Proceedings of the 12th European Conference on Knowledge ...

Tendayi Gondo and Edmore Kori
ambitions <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> owners. It is <strong>the</strong>refore not surprising to note that at least 83% <strong>of</strong> SME operators
reported more that fair level <strong>of</strong> knowledge flow among <strong>the</strong>ir employees. The o<strong>the</strong>r explanatory
variable is <strong>the</strong> size <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> workforce. Knowledge flow is better facilitated in smaller organizations that
bigger ones. In our sample <strong>the</strong> number <strong>of</strong> employees ranged from 2 to 32 employees with an average
<strong>of</strong> 6.52 (standard dev. = 8.06). The majority <strong>of</strong> SME workforce is between 1 – 14 employees (refer to
figure 3). The o<strong>the</strong>r constraining factor is communications. Most SMEs are limited in terms <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong>ir
communications.
Table 1: Perceived performance <strong>of</strong> SMEs on sample KMS attributes.
Most (53.7%) SMEs however reported that <strong>the</strong>y are engaged in a continuous search <strong>of</strong> information
related to <strong>the</strong>ir operations. A fur<strong>the</strong>r 29 % indicated that <strong>the</strong>y occasionally seeking for business
related information. It is <strong>the</strong> record keeping part <strong>of</strong> such information that is <strong>of</strong>ten problematic. Sample
statistics reveal that 88% <strong>of</strong> SMEs are facing serious challenges in keeping and maintain records <strong>of</strong>
information solicited. It is also not surprising to note that about 87% <strong>of</strong> SMS reported that <strong>the</strong>y are
seriously constrained in terms <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong>ir information retrieving capabilities (refer to table 1). One <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong>
several reasons to this is that most SMEs have not taken advantage <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> existing state <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> art
technology architectures in information storage and retrieval. Table 2 portrays computer ownership
status among <strong>the</strong> SMEs. Only 24.3% <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> SMEs reported that <strong>the</strong>y owned computer architectures.
The bulk <strong>of</strong> such SMEs belong to <strong>the</strong> service and manufacturing sectors. The traders had virtually no
computers. The analysis revealed a significant relationship between industry type and computer
ownership (Pearson chi-square = 135.539; df = 2, p < 0.05). Computer technology is critical in any
transformation process that seeks to turn organization into a knowledge enterprising one.
Figure 3: Size <strong>of</strong> SMEs
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