Organizational learning and knowledge creation processes in SMEs

Nowadays, the business life for many companies is becoming increasingly complex and novel because of dynamic processes and rapid changes those are occurring in economy. In order to cope with fast changing environment organizations are forced to increase their knowledge base and thus learn continuously. Herein, organizational learning and knowledge creation processes are becoming of crucial importance if the organizations are to succeed. But, are these processes found in all enterprises? Small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) are playing an important role within Western economies. For instance, in the EU SMEs account for more than 50% of total employment. Hence, we investigated the organizational learning and knowledge creation processes in SMEs, as the textbooks mainly refer to larger enterprises.I concluded that both processes were not found to a full extent as described in theory. The processes not only vary from one another, but they also vary from one enterprise to another. The empirical data clearly indicates that these findings are due to the lack of resources, knowledge and size. The organizational learning process focuses more on explicit knowledge, as it is rooted in Western epistemology and therefore can be found to a comparably higher extent in the investigated enterprises than the knowledge creation process, which focuses more on the interaction between tacit and explicit knowledge, as it is rooted in the Eastern epistemology.