Web 2.0 as a key tool for sharing knowledge in Basque Country SMEs

Abstract

Information and Communications Technologies (ICTs), generally, have been known as the tools that allow firms to capture, process, store and transfer information. But also, ICTs are acknowledged as a valuable tool in the knowledge management process. Many research works related to SME have defined ICTs as one of the critical factors when implementing knowledge management. The process for managing knowledge can be grouped into three stages: knowledge acquisition, storing and sharing. The knowledge process starts when a necessity triggers the interest to acquire new knowledge. In this process, knowledge sharing has become an important variable in enterprises; however, the workplace cannot be considered the best context to make employees' knowledge flow. Nevertheless, in practice, knowledge sharing proves to be a significant barrier for effective development of this mentioned process. And due to the existence of this barrier, it has become very important to analyse the influence of the ICTs in the last decade and they evolution towards filling up that gap. The bibliographic review in this paper illustrates that some of the existing ICTs, such as Web 2.0, are perfect matches to knowledge management. Web 2.0 focuses on people and can help us find a solution in order to improve the knowledge sharing. Furthermore, these tools are inexpensive to acquire and operate, so they adapt better to the requirements of small enterprises in what refers to their resource scarcity. Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are an essential part of economy, and due to this, they are important in employment creation. Besides, the characteristics of SMEs are different from large business, and that is why the ICT theories developed for larger enterprises may not be suitable for SMEs. In addition, it can be confirmed that not many research works focused on SMEs have been conducted in the field of knowledge management. Therefore, with the aim of confirming a significant presence of ICTs in the Basque enterprises, this research study analyzes what is the current availability of technological tools for Basque Country SMEs. More specifically, we research the use of Web 2.0, in order to evaluate whether the Basque SMEs give importance to knowledge sharing process and what activity sector and size of SME, grouping the results by number of employees.