Inter-organizational knowledge transfer needs among small and medium enterprises

Purpose - The 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/approach - A 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. Findings - In 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/implications - The small sample size raises the question of generalizability of the findings. Practical implications - Overall, the empirical findings point to the need for the SMEs to pursue inter-organizational knowledge transfer practices. Originality/value - This paper is one of the first to address the inter-organizational knowledge transfer needs in Malaysian SMEs.