Explicit knowledge in small and medium enterprises. An analysis from the perspective of social networks
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.46661/revmetodoscuanteconempresa.3578Keywords:
externalization, network, open externalizationAbstract
Despite of the recognized importance on the explicitation of knowledge within knowledge management, this process has been mainly studied from the internal perspective. That is, considering only the workers as explicit actors, leaving aside that the sources of knowledge are often external actors. The objective of this paper is to evaluate if there are significant differences between companies that make knowledge explicit internally, versus those that include external actors in this process. For this, a network model was applied in which the nodes represent internal and external actors and the directed links give an account of who is the source of knowledge and who is who is responsible for the disclosure of knowledge. The model was applied to 21 small Colombian service companies and based on the results obtained it was found that it is possible to classify companies into four categories according to their tendency to show more or less internal explicitness, and more or less open explicitness. The results suggest that explicitation profiles exist with better performance than others.
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