0.314
0.210

0.338
0.783
0.173
0.135
0.33
0.615

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I. Alvarez et al. / Technology in Society 46 (2016) 126e131

Table 6
Association analysis of categorical variables: Ordinal Data.
Association analysis
Categorical variables

Ordinal data: direction of the

relationship

Document Management System

Ordinal by ordinal

Computer Search Engines

Ordinal by ordinal

Intranet Systems

Ordinal by ordinal

Extranet Systems

Ordinal by ordinal

Groupware System (including workow)

Ordinal by ordinal

Collaborative Platforms (social networking software)

Ordinal by ordinal

a
b

Tau-b de
Gamma
Tau-b de
Gamma
Tau-b de
Gamma
Tau-b de
Gamma
Tau-b de
Gamma
Tau-b de
Gamma

Kendall
Kendall
Kendall
Kendall
Kendall
Kendall

Value

Asym. typ. errora

T approximateb

Sig. approximate

0.107
0.184
0.122
0.222
0.374
0.733
0.394
0.667
0.107
0.184
0.015
0.029

0.212
0.364
0.199
0.358
0.144
0.208
0.170
0.246
0.212
0.364
0.198
0.367

0.501
0.501
0.609
0.609
2245
2245
2237
2237
0.501
0.501
0.078
0.078

0.617
0.617
0.542
0.542
0.025
0.025
0.025
0.025
0.617
0.617
0.938
0.938

Assuming the alternative hypothesis.

Using the asymptotic standard error based on the null hypothesis.

size of the SME the more the use of IT tool. On the contrary,
Groupware Systems and Collaborative Platforms have a negative
relation, so the larger the size of the SME the lower the level of use
of these tools. Therefore, the second research question can be
considered certain.

5. Conclusions and future research

In this research paper, we have studied the existing relationship
between the IT infrastructure and the KM process that it is used in
Basque SME. The goal set for this study is to know what is the
current situation regarding the use of technological tools that
encourage KM.
This study offers a differentiated contribution to the KM
research, clarifying the role played by information technologies in
the Basque SMEs used in the KM context. It is important to consider
that micro enterprises are different from medium-sized ones,
especially, in what refers to the restriction on human and nance
resources, the level of formality in management process, the time of
managers dedicate to management questions, such as knowledge
management, and relationships between individuals, among
others.
We can conclude then, that Basque SMEs have understood the
importance of using IT tools for KM. Furthermore, we have found
that SME size has a weak positive association with the use of information technologies; the larger the SME, the more intensive the
use of information technologies. However, the use of collaborative
tools, such as groupware systems and collaborative platforms,
present a negative relation with the size of enterprise, so the
smaller the SME, the more intensive the use of collaborative tools.
Basque SMEs, in particular the micro-sized SMEs, promote the
use of collaborative tools for knowledge sharing. Thus, the evolution of information technologies towards more social, less
complicated and less expensive tools has enabled knowledge
sharing to be implemented at the smallest enterprises. However,
organizations should consider collaborative tools just as an instrument that would work together with an appropriate business
culture and a team of employees motivated to carry it out. That is
why it is interesting to highlight the lack of the use of collaborative
tools in the larger SMEs. Due to their size, these SMEs operate more
formally and person-to person contact is not so strong. Thus, the
larger SMEs should promote the use of collaborative tools that
provide social orientated interaction, in order to improve the social
relations of people and in a such a way, the expansion of a business
culture that facilitate the knowledge sharing.

As Hasan and Pfaff [45] indicated in their research, in the

contemporary technological world, new organizational cultures
and practices may be required to trespass existing cultural norms.
This new form of management that breaks with the classical
structuring of processes, requires more human and less mechanical
processes that are protected by a culture in which sharing is basic.
This paper makes a contribution to the literature as it reports the
use of collaborative software to support knowledge sharing in KM
process in SMEs, specically in the SMEs of a European region, such
as the Basque Country. In the current economic situation that is
affecting Europe, there are SMEs with fewer resources, but with a
higher need to manage their knowledge if they want to stay
competitive. Therefore, it is important to foster the development of
researches that aim to improve their management systems; for
example, verifying the academic theories with real practice in the
industry and developing studies in different European regions that
would provide a comparative analysis that could become a source
of best practices.
SMEs need KM mechanisms that are adapted to their organic
organizational approach, based on person-to-person contact that
enables collaborative tools. These mechanisms will manage a large
amount of information in a more simple and informal manner.
Finally, we think that this work has important implications for
public policy as it identies the level of use of information technologies as a KM enabler. Policy makers should formulate policies
adapted, in real time, to the necessities of SMEs that encourage the
more efcient management of information technologies, and thus,
can help SMEs to not lose competitiveness.
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