An Empirical Investigation of the Cultural, Individual and Measurement Issues in the Context of the Implementation of Knowledge Management in Indian Automotive SMEs

Knowledge has become the cornerstone for measuring the success of an organisation in the modern knowledge economy. The same is particularly true in the case of Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs). The Indian SMEs sector is one of the fastest-growing sectors, contributing to the growth of the Indian economy. Despite the growing significance of knowledge and knowledge management (KM), several barriers impede the KM implementation in SMEs, so as to realise the success, profitability and competitiveness. This research study reviews, investigates and discusses on a number of relevant issues that affect KM implementation, categorising them into three main spheres, such as cultural, individual and measurement issues. Subsequently, they have been compared across the three tiers of automotive components SMEs in India and, accordingly, results are presented. It has been found that there is no significant difference between Tier 1, Tier 2 and Tier 3 SMEs, as far as the cultural and individual issues are concerned. All of them face similar challenges in the case of these two types of issues. However, there is a significant difference between Tier 1, Tier 2 and Tier 3 SMEs, as far as the measurement issues are concerned. Tier 3 SMEs have a significant number of measurement issues, as compared to Tier 2. The other pairs, viz. Tier 1 with Tier 2 and Tier 1 with Tier 3, do not show a significant difference for measurement issues.